2020 KEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARD
DANCEHOUSE, THE KEIR FOUNDATION, CARRIAGEWORKS and THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS
03 March 2020 - 07 March 2020
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Now in its fourth edition, the Keir Choreographic Award (KCA) has assumed a significant and dynamic place in the Australian dance landscape. It offers eight artists the time and space to create and present a fully funded new work, a remarkable context in which to engage with international perspectives and an opportunity to connect with new and ever expanding audiences for dance in Australia. The KCA today is an unmissable national mini-festival, assembling an inspiring and diverse community of artists, international guests, audiences, and local and national stakeholders.
PROGRAM ONE
4 works x 20 min + interval
TUE, 3 MARCH - 7pm
THU, 5 MARCH - 7pm
SAT, 7 MARCH - 2pm
JO LLOYD (VIC)
THE FARM (QLD)
RIANA HEAD-TOUSSAINT (NSW)
ANGELA GOH (NSW)
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PROGRAM TWO
4 works x 20 min + interval
WED, 4 MARCH - 7pm
FRI, 6 MARCH - 7pm
SAT, 7 MARCH - 7pm + Awards Ceremony
AMRITA HEPI (VIC)
LEWIS MAJOR (SA)
ALISON CURRIE & DAVID CROSS (SA/VIC)
ZACHARY LOPEZ (NSW)
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2020 KEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARD JURY:
PAOLA BALA (AUS)
CLAUDIA LA ROCCO (USA)
METTE EDVARDSEN (NO)
SERGE LAURENT (FR)
TAKAO KAWAGUCHI (JP)
KEY DATES
SUBMISSIONS CLOSED: 14 JULY 2019
COMMISSIONED CHOREOGRAPHERS ANNOUNCED: 15 OCTOBER 2019
SEMI FINALS: DANCEHOUSE, MELBOURNE, 3-7 MARCH 2020
FINALS: CARRIAGEWORKS, SYDNEY, 12-14 March 2020
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
ALISON CURRIE & DAVID CROSS
Alison Currie MRES - Choreography and Performance (2015) BA Dance Performance (2003) The primary focus of Currie's practice is the connection between inanimate forms and performers. Her works engage audiences, performers and objects or sculptural forms in various ways in theatres, galleries, and site- specific live performance and video. Her first major work '42a' premiered in Adelaide (2008) and toured to three states of Australia (2010). Recently Currie premiered three new works 'Creatures' with The Human Arts Movement at the Samstag Museum of Art, 'Close Company' at Goodman Arts Centre in Singapore and OzAsia Festival Adelaide, and 'Concrete Impermanence' at Adelaide Festival Centre. 'Concrete Impermanence' went on the be performed at The Substation (2018) and Dancehouse (2019) for Dance Massive.
David Cross is a Melbourne-based artist, curator and writer. His practice extends across performance, installation, sculpture, public art and video. Known for his examination of risk, pleasure and participation, Cross often utilises inflatable structures to negotiate inter-personal exchange. He has performed in international live art festivals in Poland and Croatia and was selected as a representative at the 2011 and 2015 Prague Quadrennials. His work Hold was selected for inclusion in Liveworks at Performance Space, Sydney in 2010 and at Arts House for the Melbourne International Festival in October 2012. More recently he has examined the connection between sport, performance and community in public art projects for Scape 7 in Christchurch (2013), L'Entorse, France (2016) and Temporary Democracies: A Project for Campbelltown Arts Centre (2014).
ANGELA GOH
Angela Goh is a Sydney based dancer and choreographer. She works with dance in theatres, galleries, and telepathetic spaces. Her work considers the body in relationship to commodity, materiality, technology, and feeling, and approaches choreography as a situation and a container in which not yet formed relations can grow, and with them the possibility to access the world. She thinks of dance as a friend, as a condition with which to feel the world, as a bearer of knowledge, and as the point where everything starts and nothing ends. Her works have been presented widely in Australia and internationally, including SPRING Festival (NL), Baltic Circle Festival (FIN), PS122/Performance Space New York (USA), Auto Italia South East (UK), Liveworks Festival (AUS), Artspace Sydney (AUS), Arnolfini (UK), My Wild Flag (SWE), Fusebox Festival (USA), Festival of Live Art (AUS), Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (AUS), Campbelltown Arts Centre (AUS), the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Art (AUS), the Judson Church (USA), among others, and presented by Galerie (int) at La Biennale de la Danse (FR); Jan Mot Gallery (BE); Dansehallerne (DK); Menagerie de Verre (FR); Saal Biennial (EST) and Oslo Internasjonale Teater Festival (NO). Angela has been artist in residence at Tanzhaus Zurich (CH), Cite Internationale des Arts (FR), Critical Path (AUS), Arts House Melbourne (AUS), ADAM/The Kitchen (TWN), and received the danceWEB Europe Scholarship, the Create NSW Emerging Fellowship, and was named Best Artist in the 2017 FBi Sydney Music Arts and Culture awards.
RIANA HEAD-TOUSSAINT
Riana is a multidisciplinary artist with disability, who uses a manual wheelchair for mobility. Her practice spans a variety of areas; including dance (choreography and performance), theatre, acrobatics and film. Riana's work often involves interrogating dominant systems, structures and ways of thinking; and advocating for social change. She currently has several of her own works in development. Her dance film 'Untitled' – which she choreographed and co-performed – was commissioned by Human Rights Watch for their 2019 Voices for Justice event. She is also a member of Shopfront's Harness Ensemble for emerging artists. Their last devised work, 'Dignity of Risk', won the 2017 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Production for Young People. In 2018, she attended Southbank Centre's Disability Arts Festival, 'Unlimited', as part of the Festival's International Delegation. Her solo and ensemble work has been presented at ATYP, WOW Festival, and Shopfront Arts Co-Op. As well as being an artist, Riana is a qualified lawyer, access consultant and disability activist.
AMRITA HEPI
Amrita Hepi is a Choreographer and Dancer from Bundjulung (AUS) and Ngapuhi (NZ) territories. Her practice at present is interested in forms of historical fiction and hybridity - especially those that arise under empire. An artist with a broad scope she has toured work in the form of performance and also video nationally and internationally through theatres and galleries in Australia, Europe and the U.S.A. Amrita trained at NAISDA and Alvin Ailey Dance theatre New York. In 2019 she was a commissioned artist for The National: New Australian art 2019 and the recipient of the dance web scholarship to be mentored by Anne Juren, Mette Ingvarsten and Annie Dorsen. In 2018 she was the recipient of the people's choice award for the Keir Choreographic award and was also named one of Forbes Asia 30 under 30. An artist with a broad global reach and following Amrita combines her interest in materials/objects and choreography in the search for allegory & advocacy for first nations sovereignty with a compelling and diverse physical practice.
JO LLOYD
Jo Lloyd is an influential Melbourne dance artist working with choreography as a social encounter, revealing behaviour over particular durations and circumstances. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Jo has presented her work in gallery spaces and theatres in Japan, New York, Hong Kong, Dance Massive, the Melbourne Festival, the Biennale of Sydney, Liveworks, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). In 2016 Jo was the Resident Director of Lucy Guerin Inc. Her recent work 'OVERTURE' (Arts House 2018 and Melbourne Festival 2019), received three Green Room Awards and a Helpmann Award nomination. Projects 2019 include; 'Double Double' with Deanne Butterworth for the Ian Potter Museum, 'Garden Dance' for the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, 'LIVE JUNK' (IDEAstudios) and 'CUTOUT' Melbourne Festival 2018 (ACCA), 'Confusion for Three' (Arts House 2015 and PICA 2018), 'Mermermer', Chunky Move commission, Next Move 2016 (Helpmann and Green Room Award nominations) and choreography for Nicola Gunn's 'Piece For Person And Ghetto Blaster' (Venice Biennale and Tanz im August 2019). Jo was the recipient of two Asialink Residencies (Japan) and the Dancehouse Housemate 2008. In 2018 Jo received an Australia Council Dance Fellowship. Jo is a Resident Artist at The SUBSTATION.
ZACHARY LOPEZ
Zachary Lopez is a contemporary dancer and emerging choreographer. A Filipino-Australian, he explores the dualities between his identities to understand cultural lineage and nationality within his practice. He engages with contemporary dance, physical theatre, art institutions and opera companies in Australia. In 2019, he has worked with co-director of Punchdrunk (UK) Maxine Doyle, intercultural dance theatre company Marrugeku, physical theatre company Legs on the Wall and first nations choreographer Amrita Hepi at the Art Gallery of NSW. Others include, Opera Australia, The Farm with Gavin Webber, Co:3 (WA) with Raewyn Hill and as an associate artist at Sydney Dance Company with Rafael Bonachela, among others. In 2019, he was awarded the Young Creative Leaders Fellowship (Create NSW) where he began creative work with young people at Western Sydney's Migrant Resource Centre. He has staged his own work at Perth Fringe Festival 2018 with a Propel Youth Arts Yculture Grant and a creative development grant from DLGSC (2017). In 2016, Zachary was commissioned by Sydney Dance Company (SDC)and created 'Like a Salmon in the Sahara' for SDC's PPY season (Carriageworks).He has also been awarded an Australia Council Artstart Grant (2015) which allowed him to collaborate with Iván Perez and Marina Mascarell in The Hague (Netherlands) and Regensburg (Germany). Zachary graduated from Queensland University of Technology (Bachelor of Fine Arts, Dance Performance) in 2013.
LEWIS MAJOR
Lewis is a proud Bungandidj artist with a background in sheep farming and a foreground in experimental dance theatre. Raised in Njarrindjeri country in the deep south of regional South Australia, he fled as soon as able, and now unironically refers to himself as a citizen of the world, splitting time between Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide) and multiple international contexts. He is the only dance artist he's ever heard of who can shear a sheep and travelled to all three axis-of-evil countries.. He examines and is interested in everything from the physical body and its relation to conceptual thought, feminism, queer and gender coding in body language, transforming identity, technique, freedom, imagination, different forms of expression and behavioural representations in diverse cultural contexts. As a performer and maker, he has worked with Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Russell Maliphant, Shaun Parker, Romeo Castelluci, Hans van Den Broeck/Cie Soit, and Australian Dance Theatre. He was a founding member of Aakash Odedra Company. He has presented work at, amongst others, Aarhus (Denmark), Centre des Arts Enghien Les Bains (France), Curve Theatre (UK), DanceXchange (UK), Festival de Mayo (Mexico), La Comete (France), Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg (Luxembourg), La Maison de la musique de Nanterre (France), Maison des Arts de Creteil (France), Royal Opera House (UK), Impulstanz Festival (Austria), Ars Electronica Festival (Austria), TED Global (Brazil), Dadong Arts Centre (Taiwan), Esplanade Theatres (Singapore), Lyric Theatre (Hong Kong), Baryshnikov Art Centre (NYC) & The Place (London). Lewis is currently mentored by seminal choreographer Hofesh Shechter.
THE FARM
Based on the Gold Coast with roots in Berlin, The Farm cultivates and creates live performances that push ideas of what dance can be and how and where it should be viewed. Our work engages and confronts its audience, playing within genre and defying expectation. A network of highly respected artists, ranging from choreographers and independent dancers to musicians and designers, The Farm are driven by a desire to connect to anyone, from dance and theatre virgins to aficionados and professionals. Often described as cinematic, our work is based on universal subjects and themes that matter. Our collaborative methodology and the intergenerational nature of the company helps maintain relevance in a rapidly changing world. The nature of our recent works has taken us around Australia and to the UK, Berlin, Chile and Asia, from the theatre to the beach, to a live action drive-in in a deserted field, to 49 hours on a sand bar. This last performance, aptly named TIDE, received a Helpmann award, the only Queensland winner in 2018. The Artistic Direction is led by Gavin Webber and Grayson Millwood who have been making work together for the past fifteen years across four continents, but the work itself comes from many sources. The current farmers are Gavin Webber, Michael Smith and Kate Harman. Gavin has been creating and touring work for decades and received the Sidney Myer Individual Performing Arts Award in 2018. Both Kate and Michael are choreographers with an emerging practice who have successfully collaborated and created many Farm shows already. This new work comes from their shared fascination with getting things wrong.
WHAT IS THE KEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARD?
Choreographic Art in the 21st Century is an increasingly expanded and international field, incorporating a multiplicity of practices and production modes, and a diversity of aesthetic, philosophical and social perspectives. A visionary public-private partnership between the Keir Foundation and the Australia Council for the Arts, KCA was launched in 2014 as Australia's only cash award for choreography. The Award looks to identify and illuminate the most urgent and experimental choreographic practices occurring in the Australian context today.
The Award has fast become the largest generator of new choreographic works in Australia and offers rare fully-funded opportunities to develop and present new work – often resulting in further commissioning and touring, both nationally and internationally. Martin Hansen's If it's all in my veins has been presented in Hong Kong, Paris and Berlin since its creation in 2016. The previous Keir Choreographic Award recipients are Melbourne-based artist Atlanta Eke, 2014; Sydney-based Torres Strait Islander choreographer and performer, Ghenoa Gela, 2016; and Javanese-Australian choreographer and performer, Melanie Lane, 2018.
THE KCA PUBLIC PROGRAM
The KCA Dancehouse Public Program accompanies the KCA performance season and is an integral part of this initiative — and of Dancehouse's ongoing commitment to promote dialogue, reflection, accessibility and criticality for the art form, its makers and its audiences.
This diverse public program is now an integral part of the award. It aims to cross-pollinate an array of outstanding thinkers and practitioners from the dance field and other communities of thought — in order to provide a unique context in which to consider the deep, subtle ways that dance, with its multiplicity of choreographed and embodied practices, connects to the social, the ethical and the political.
MORE INFORMATION
READ THE 2020 MEDIA RELEASE #1
READ THE 2020 MEDIA RELEASE #2
READ MORE ABOUT THE 2014 EDITION
READ MORE ABOUT THE 2016 EDITION
READ MORE ABOUT THE 2018 EDITION
Image: Geoffrey Watson in Nana Biluš Abaffy, Post Reality Vision – commissioned for the 2018 Keir Choreographic Award. Image by Gregory Lorenzutti for Dancehouse.
