Critical Path opened up The Drill for 5-day space residencies in September and October 2020 to artists needing urgent space for choreographic research and exploration.
Natasha Sturgis: 11 – 15 September 2020
“I am currently in development creating an interdisciplinary collaborative dance film, drawing on mediums of contemporary dance, film and music composition. Exploring the concept of strength through a feminist lens, the work plays with varying concepts, textures and images to portray a new narrative indicative of the female experience. It aims to draw on the current social and economic upheaval to imagine a new future for female story telling.”
Lux Eterna: 16 – 20 September 2020
“My next dance film work is currently in its initial stages and this 5 day residency will be most fortuitous in granting myself space to explore camera work specifically for dance and choreography, to devise the dance and movement sequences for the film with lead choreographer Kathryn Puie and convene with all other 6-8 dancers, who’ve so far committed to the film. The performers are: Kathryn Puie, Nikki Heywood, Cath McNamara, Ira Ferris, Kirsten Packham and Lian Loke.”
Emma Maye Gibson: 21 – 25 September 2020
“This comes at a time of crucial need for creative space to continue to develop a new work in a safe and supportive environment. My show is called Enemies of Grooviness Eat Shit and is being produced by Performing Lines. We are due to open October 26th at The Red Rattler Theatre, co-produced with Griffin. We are currently in the throes of COVID venue dilemma and the work would greatly benefit from the focus and support a residency would bring. The show unpacks Grief, Pleasure and Justice via the methodologies and embodied experiences of avatar Betty Grumble. I would use this residency to develop the dance sequences in the show.”
Tra Mi Dinh: 5 – 9 October 2020
“I’m interested in dissecting and navigating how collective mentalities can coerce individual minds. It’s an amalgamation of dance and text, performing and rehearsal, teleprompters and audience activation. Two performers juggle, master, and fail the art of comprehension whilst audiences decide and control their context. Like a teleprompter gone rouge, I imagine audiences en masse interacting in realtime with elements of choreography and direction. In offering a level of control, authorship, and autonomy to the viewer, it may provoke a reconsideration of how we seek and filter information available to us.”
Daniela Zambrano: 12 – 16 October 2020
“As a dancer I have always wondered why this beautiful art is divided into so many techniques and different styles of dance that in fact they never stop creating new ones, particularly in urban dance. Through my experience and my diverse background not only in contemporary dance but also urban dance, African and Latin rhythms, I have perceived an immersion of movement dynamics in each of them, and that is why I have not been able to uproot myself from any of them, because I feel that they are necessary for my body and it is urgent for me to express them, but knowing that each of them has a history, a different concept and they come from different cultures. That is why I would love to be able to delve into each of them and explore to make a small composition together with the music that allows me to achieve a unique result, a unified combination of all my knowledge.”
Lee Serle (working with Ella Watson-Heath) and Katina Olsen (working with Emily Flannery): 18 – 23 October & 2 – 5 November 2020
Lee and Katina will be sharing the space during this residency. Organised by Dance Makers Collective who have commissioned 10 artists to work one-on-one with their youth company, Future Makers.
Agal Dance Company: 25 – 28 October 2020
“We hope to create an experimental short film exploring and contemporising the South Indian classical dance form of Bharathanatyam. We will explore its vocabulary through the lens of both a camera and the Australian eye by incorporating choreographic techniques borrowed from our recent master class training under the auspices of Force Majeure.”
Isabel Estrella & Tiana Lung: 9 – 13 November 2020
“We are both interested in starting to explore our own choreographic processes and voices and believe this residency would be an amazing opportunity to further delve into a new work that we wish to develop. With a strong desire for the entire work to be in complete unison, we are interested in starting to research and generate a highly developed movement vocabulary that explores this concept. Imagine a work that highlights the visceral and intoxicating experience of two bodies constantly moving as one – completely and without hesitation.”
Victoria Hunt: 24-30 December 2020 (tbc)
Header images:
Emma Maye Gibson/Betty Grumble, 5-day space residency sharing, photo courtesy of the artist
Daniela Zambrano, 5-day space residency, photo credit Mariana Calzada
Agal Dance Company, 5-day space residency, photo courtesy of the artist