Annabel Knight – from Sydney Dance Co. to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

What made you make the switch from Sydney Dance Company to the world of Musical Theatre?
“After being with Sydney Dance Company for 6 amazing years I made the decision to embrace change and pursue challenge. I was hungry for different opportunities within the performing arts industry so when Chitty Chitty Bang Bang came along I was so excited to be once again singing, acting and dancing in the one show.”
What are your major challenges in changing genre?
“After being so physically active in a dance company for the past 6 years, dancing wasn’t so much a concern whereas, the vocal element of a musical was more my challenge. Despite he fact that I had been singing in the musicals CATS and Phantom of the Opera in the past, it had still been a considerable amount of time since using my voice on stage. So I have had to put a lot of focus and hard work into my voice and retraining my ear for the challenges of harmonising within an ensemble environment in a musical.”
Tell us a bit about the rehearsal process for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
“Rehearsals for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang involve dance, vocal and staging calls. Our creative team Roger Hodgman, Dana Jolly and Peter Casey arrived incredibly prepared for the commencement of the rehearsal period so we have had highly productive rehearsals where we have learnt huge amounts of the show in a short period of time. Our days would be split up between learning new choreography in the mornings and then having afternoon sessions of vocal calls learning our harmonies, and then staging scenes to give form to the show. The variety of rehearsals in one day is wonderful.”
What are you enjoying most about your new role?
“I am thoroughly enjoying working with a new creative team and cast. Everybody is so individual and incredibly talented, and it is so refreshing to see everybody producing their own creative individual-isms within their performance. It is an extremely inspiring environment to be a part of!”
Read more about the whole cast of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and their rehearsal ride in our related DanceLife article HERE
CCBB rehearsal photo courtesy of Lightbox Photography