Dance4 Exchange

We were drenched in each other’s proximity… We covered the wall in written or drawn ideas, filled the space with sweat and tension and joy and dance, shook the ceiling with a live mic’d sound score (and at other times Beyonce) and powdered the room with flour in the violent process of French-kneading dough. Matt Cornell

Whilst we disappeared for days down various rabbit holes – dough making, sound design, drawing, arguing, youtubing – most of our studio time was spent ‘dueting.’Sometimes we grappled with how long to stay with something. It’s a challenge to know how much to just keep dancing and let instinct lead, and how much to plan, acknowledge, discuss and practice. Both seemed the right answer at various times. Miranda Wheen

Dance4 is an internationally recognised experimental dance organisation, producer of NOTTDANCE festival and a unique voice in the UK dance sector. 2014 celebrates the sixth year of the Dance4 and Critical Path exchange. Previous participants of include Martin del Amo (NSW), Hancock & Kelly Live (UK) Alexandra Harrison (NSW), Benedict Anderson (NSW), Nicola Conibere (UK), Rajni Shah (UK), Jane McKernan (NSW), Lizzie Thomson (NSW), Colette Sadler (UK).

This year’s exchange participants are Matt Cornell & Miranda Wheen.

Artists’ statement: “Based in an aesthetic of ‘dancing with’ we investigate the frameworks of solo, duo and trio. To build a shared kinetic intelligence and language employing gravity as strategy challenging the place of intimacy, proximity, tension, negotiation and fragility in our social order and conduct. This residency provides us artistic and corporeal immersion, time to test the destruction of the things we know, we hope will lead us to the things we don’t know about dancing with, moving with and being with oneself, with another, with multiple others.”

Matt Cornell loves to work and to adventure. He has been a dancer, dance maker or sound composer for Gavin Webber, Shaun Parker Co, DMC, Strings Attached, Tiffany and the Curls, Davis Freeman, Angela Goh and Sarah-Jayne Howard, and has received numberous awards, residencies and invitations such as 2011 NT Young Achiever of the Year in Arts, SPLENDID, JUMP (under Antony Hamilton), danceWEB, NFSA, Legs On The Wall – ‘OpenSource’, Ultima Vez Research Lab 2012 and a speaker at TEDx Darwin.

Miranda Wheen is a Sydney based independent dancer and dance artist. Her work is largely concentrated on contemporary dance practices and crosscultural collaboration.

Joshua Thomson is a 2005 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) graduate of the Queensland University of Technology. Joshua has worked with company such asTasdance, Gavin Webber’s dancenorth, Perth Theatre Company, Expressions, Splinter Group, and PVC – Physical Virus Collective(Germany), Animal Farm Collective, Legs On The Wall, Shaun Parker & Company.

Miranda Wheen, Joshua Thomson & Matt Cornell. Photo: Angela Goh.

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