The new dance piece from the Liz Lea Dance Company, The Point, takes inspiration from both the Griffins' designs and Hindu mythology to explore the connections between place and people.

"For us, it's about the point of connection," director Liz Lea says.

"This is what aligns with Bindu, which is the point of creation of design within Hindu mythology. So if 'Om' was the first sound and creation happened between the beats of the sound and in the silence, Bindu is that first point of design.

"And then the Parliamentary Triangle, in many respects for me, could be aligned to the triangle of the Shri Yantra, which is a series of nine interlocking triangles, which represent the cosmos and the Bindu sits right at the point.

"So we're playing with the geometry of the shape of the line of the body within the classical Indian forms. Finding the pathways between the classical Indian dancers and the contemporary dancers is the biggest driver in this work."

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The work is seven years in the making, with it first beginning with a collaboration with Singapore dance company Maya Dance Theatre. Like Lea, they are trained in both contemporary dance and South Indian classical dance form, Bharatanatyam.

Their research led them to a dancer called Lousie Lightfoot, who was not only one of the first Australians to train in classical Indian dance, she was also the first Australian woman to qualify as an architect and went on to study under Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin.

"Gradually, everything just kind of started to filter together," Lea says.

Initially, the piece was due to premiere in November last year, with the dancers from the Maya Dance Theatre initially expected to come over to perform with Canberra-based classical Indian dancers. COVID, however, had other ideas.

"That was devastating and held up the process for a long time. I held on for them to be able to come over for so long and then gradually just had to let it go," Lea says.

In their place are five dancers - Billy Keohavong, David Huggins, Eliza Sanders, Jareen Wee and Nicholas Jachno - who have only come onto the project in the past weeks, and travelled from parts of Australia and New Zealand to be a part of the performance. They join Canberra-based classical Indian dancers Ira Patkar, Reshika Sivakumaran, Soumya Sudarshan, Divya Vignesa, Shweta Venkataraman, Vanaja Dasika and Suhasini Sumithra.

Despite having such a large collection of dancers, it's rare for all of the performers to be in one room at a time.

"It would be lovely to have everybody in one room but because a lot of the classical Indian dancers have public service jobs, we don't," Lea says.

"We're kind of chopping and changing around to make way for people when they can join us in the space, and it brings in a different splash of energy, which is fascinating."

The Point will be at the Belconnen Arts Centre from Thursday until Saturday.

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