As part of the 2024 Critical Path Residency Program, Victoria is exploring the “prophetic body” and “transmorphic states”, deepening the relationship with Māori worldview and concepts such as Whakapapa (relational connectivity with all that is), Kaupapa (sacred purpose), Mauri (life essence), and Hau Kāinga (home-calling breath).
Her research asks:
“How do we feel our connection to the world in our bodies. The flight of the rainbow lorikeet makes the lorikeet fly within us; the flow of waters makes the waters flow within us. The steadiness of the mountain steadies us. The lament of the songbird becomes our lament. All this finds resonance within us through polymorphic transfigurations. How do we embody the urgent grief cry of the world?”
Victoria’s residency will include a period of solo practice, a period of collaboration with Rosie Te Rauawhea Belvie and James Brown, and a day-long movement workshop followed by a work-in-development sharing and a feedback session (on Saturday 23 March). More info and registration for this public component of the residency HERE.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Born on Kombumerri Country (Surfers Paradise), Victoria Hunt currently lives on Bidjigal Country, Eora (Sydney, Australia). Her ancestral affiliations are Te Arawa, Rongowhaakata, Kahungunu Māori, Irish, English, Finnish. She works across the visual and performing arts as a dancer, director, choreographer, dramaturg, photographer, and filmmaker.
Victoria delves into Indigenous epistemologies within diasporic concepts of identity formation and belonging. Her work is liminal, inter-cultural, inter-disciplinary and reinstates the power of Indigenous creativity within the politics of Rematriation – inserting the body into frameworks of power, for future ancestors. Her work is a gradual binding of intimate collaboration between artists, Elders and communities.
In 2000 Victoria became a founding member of Australia’s leading Body Weather dance company De Quincey Co. and has performed in over 50 productions. She is co-founder of the Weather Beings a 2Spirit performance collaborative established with Métis artist Moe Clark, based in tio’tia:ke / Montréal, Canada.