Sarah Kinch, a 24-year-old dancer and choreographer based in Boorloo/Perth, is a rising talent in the world of contemporary performance. Beginning her training at just 4 years old, she went on to refine her artistry at the prestigious Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), specializing in Ballet and Contemporary Dance.
Her new dance work, Dear Alice, in which Kinch reimagines Lewis Carroll’s timeless Alice in Wonderland as a poignant exploration of mental health, debuts as part of this year’s Subilicious lineup for FRINGE WORLD from 5-7 February at Subiaco Arts Centre. The dance/physical theatre piece tackles themes of depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia, bringing new depth to the fantastical world of Alice while challenging societal stigmas around mental health.
“Girl falls down rabbit hole, eats some mushrooms, sees some weird stuff, makes friends with a cat, then wakes up and it was all a lovely dream, yes, yes, we’ve all heard the story before. But not like this.“
Surprisingly, Dear Alice didn’t start as an adaptation of Carroll’s work. Sarah explains, “I don’t think it was originally Alice, it was just thinking about a question that’s been on my mind for a long time, which is: how selfish is pursuing an arts career? If you’re just out there making random art for no purpose—what are you doing? Why are we doing this? I wanted to try and make a piece that actually had… not just a message, but, like, an actual intent behind it.”
As Sarah delved deeper into the project, she found unexpected connections between mental illness and Alice in Wonderland. While taking a break from her usual playlists during her runs, she turned to audiobooks and rediscovered Carroll’s classic. “All the characters, if you look into it, can be interpreted as having different mental illnesses. It just had so many parallels,” she says.
From our conversation, it’s clear that Sarah is deeply passionate about breaking the stigma around mental health. She offers compelling insights into the connections between Carroll’s story and her mission. “At the time it was written, they didn’t like ‘clinically insane’ people. They threw them in asylums, where they were basically tortured; but, what I found super interesting was that Lewis Carroll’s own uncle was killed by someone in an asylum, yet he still portrayed these mad characters as kind of good people. If he can do that, why are we still demonizing and stigmatizing all these mental health issues?”
As I spoke with Sarah, I found myself increasingly in awe of her profound insight and remarkable maturity that belies her years. A particularly perceptive interpretation was her view of the ‘Jabberwocky,’ a menacing figure from the original tale, as being a powerful symbol of the “manifestation of a person’s darkest self.”
“It’s like, when you’re a child, you picture there’s a monster hiding under the bed that you’re scared of.” Sarah explained. “As you grow up, you start to realize it’s not under the bed – it’s just in your head, it’s your own mind against you half the time.”
The concept of the mind turning against itself is a striking metaphor for the experience of body dysmorphia – one of the central themes Sarah explores in Dear Alice. She highlights how this struggle is reflected in a specific scene from the original tale, offering a fresh perspective on its significance.
“She [Alice] is stuck in a room with some doors, and then there’s this tiny little door and she’s like, ‘oh no, I don’t fit through the door.’ Alice shrinks and she grows and she doesn’t know what size she is. She’s like, ‘oh, I’ve been changed so many times, I don’t know who I am anymore.’ That search for identity parallels what so many people experience with cancer, eating disorders, and body image issues.”
Sarah’s intention when choreographing the piece was to bring a fresh and inventive point of view to the classic tale, rather than adhering strictly to the chronological narrative. “You can’t just do a ‘contemporary version’ of Alice in Wonderland. Well, you could, but people wouldn’t want to see it. How [do you] make it interesting and make it still make sense without it just being like a ‘Dance Moms’ performance where they’re all just in the character costumes, yay!”
Reflecting on her choreographic process she explains, “From the book, I kind of mapped out, like, different major scenes. There’s the Red Queen, there’s Jabberwocky, there’s a tea party, all these different things. Initially, we were just exploring all over the place.” To avoid making the choreography feel overly structured and rigid, Sarah incorporated moments of improvisation to honor parts of the story, like the chaos of the tea party scene. “You’re at a tea party, what chaos is going to happen?!”
When asked what she hopes audiences take away from Dear Alice, Sarah shared, “I definitely want people to just enjoy it. If something’s funny, laugh! You’re allowed to! It’s not serious art. I also mainly just want people to reflect or just re-evaluate how they look at mental health.”
Much like Alice’s journey through Wonderland, Dear Alice invites audiences on the adventure of imagination and self-discovery – one that might just be worth the leap down a rabbit hole!
SINEAD HARTE
Dear Alice is presented by Subilicious at Subiaco Arts Centre from 5-7 Feb 2025. For tickets and more information, visit here or here.
