(Cover image: costume project 1986. Photo by Tom Giles)
My new book “Humming The Bones” can be purchased here https://www.trybooking.com/DJRNJ
Humming the bones charts the life of Australian dance and video artist Dianne Reid as she navigates grief and transition. Uniquely structured, shifting between prose and poetry, past and present, Reid interweaves contemporary dance history with her personal journey and a present-day contemplative walking practice. Written over the two years following her mother’s death, the work drops the reader into visceral description, bringing the visual to life through the choreography of the written word.
“This is less a text about my life as an artist as it is about my body as environmental matter. How our connections to the natural world, and to our bodies as part of that, create a connective ‘gold.’ Making sense of life is about sensation.”
Where did you go, yesterday’s skeleton?
Did I fling you out through gestures, exfoliate you?
Jaw bone, clavicle, scapula, sacrum
These things add up to a declaration, a dancing manifesto
Places to depart from and arrive to
Things to gather and let go of, rib by rib
Rest your cheek on it and listen
Humming the bones
Humming the bones illuminates the capacity dance and creative arts have for working through issues relating to the body, violence and grief. Through the grace of disclosure, Reid draws sustain/ability, independence and community cooperation to the surface. This is more than an important account of independent dance history in Adelaide and Melbourne, it is an unpacking of the creative imagination and an immersion into the sensation of the present moment.
Thank you to Green Hill Publishing
https://greenhillpublishing.com.au/
Reviews of Humming The Bones:
“I live in the middle of the United States, so far away from Australia that it seems like another world. Yet, I have been aware of Dianne Reid’s work across multiple disciplines for as long as I can remember. Dianne’s tribe stretches beyond the boundaries of countries, language, practice and time. Similarly, the research topics that have animated her work run from Bachelard to Burlesque, to film and performance and in and out of the histories of modern and contemporary dance. Humming The Bones is an archive of a creative life fully lived. The writing is deeply honest, at times painfully so, and centers Dianne’s emotional and empathetic relationship with the universe and all the folks in it. The joy, the grief, the sacred and profane are all to be found in the thoughtfully wrought pages of this book. For Dianne, dance has indeed been, “an act of survival.” Humming The Bones allows us, the readers, to share in that journey in a lovely and poetic way.”
—Douglas Rosenberg (Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
“A multi-faceted journey that takes grief for a walk, over landscapes literal and figurative, past and present, to depict a life bursting with artistic twists and turns. Poetry and prose is caught in the moment or evoked through memory in this moving account of a dancer’s life.”
—Dr Philipa Rothfield (Professor, Dance and Philosophy of the Body, University of Southern Denmark; Senior Lecturer, Philosophy and Politics, La Trobe University)
“The structure is dramatic, extremely well written and completely original. Not only dancers, but anyone who uses their body for artistic expression should read this book.” —Paul Huntingford
“Reads like a dance. Reid’s like a dance too.” —Kim Donnell
Also by Dianne Reid:
Refereed Journal Articles
‘The negotiations of relationship—a conversation about dance improvisation.’ Co-authored with Melinda Smith (2017) Brolga 41, Ausdance, Dec. 2017.
‘Improcinemania’ in Brolga 40, Ausdance, March 2016.
‘Fleshing the Interface’ in Rosenberg, Douglas & Claudia Kappenberg, eds. International Journal of Screendance Vol 4, 117–129. The Ohio State University Libraries, 2014.
‘Making things visible’ in Rosenberg, Douglas & Claudia Kappenberg, eds. International Journal of Screendance Vol 2, No 1, 89–92. Madison, Wisconsin: Parallel Press, 2012.
‘Scenes from another life—the script‘ in Writings on Dance, Issue 23, 8–11. Melb, 2006.
‘I perform therefore I am’ in Practice, 39–48. Deakin University, 1997.
Refereed Conference Papers
‘A Rakish Angle’ in Re-searching Dance: International Conference on Dance Research. India International Centre, 60–63. New Delhi, India, 2009.
‘Scenes from another life—the paper.’ Image, Text & Sound Conference, School of Creative Media, Melbourne: RMIT Publishing, 2004 and Dance Rebooted: re-initializing the grid. Deakin University: Ausdance, 2004.
‘The Shifting Eye’ in Double Dialogues Conference, Theatreworks, St.Kilda, 1999.
Book chapters
‘Cutting choreography’ in Barrett, Estelle & Barbara Bolt, eds. Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry, London & NY: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2007.
‘From choreographer to film-maker’ in French, Lisa (Ed) Womenvision: women and the moving image in Australia, 93–104. Melbourne: Damned Publishing, 2003.
Conference Presentations
‘Dance Interrogations’ at TDENNZA, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, 5 July 2013.
‘Improcinemaniac’ at Rooting/Rerouting Screendance, Light Moves Symposium, Limerick, Ireland, 9 Nov, 2014
‘Improclusivity’ at Creative Connections, Arts Activated 2014 Conference, Sydney, NSW, Accessible Arts, 28 Oct, 2014
Other
‘Foreigner unfixed’ 2007 for Kinesis magazine
Online Reviewer, 2011 for http://www.fringereview.co.uk
‘Disability & Inclusion: Dance interview.’ Video interview (2017), Deakin University.