Expanding Movement / Amplifying Thought
23 MARCH 2016 - 1 MAY 2016
Choreography today invites a rethinking and reframing of relations between space, time, language, presence, aesthetics or authorship. The Keir Choreographic Award Dancehouse Public Program aimed to contextualise the moving body within the framework of contemporary culture, its multiplicity of forms and meanings, in connection with interrelated art forms and its deep and subtle connections with the social, the ethical and the political.
CONVERSATIONS
THE BODY. NOW
A series of conversations aimed at contextualising the deep and subtle connections that the choreographed body fosters, in its multiplicity of forms and meanings, with the social, the ethical and the political.
APRIL 26 - WRITING CRITICALLY ON DANCE
Deborah Jowitt in conversation with Alison Croggon
APRIL 27- THE COMING FO THE BODY
in partnership with DISSECT JOURNAL
The cultural framework and biopolitics of capitalist globalisation has resulted in an increased concentration on the body as a site of production—in contemporary art as in life. Just as the historical avant-gardes sought to overcome art's autonomous and isolated relationship to society by way of inviting in the "praxis of life"; so do contemporary artists whose focus is bodies and subjectivities. In an ever-emergent bio-economy, it is not just the body, but subjects and their lives that are crucial to value creation. This Dissect Journal x Dancehouse invited performance artist Anastasia Klose; dancer and choreographer Atlanta Eke; and two of the three co-editors for Dissect Journal - Audrey Schmidt and Zoe Theodore.
APRIL 28 - EXHIBITING CHOREOGRAPHY
Sarah Michelson in conversation with Becky Hilton
Choreographer Sarah Michelson's work has been presented by The Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, BAM, PS 122, The Kitchen, The Walker Art Center, Chapter Arts (Cardiff, UK), On the Boards, Venice Biennale, SommerSzene Salzburg, Tanz im August (Berlin) and Zurich Theater Spektakel Festival.
Becky Hilton is an Australian dancer. She also choreographs, teaches and writes about dance, dancers and dancing. In a practice spanning three decades she has contributed to the work of an array of artists, including Russell Dumas, Stephen Petronio, Mathew Barney, Michael Clark, Tere O'Connor, Jennifer Monson, John Jasperse, Lucy Guerin, Tino Sehgal, Chrysa Parkinson, Xavier Le Roy among others. She works with dance in many different environments, situations and circumstances both locally and internationally, including but not limited to, universities, dance companies, arts institutions, festivals, conferences and community based organisations.
April 29 - THE MONEY ISSUE
Fionna Winning and Anitra Nelson in conversation with Angela Conquet
Anitra Nelson is an Associate Professor (Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University). She co-edited Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies (2011, Pluto Press, London — http://www.lifewithoutmoney.info/), which has been translated and published in Korean (2013, Booksea, Paju) and is writing Small is Necessary: Shared Living on a Shared Planet (2017, Pluto Press, London). She has made a few short films, had poetry published and a play produced. She regularly speaks on collective sufficiency, degrowth and non-monetary economies.
Fiona Winning is Head of Programming at Sydney Festival. Prior to that she was an independent producer and consultant working in contemporary arts – across theatre, dance and visual cultures. She curated the 2011 Australian Theatre Forum Convictions + Connections; co- convened Siteworks 2009-12 (with Deborah Ely); and worked with the National Association for the Visual Arts and Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority on strategic projects.
April 30 - CHOREOGRAPHING EXHIBITIONS
Pierre Bal Blanc in conversation with Hannah Mathews
Pierre Bal Blanc is an independent curator and art critic based in Athens and Paris. He is currently curator for the Documenta14. He was director of CAC Brétigny (Contemporary Art Centre of Brétigny, greater Paris in France). There from 2003 to 2014, echoing the societal thought of Charles Fourier, he has run the "Phalanstère Project," a series of site-specific proposals aiming at critical rethinking of the logic behind accumulation of art works.
Hannah Mathews is a Melbourne-based curator with a particular interest in contemporary practice and arts advocacy. She graduated with a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne in 2002 and has worked in curatorial positions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2008-16); Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2005-07); Monash University Museum of Art (2005); Next Wave Festival (2003-04); The South Project (2003-04); Vizard Foundation Art Collection of the 1990s, the Ian Potter Museum of Art (2002); and the Biennale of Sydney (2000-02). She is currently Senior Curator at Monash University Museum of Art.
PRACTICE
MASTERCLASS with ADAM LINDER
MARCH 23 - Dancehouse
"The economy of language and something as linguistically ambiguous as the moving body is central to my choreographic practice. Of particular interest to me is the meeting of the critical, supposedly objective or rational, with the expressive – the over-linguistic meeting the pre-linguistic. I delight in the lively incompatibilities of these encounters, successful failures in translation, productive mis-translations. What are the conditions that codify these languages? And how are these forms leveraging value?—questions I often ask of my work. Hmm.. how to teach around this in three hours? Well we are going to get juicy with our physicality and our thoughts. We are going to start in something I call the Holding Pattern—watching Ciara in the Ride It video is good preparation. You must bring a short text (up to 400 words) that you've learnt by heart. Should be an article of cultural criticism, or a piece of formalised gossip, or a funding application cover letter or the like... not fiction. Hyper-realist poetry is fine. Wear trainers, you know.. everybody needs a little grip sometimes." - Adam Linder
ADAM LINDER is an Australian choreographer and dancer based in Berlin. He makes works for the theatre and Choreographic Services. These works have been commissioned, presented and hired by HAU Hebbel-am-Ufer Berlin, Institute of Contemporary Art London, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, American Realness NYC, Kampnagel Hamburg and Frieze LIVE London, amongst other engagements. In the past Linder performed with Michael Clark, Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods and The Royal Ballet. In 2016, Linder will have a two-person show at The Schinkel Pavilion in Berlin and participate in The Sydney Biennial, Made in LA Biennial at The Hammer Museum and The Liverpool Biennial. He is currently presenting his work in the Sydney Biennale.
MASTERCLASS with PHILIPP GEHMACHER
APRIL 7 - Dancehouse
PHILIPP GEHMACHER lives in Vienna and works inter-nationally. He is a choreographer, dancer and student at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in the "Sculpture and Space" programme whose works on gesture, space and touch have featured in numerous festivals and venues around the world. He has collaborated across art forms, most importantly with the choreographer Meg Stuart. Gehmacher initiated the lecture performance series walk+talk and is currently focusing on objects and sculpture. He received the renowned Jerwood Choreography Award and the Austrian Advancement Award for Dance from the BMUKK
HOTBED with CHRYSA PARKINSON
PERFORMERS AND AUTHORSHIP
in partnership with Lucy Guerin Inc.
APRIL 2-3 - Lucy Guerin Inc.
This workshop aims at adding to the ongoing process of skillful perception by engaging with submerged fictions, performance modes and movement through physical performance practices. The mornings will focus on movement scores and the afternoons will involve memory, discussion, writing and reading in relation to the mornings' work. We will work to find ways for each individual to document their own experiential authorship in a way that allows for the potential of looking forward to looking back. The performer's experience can be considered as an ongoing series of events: looping back, rebuilding, erasing, uncovering, disenchanting, replacing, and stumbling into unknown territory. A performer represents or produces temporary roles and identities as part of a contained continuity – their own experiential authorship. This type of authorship is not necessarily progressive, doesn't necessarily improve or devolve. It has plasticity. It's a continuity that accepts and resists form, folds and swells, is flexible and forceful. The question of how to document the complexity of the performer's experience is central to the workshop. Language will be engaged for its ability to distinguish one thing from another. Physical experience will be useful for its ability to humble and destabilize these distinctions. Performance experience will be useful. - Chrysa Parkinson
CHRYSA PARKINSON is a dancer living in Brussels and Berkeley, California. She lived in New York for many years and performed with Tere O'Connor Dance, Irene Hultman, Mia Lawrence, Jennifer Monson and Mark Dendy, among others. She began traveling to Belgium in 2000 to work on improvisational performance with Zoo/Thomas Hauert and David Zambrano. Since then she has also performed with: Adrian Heathfield, Veli Lehtovaara, Remy Heritier, Boris Charmatz, Andros ZinsBrowne, Rosas/Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Jonathan Burrows, Mette Ingvartsen, Phillip Gehmacher, Eszter Salomon, John Jasperse, Deborah Hay, Alix Euynadi, Meg Stuart and Joaquim Koester. She has taught in the US, Europe and Australia, and yearly at PARTS (be) since 1998. Chrysa's writing and films have been published and distributed internationally. Her most recent project, The Dancer as Agent Collection, is available at Oralsite.be. She is the Director of the New Performative Practices MFA program at DOCH/Uniarts in Stockholm.
HOTBED with SARAH MICHELSON
CHOREOGRAPHIC LAB
in partnership with Lucy Guerin Inc.
APRIL 28 - MAY 1- Lucy Guerin Inc.
WRITING WORKSHOP
WRITING CRITICALLY ON DANCE with Deborah Jowitt (USA)
APRIL 25-29 - Dancehouse
Deborah Jowitt: "Dance doesn't hang on walls or sit on shelves; little of it is available online; its material as human beings. Those of us addicted to writing about it must catch it on the fly and remember it long enough to convey its essence and our response in words. In this workshop, we'll read and discuss reviews written by the participants about dances shown during the KCA season. The schedule will also include viewing video clips of dances and exchanging ideas about them and the issues they raise. I anticipate challenges and discoveries about perception, interpretation, and writing in whatever dance-related careers we have chosen." - Deborah Jowitt
LECTURES/DIALOGUE
CONVERSATION with CHRYSA PARKINSON
EXPERIENTIAL AUTHORSHIP, A PRACTICE
APRIL 2 - Dancehouse
"During this talk I'll work to disenchant, disembowel and reify these five words: Signature, Comprehension, Constitution, Plasticity and The Glitch. As a performer I do not sign the works I participate in. I do not own them. That's all right with me. How I am comprehended in any one performance is often different from how I'm constituted as an artist. I cannot necessarily author my image onstage as a dancer, but I can author my experience by choosing what's relevant in my experience to this particular role, and then again to the next. Finding plasticity in the border between what I'm included in and what I'm made up of allows a productive gap that produces a particular, specific agency, giving and taking form. This is an ongoing, volatile practice, rife with glitches. As a performer I have the potential to consider my experience both as a realm of authorship and as a material object I place within the context of another author's work." - Chrysa Parkinson from Material of Movement and Thought
LECTURE & CONVERSATION with ADRIAN HEATHFIELD
THE PERSISTENCE OF PERFORMANCE
Adrian Heathfield: "Taking a close look at the situation of performance practice in the museum, this talk questions the temporal dynamics and cultural resonance of distributed acts."
APRIL 5 - DANCEHOUSE
LECTURE/PERFORMANCE
WALK & TALK NO.19 with PHILIPP GEHMACHER
APRIL 6 - Dancehouse
"The proposal for a different lecture performance format was partly a reaction to listening to theorists discussing choreographers' works and physicality ... walk+talk is intended as a format neither fully written nor improvised yet a wander along a score that needs to be instantiated to create presence." - Philipp Gehmacher
Philipp Gehmacher conceived the lecture performance format walk + talk for his curated series STILL MOVING at Tanzquartier Wien in 2008. Ten artists took upon themselves the challenge to intertwine on stage movement with language. Speaking whilst moving means speaking about your actions, to verbalise what takes place momentarily and what manifests itself physically and mentally. walk sketches the time that passes when movement expands in space. talk refers to the idea of stating, the announcement, the speaking out as much about the complexity of our own pronounced truths that simultaneously win and lose in the instant of expression. walk + talk is an imperative to find not just visibility yet to become audible. The place of declaration is the public stage, not the dance studio, the rehearsal process or the lecture room. walk +talk is the performance of a singular author where the audience witnesses the attempts to speak about and on individual thoughts and movement language, to maybe even let them become a manifesto. More about WALK & TALK
Curated by Angela Conquet with Philipa Rothfield and Becky Hilton
The Keir Choreographic Award Dancehouse Public Program was presented by Dancehouse in partnership with the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne, Lucy Guerin Inc. and Deakin University and in association with the 20th Biennale of Sydney.
Dancehouse gratefully acknowledges the support of the 20th Biennale of Sydney in bringing Philipp Gehmacher, Adrian Heathfield, Adam Linder and Chyrsa Parkinson to Australia. Philipp Gehmacher and Chyrsa Parkinson were part of ghost telephone, a one-month-long chain performance curated by Adrian Heathfield for the 20th Biennale of Sydney, opening 18 March 2016 at venues throughout Sydney.
Dancehouse would like to warmly thank Phillip Keir and the Keir Foundation, Stephanie Rosenthal/Biennale of Sydney and Jenny Kinder/VCA for making this public program possible at the time.