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Week 1: Screendance Studio — virtual undoings
On Monday 24 May I began my residency in the Tanya Liedtke Studio at the Australian Dance Theatre as part of their International Centre for Choreography AiR program. Over these six weeks I am developing ideas that have come up from recent projects. One is realising an online creative exchange with other screendance practitioners—a “Screendance…
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Yesterday’s Skeleton—a biopic
On 27 December 2020 my biopic “Yesterday’s Skeleton” was launched live on the Dance Hub SA Facebook page. In these first few weeks of its release it has chalked up 2.6K views and lots of terrific feedback. My 60 minute film is a physical etching on dance as a life practice and life as a…
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Creative screendance exchange
Emma Wilson is an ex dance student of mine (Deakin University) and a dancer in one of my early screendance works “Neglect“ A few months ago she got back in touch asking if I would be interested in being part of a mentoring/creative exchange project with her. The result was two months of virtual exchange…
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Communal Bloom Strategy
Another great initiative from Dance Hub SA that I am pleased to be a recipient of is the Dance.Focus project, supporting the making of 4 new screendance works to be screened online from August 17. My proposal, Communal Bloom Strategy brings together a group of dancers with whom I danced or studied in the 1980’s…
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Dance Hub SA Residency—May 2020
Tomorrow I begin a week’s residency at Dance Hub SA as part of their 2020 Artist Residencies program. What perfect timing, emerging from a couple of months of revisiting the archives and reflecting on possible new directions, to have a studio space all to oneself to dance, write and reflect, film and edit! And…
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Fringe Festival Fever 2020
Whew! I’m six weeks in to 2 months of assorted Fringe performances! This is what’s been happening… The Smithergreens The Smithergreens had their inaugural (not inaudible, although I did have a dodgy throat the week before!) season at the intimate and funky Basem3nt Studios in Featherstone Place just off Rundle Mall in the Adelaide CBD. Johnnie…
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Mind The Gap Residency
I am excited to announce that I am the recipient of The Mind The Gap Residency, which is a partnership between Dance Hub SA and Tasmania’s award winning dance company, Tasdance. In 2019 the Residency provides a SA-based artist the opportunity to create, research, build upon and stretch their creative parameters during a week of…
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Dance Documentary Screening and Artist Q & A at ReelHeART, Canada
Mel and I will be Skyping in to Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts (Canada) early on Saturday 22nd June after the screening of our documentary “Nothing But Bones in the Way” for a post screening discussion on “Dance, Disability and the Human Condition in the Arts.” This is part of the 15th Annual ReelHeART International…
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15th National Rural Health Conference
At the end of March I was invited by producer/dance artist extraordinaire, Kelly Drummond Cawthon, to be part of the ‘Arts and Health’ component of the National Rural Health Conference in Hobart. It was a huge event with over a thousand delegates who could watch a collection of my films running on loop on the…
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Cabin Fever
Adelaide Fringe 2019 I premiered a new site specific work a couple of weeks ago at the Adelaide Fringe to great responses from audiences and reviewers. Cabin Fever not only got 5 star reviews but also won the Adelaide Fringe Bank SA weekly award for Best Dance! Read the Adelaide Fringe 2019 Review by Theatre…
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Brolga Issue 41
I am particularly proud of the latest issue of Brolga—edited by my dance (and Deakin) colleagues Shaun McLeod and Olivia Millard—having close connections to a number of the projects written about in it (and have quite a few of my video and still images published within them). In addition to the paper I have co-authored…
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Dance Interrogations in Ten Days on the Island 2017
Dance Interrogations just keeps evolving thanks to the support of Salamanca Arts and Ten Days on the Island. The work began as my solo in an underground tunnel at the 2012 Adelaide Fringe, then a blacked out hotel room at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe, relocated into a train carriage at the 2013 Melbourne Fringe, and…
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A reflection on “Dance Interrogations 2016” —by Tamara Searle
Dance Interrogations 2016: In Contemplation of Fragility and Strength What is our relationship to the inevitable fallibility of our body? What kind of support will we accept from technologies and from others? Through the lens of a stark and tender portrait of partnership, Dance interrogations 2016 examines our vulnerabilities and resilience. It is…
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Text used in Dance Interrogations 2016
The following is text used in the video or audio of Dance Interrogations 2016 by Dianne Reid and Melinda Smith. Journey to Emma’s House (by Dianne Reid, 2008) They are climbing a snowy slope. Their feet scrape, slip. Breath in little clouds in front of their faces. …women climbing, pioneers, no footprints…
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Journal article “Improcinemania” published in Brolga 40
I am pleased to announce that the latest edition of Brolga is online featuring six papers on dance improvisation. I am in good company with Melbourne colleagues Olivia Millard (also editor of this edition), Shaun McLeod, Jason Marchant, Peter Fraser and Anne Scott Wilson. Find it here Brolga 40
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“Dance Here”
I recently worked on two events as part of the Yarra Ranges “Dance Here” program. DancEscape—an interactive dance event with Melinda Smith in the Montrose Public hall. I designed and edited the video projections which framed our improvised dance duet. Here’s a short edit of the hour-long DancEscape program. …
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Flings with Strings
It was a wonderful night at the Abbotsford Convent’s ‘Oratory’ on Wednesday 17 February with special guest cellist Jo Quail. I also screened my latest screendance “Faldinghurst” featuring Gülsen Özer (also featuring the music of Jo Quail). See video documentation of the evening HERE
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A response to “Dance Interrogations (a diptych)” by Jaye Hayes
the disorient express an expression of proximity to the angle of loss the moving within parameters, without direction frame & shift, my body & hers I meet her gaze, I feel her grief mirror mine I am hollow I am rattled I am moving still I have taken this train before but this…
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DSW
My 2015 screendance DSW gets its first (international) screening at the Dance Film Festival UK on Saturday August 8. It will be screened all day as part of the Private Cinema Installation at O2 Think Big Hub, Hoxton Square, London, N1 6NT. This screendance was created as an artefact of my evolving performance practice with Melinda…
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Music that moves me
I saw/heard Jo Quail last night, UK based cellist/composer visiting Australia just now. It was a small but captivated audience at the Toff in Town venue but I kept thinking of how she would have resonated in the gorgeous Melbourne Recital Centre (where I heard/saw The Necks just over a week ago) I found Jo Quail’s…