Public Events

Co-immunity: How to Dance When We Are All Ill

Esplanade presents da:ns lab

Call – out

Critical Path is inviting NSW connected artists to apply to da:ns lab, an annual workshop-seminar for artists and arts practitioners to critically reflect on key issues surrounding their creative practice.

This year’s lab will be a remote meeting taking place online with 60 participants, from 6 regional clusters across Hong Kong, Manila, New Delhi, Singapore, Sydney and Taipei.

da:ns lab 2020 will likewise foster a region-wide discussion to better understand the socio-political situation in different contexts in Asia, how the arts sector is impacted by a dramatically-changed landscape, how to imagine new modus operandi for the future, and how we can chart strategies for international cooperation based on principles of knowledge sharing and mutual support.

da:ns lab 2020 will take place on 9-12 July 2020 in partnership with Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay.

View the abstract of da:ns lab 2020

Please complete the EOI by 10am on Tuesday 30th June 2020.

Critical Path will select 7 NSW connected artists that will be announced on 2nd July 2020. The selected artists will receive a fee of $800 AUD.

Application

Critical Path would like to invite NSW connected artists to engage in the remote da:ns lab 2020.

Artists are asked to;

  1. Respond to the abstract – what is of interest to you in it and your practice (max 500 words)
  2. Share a short  biography (max 300 words)
  3. Inform us about existing interest, connections, collaborations with artists and organisations in the partners’ countries (max 500 words)
  4. Please tell us how you are NSW connected (max 100 words)

For further questions: [email protected]

Event Synopsis

da:ns lab is an annual workshop-seminar for artists and arts practitioners to critically reflect on key issues surrounding their creative practice.

The theme Co-immunity: How to Dance When We Are All Ill invites participants to reflect on what has been disordered amidst the global crises and health emergencies. In this paradigm of illness, we challenge the precepts often assumed of the dancing body, as one that is able-bodied, productive and live.

This year’s lab will be a remote meeting taking place online with 60 participants, from 6 regional clusters across Hong Kong, Manila, New Delhi, Singapore, Sydney and Taipei.

Participants will explore how dance can operate within the paradoxical framework of co-immunity, to develop infrastructures of support and thicker relations of care, building resistance and resilience across the different arts ecologies in the region.

Background

da:ns lab is an annual artist meeting as part of the da:ns festival presented by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay in Singapore, and produced by Dance Nucleus since 2018. It is a programme to interrogate choreographic practice that began in 2015. da:ns lab 2020 is the programme’s 6th edition.

Objectives

  • To engage dance practitioners in Singapore and the Asian region in artistic discourse, research, reflection and exchange; thereby enriching critical thinking for dance practices in the region
  • To tackle tangibly an issue that concerns many artists in the current moment
  • To introduce progressive international practices to Singapore
  • To build an informal network of independent artists with aligned interests

This year, we will conduct a remote meeting partly inspired by a format developed by the Flanders Art Institute (March 2020, Belgium) when the Reshape meeting in Zagreb (Croatia), which aims to actively rethink and reshape organisational models for the arts sector in Europe was abruptly cancelled upon the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

da:ns lab 2020 will likewise foster a region-wide discussion to better understand the socio-political situation in different contexts in Asia, how the arts sector is impacted by a dramatically-changed landscape, how to imagine new modus operandi for the future, and how we can chart strategies for international cooperation based on principles of knowledge sharing and mutual support.

Produced by: Dance Nucleus
Curated by: Daniel Kok and Shawn Chua
Co-facilitators:
JK Anicoche (Manila)
Ranjana Dave (New Delhi)
Huang Ding Yun (Taipei)
Wayson Poon (Hong Kong)
Daniel Kok & Shawn Chua (Singapore)
Claire Hicks, Critical Path (Sydney)


Critical Path’s partnership in this project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Date & Location

  • Thursday 9 July - Sunday 12 July, 2020
  • Online

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Critical Path

The Drill, 1C New Beach Rd,
Darling Point (Rushcutters Bay), Sydney