JAMES BATCHELOR
Inhabited Geometries
Inhabited Geometries
Concept/choreography: James Batchelor
Performers: Morgan Hickinbotham and James Batchelor
Sound: Morgan Hickinbotham
Set Design: Anna Tweeddale
Dramaturge & Video Design: Zoe Scoglio
Inhabited Geometries reflects James Batchelor's interests in the confrontation between the body and external structures. James is engaged with the relationship between the inside and outside of the body, with its notions of outer exposure and inner solace. In his research for the work, James spent time on the streets of Melbourne, searching for comfort within the hard edges and crystalline forms of the city landscape. This resulting work, Inhabited Geometries, explores the slippery relationship between the roundness of the body and skin, against the stark geometry of the city. A connection between surfaces occurs: edges are softened, skin melts, inner and outer coincide.
JAMES BATCHELOR is an award winning Melbourne based choreographer with a performance practice in dance and visual arts. His projects examine the interactions between humans and the environment via a rigorous process of documentation and physical translation. Distinct physicality's and dynamic images are constructed from the careful analysis of specific sites and people. Batchelor's projects take him from densely populated urban environments to some of the most remote and inaccessible places in the world. METASYSTEMS documents the radical transformation of urban environments through the study of construction labourers working on sites in Australia, Asia and Europe. METASYSTEMS was originally commissioned for the inaugural Keir Choreographic Award and has since been presented in Canberra, Melbourne and Bangkok and currently touring in France, Italy and China. ISLAND (winner of the ACT Arts Award Dance 2014 and Green Room Award for Concept and Realisation 2014) is an installation documenting utopian experimentation in the world's most remote islands. An upcoming project will take James on a two-‐month research voyage to Heard Island in the Southern Ocean. Batchelor's projects invest significant time in research and observation, using performance as a tool to inspire critical thought and reflection on the contemporary world.
Dancehouse, Melbourne - March 2016 - all rights reserved
Documentation by Cobie Orger.