KEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARD: DANCEHOUSE PUBLIC PROGRAM
29 February 2020 - 15 March 2020
Presented by Dancehouse in partnership with Abbotsford Convent, LGI/WYXZ, Temperance Hall, Chunky Move, The Commons/Fringe, University of Melbourne/ Victorian College of the Arts, The Mill Adeleide.
FOREWORD
The work is never done — Steve Paxton
"We need new social and aesthetic practices, new practices of the Self in relation to the other, the foreign, the strange." – Felix Guattari
Dancehouse's Keir Choreographic Award (KCA) Public Program accompanies the KCA competition 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. 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 manifestations, connects to the social, the ethical, the political and as importantly, to our most inner selves.
PERFORMANCES
PROJECT F - PRUE LANG
29 February — 2 March
PROJECT F is a kinaesthetic engagement with feminism, felt via a particular focus on female figures from 12th century until now. It uses the parallel stories and music from historic and modern day trailblazing women – Hildegard von Bingen (b. 1102) and Princess Nokia (b. 1992) – as provocations to explore notions of feminist utopia, in choreographic terms.
GOOD LUCK | TAKAO KAWAGUCHI
7 — 8 March
Takao Kawaguchi performs his much-acclaimed solo work Good Luck. Slow, continuous movement unfolds in a compelling narrative including Tokyocentric field-recordings ranging from a shrine, subway stations, and game centres to streets, forests and a beach.
PENELOPE SLEEPS | AN OPERA BY METTE EDVARDSEN & MATTEO FARGION
14 — 15 March
Working with composer and performer Matteo Fargion, influential Norwegian artist, and Keir Choreographic Award jury member, Mette Edvardsen, ventures into the world of opera. Penelope Sleeps is, according to its subtitle, an opera, but besides being about the idea of musical theatre, it is about the notion of operating, of writing or performing — like the weaving of a text that is constantly beginning to fray.
WORKSHOPS
THE TOUCH OF THE OTHER | TAKAO KAWAGUCHI
29 February — 1 March
Touch of the Other is a workshop with public outcome led by Takao Kawaguchi exploring the aesthetics, erotics, and politics of male-male sex in public restrooms, known to their users as "tearooms."
MORTAL MATERIALS: WRITERS' WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA LA ROCCO
2 — 6 March
A writing/making/thinking/talking lab for artists and writers interested in spending fifteen hours' worth of their non-renewable resources so as to explore collectively shaped questions and speculations.
CHOREOGRAPHY AS WRITING: HOTBED WORKSHOP WITH METTE EDVARDSEN
7 — 8 March
ALMOST SOLD OUT
For professional choreographers. Exploring Mette Edvardsen's recent works and methodologies, developed using language as material and looking into the relationship between writing and speaking, between language and voice.
1 NOTE 2 MOVEMENTS 3 WORDS: COMPOSITION WORKSHOP WITH MATTEO FARGION
14 — 15 March 2020
A 2 day composition workshop focussing on what happens when ideas and techniques which come from music are translated into movement, and vice versa.
LIVE INSTALLATIONS
At Abbotsford Convent
FREE
THE RETROSPECTIVE ROOM: CLAUDIA LA ROCCO IN RESONANCE WITH THE KEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARD
MARCH 2-6 – 2pm-6pm
MARCH 7-8 - 10am-4pm
ABBOTSFORD CONVENT/THE PACKING ROOM
A reading, writing, moving, drawing, sitting room that encourages a porousness between the inward-looking world of the solitary maker and the social world of improvisation and chance encounters. A room stocked with good wine and invited guests, natural light, comfortable seats, previous works and present influences. A room in which stillness and quiet are always suitable answers. A work that reveals itself in the doing and being, that builds itself out of time spent and ideas exchanged.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: METTE EDVARDSEN
MARCH 5-6 – 2pm-6pm
MARCH 7-8 - 10am-4pm
ABBOTSFORD CONVENT/THE SHEET ROOM
CHOREOGRAPHIC TALKS
RE-LOAD – MANIFESTOS FOR TOMORROW
At Lucy Guerin Inc. / WXYZ STUDIOS
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH LGI/WXYZ
MARCH 4—6 – 2:30pm-3.45pm
Free, no bookings required.
A series of lectures given by theorists, critics or academics who are a source of inspiration for those working with in the choreographic fields of the political or social (moving) bodies.
WEDNESDAY 4 - Claudia La Rocco in conversation with Leisa Shelton
THURSDAY 5 - Takao Kawaguchi in conversation with Phillip Adams
FRIDAY 6 - Mette Edvardsen in conversation with Lucy Guerin
RE-TUNE TALKS
At The Commons/Trades Hall
Cnr Victoria and Lygon Sts
Carlton 3053
MARCH 7 & 14, 2PM—3.30 PM
Free, no bookings required.
RE-TUNE is a series of talks given by inspiring leaders, visionaries and agitators. The talks are an invitation to pause and think about how we place ourselves in the professional world, about the choices we make (or not), the ethics we are governed by (or not), our awareness of/or resistance to neo-colonial, patriarchal, heteronormative and hegemonic systems of power, and our relationship to market forces. The talks endeavour to re-attune us to a reinvented sense of responsibility, and to rekindle imagination, urgency and care.
7 MARCH — ANITRA NELSON — EXPLORING DEGROWTH
Anitra Nelson in conversation with Terry Leahy, with Q&A
Degrowth — aka postgrowth — is a movement that focuses on quality rather than quantity and respecting Earth's limits. Housing for degrowth is affordable, modest and sustainable, such as eco-collaborative housing with food grown collectively and frugal abundance shared. Degrowth's qualitative focus gives creativity a central place, highly valuing work skills, long-lasting goods and nurturing Earth and caring for one another.
14 MARCH — BEN ELTHAM — WHY DANCE MATTERS
Why do we dance? For some, the question must seem strange, a bit like asking why we breath, or eat. There must have been dance well before there was human language. As the archeologist Yosef Garfinkel has observed, "ancient human dancing is a neglected topic in research." In today's highly mediated world of smart phones and facial recognition technologies — indeed, perhaps even more so because of them — dance retains the ability to kindle deep, visceral emotions in participants and audiences. In this talk, cultural researcher and arts writer Ben Eltham asks why dance matters. Drawing on recent research with Australian choreographers, Ben examines the ancient origins and latest expressions of dance in contemporary culture, and sketches a tentative theory about the intrinsic value of dance for our culture and society. Photographers have light, composers tone, painters form. But dance can make strong claims to being the most visceral and elemental artform of them all.
WHAT IS IN-BETWEEN
FREE CONVERSATION SERIES
At Studio 221, University of Melbourne, Southbank campus
In partnership with Victoria College of the Arts
MARCH 2—6, 5PM—6.15PM
Free but bookings essential.
BOOK NOW
MONDAY MARCH 2
#1 (IN)VISIBLE FUTURES
Inspired by the research devised by the Liveable Futures community, this conversation will discuss concrete creative solutions to survival under unpredictable planetary conditions and crisis. What role do artists play in devising future socially-responsive artistic practices focused on a collective sense of sustainability?
TUESDAY MARCH 3
#2 (IN)VISIBLE MATTER(S)
What are the forces that claim agencyin our bodies and in our lives? Matter can be understood in entirely material terms – the matter of a body, a building, of space, of environment – but it can also be thought as the effect of ad hoc configurations, accidental or premeditated combinations of human and nonhuman forces. Recognising that agency is not solely the terrain of humans, how are these forces captured, researched and embodied today?
WEDNESDAY MARCH 4
#3 (IN)VISIBLE FORCES — CURATING DANCE – WHAT POWER DYNAMICS?
This conversation invites international and national presenters to reflect on the forces at play that define, constrain or inspire their everyday life, their relationship with (and responsibility to) artists and audiences and the position of power that these positions inherently hold.
THURSDAY MARCH 5
#4 (IN)VISIBLE SCORES — CHOREOGRAPHY AS/FOR/OF TEXT, POETRY, OBJECTS
What happens when choreography intersects, interferes, inhabits the text, the poetic structures — situating movement (with)in objects? This conversation looks at exploring the inner choreographic scores that anchor a text, a poem or an object in their relationship to the moving body.
FRIDAY MARCH 6
#5 (IN)VISIBLE TIMES — WHAT IS CONTEMPORARY IN CONTEMPORARY DANCE?
Contemporary dance automatically positions dance within a certain notion of the contemporary within the very definition of the artform. And yet, dance holds time and remembers time differently. What exactly does it take to define a dance work as contemporary? Must a work refer to particular norms and traditions in order to qualify as contemporary, and in the case of dance, what would these be?Is contemporary dance the preserve of western lineages and traditions? How can, and do, other traditions equally claim the contemporary?
BOOK NOW (all conversations)
The Keir Choreographic Award Dancehouse Public Program is presented by Dancehouse in partnership with City of Yarra, Abbotsford Convent, Faculty of the VCA and MCM | University of Melbourne, Temperance Hall, Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc., Common Rooms and The Mill.
Dancehouse would like to warmly thank the Keir Foundation for making this public program possible.
