In this conversation with dance and movement-makers, we will consider the value of rest, pause, and stillness in creative practice and within dance. How do we, institutionally, come to recognise pause as an integral part of the creative process? How do we create space for bodies to recover, for minds to empty, for ideas to gently emerge? What kinds of working methodologies do we need in order to facilitate slow-processes and long-gestations? And ultimately, what happens if we don’t pause?
Participating speakers:
Ira Ferris
Geraldine Balcazar
Diane Busuttil
Tra Mi Dinh
Amy Flannery
Michelle St Anne
This conversation is supported through the Critical Path March Dance Bursary
5 March 2023
12 -2pm
Online via Zoom
This event is part of March Dance 2023. Head to their website for more programs happening in March.
ARTIST BIOS:
Geraldine Balcazar is a performance artist, choreographer, and mother artist based on Bundjalung country. Over the past three years she has been studying in the Somatic Educator Training with Alice Cummins, dancing in conversations with Meredith Elton, sharing practice and motherhood with Ade Suharto, and making time and space for regular slow conversations. She is currently collaborating with Stella Chen and Ira Ferris on the 2023 Critical Path Regional Fellowship, focusing on TIME and creating new models of dramaturgical thinking that support gentler conditions of making work.
Diane Busuttil is a dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and performance artist on Gadigal land. Since 2019, she is the founder and key facilitator of Creative Caring, a movement-based organization that offers dance programs for seniors (50+) that increase physical and mental health through inclusive social engagement and creative exploration. Her own practice is steeped in a variety of somatic techniques that explore states of silence and stillness as fertile grounds for creativity and movement.
Tra Mi Dinh is a dancer and choreographer based across Sydney and Melbourne. As a dancer, she has worked with Lucy Guerin Inc, Chunky Move, Victoria Chiu, Lee Serle, Michelle Heaven, Monica Bill Barnes & Company, to name a few. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Keir Choreographic Award. Her choreographic works include: Holding (2021), The ___ (2022), And, again (2022), (UP)HOLDING (2023). In their distinct, yet interconnected ways, these works explore our experience of time and our relationship to: endings, beginnings, waiting, and moving forward.
Ira Ferris is a Zagreb-born, Sydney-based multimedia artist, dramaturg, writer, and somatic practitioner with foundation in contemporary dance and training in BodyWeather. Her projects consider environmental consequences of speed and non-stop production, and are focused on ripping-open the Western concept of time. She has made and collaborated on works that deal with fatigue, and advocate for rest and idleness as forms of resistance.
Amy Flannery is a Wiradjuri woman from the Central West of NSW. She is a NAISDA Dance College graduate and emerging freelance artist. She enjoys working across multiple art platforms and collaborating with other artists.
Michelle St Anne is founder and Artistic Director of The Living Room Theatre, a company that defies disciplinary boundaries and audience expectations. Her work is told through the body and she collaborates with movement artists including Imogen Crana, Cloé Fournier, and Lian Loke. A feracious maker, Michelle sometimes forgets to pause, while at the same time exploring the power and the discomfort of the pause within the work itself.
Image: Artwork by Lena Kramaric @lenakramaric