Announcing our Quick Response Space Grant recipients for November 2024.
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Quick Response Space Grants give artists an opportunity to use The Drill Hall without any predetermined outcomes. Critical Path waives the venue hire fees for The Drill Hall for successful recipients during their time in The Drill Hall.
We are excited to announce our recipients: Reina Takeuchi with Crystal Valdez; Lizzie Thomson; Daniela Zambrano; Ashleigh Veitch; and Amelia Gilday with Nick Vagne
REINA TAKEUCHI with CRYSTAL VALDEZ
Delving into the restorative potential for remedial massage to sustain one’s capacity for movement and connection.
Crystal and Reina are working in collaboration to explore what it means to have a shared practice – to delve into the synchronicities between remedial massage and movement. As friends and new collaborators, the pair have had a massage therapist/client relationship for the past two years. Their time in the space includes remedial massage and development of sensation-based movement ideas. Playing with the client/practitioner dynamic, the pair will be exploring the phantom pains that a massage practitioner accumulates when empathising and treating their client, haptic feedback and tuning into each other’s frequencies. The time represents space to learn more about the other’s practices, how they each approach their embodied methodologies in contemporary dance and remedial massage.
@reina.brigette
@crrystalvaldez
@elementremedial
REINA TAKEUCHI
Reina Takeuchi is a Japanese Australian independent dancer currently working on Bidjigal Land. Interested in cross-cultural exchange, Reina’s work traverses forms of intercultural dialogue. She has performed and exhibited work around Australia and internationally, and has worked with prolific choreographers including Idan Cohen, Leah Marojević, Meryl Tankard and Vicki Van Hout. Recently, Reina was in residence at Murasaki Penguin Project Totsuka, a new performing and multimedia arts space in Yokohama, Japan before performing in the Australian premiere of Club Origami at Sydney Dance Company, an immersive and interactive dance show for all ages by Takeshi Matsumoto.
CRYSTAL VALDEZ
Crystal Valdez is a Filipina Australian residing on Gadigal land. She is currently a practising remedial massage therapist and solo clinic practitioner (Element Remedial Therapies) with a history in the film industry, notably working at the ABC and AFTRS before pivoting towards the health and wellness industry. Coming from a street dance background, Crystal is presently training Muay Thai and Boxing under professional and retired combat athletes. Crystal’s movement history deeply informs her treatments as a remedial massage therapist and understanding of the human body. At the heart of her clinic Element Remedial, is an intention of nurturing and reconnecting the client with their body.
LIZZIE THOMSON
During my time at the Drill, I will dive back into a semi-dormant improvisation project I began last year through a Sustaining Practice Residency at ReadyMade. This will include re-entering two eccentric worlds of inquiry that I have named ‘Deep Porous Soft Dag Dancing’ and ‘Idiosyncratic Idiocy’. I am interested in how these movement worlds support intimate relations and how they might produce a bodily condition of radical empathy.
LIZZIE THOMSON
Lizzie Thomson works in the performing arts as a dancer, choreographer, writer and educator. She has collaborated and performed in Australia and internationally with numerous artists including Rosalind Crisp, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Jane McKernan, Mette Edvardsen, Janet Laurence, Angela Goh, Ivey Wawn, Emma Fielden, Diana Baker Smith, Rochelle Haley, Leisa Shelton, Emma Saunders, Marina Abramovic and Joan Jonas. Lizzie’s writing has been published in books including The Gesture of Writing a project by Mette Edvardsen (2024); In Perpetuity: a project by Ivey Wawn (2020); Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine: a project by Mette Edvardsen (2019); and Performing Process: Sharing Dance and Choreographic Practice (2018), as well as in several journals, exhibition catalogues and bespoke publications. She has guest edited journal issues on dance for Runway Australian Experimental Art (Issue #36 DANCE) and for Critical Path’s Critical Dialogues (Issue #9 DANCE/VISUAL/ART. She lives on unceded Wangal Country.
DANIELA ZAMBRANO
The Art of Contrast… a dance between sharp precision and fluid expression.
This project explores the intersection of two distinct dance styles—popping and contemporary—creating a movement language that transcends boundaries. It examines the tension between the sharp precision of popping and the organic flow of contemporary dance, finding harmony between these opposing forces. The work is a rhythmic inquiry, investigating how the rigid beats of popping interact with the fluidity of contemporary music. Through a figurative and physical structural bridge, the project reflects on how environment shapes the body, ultimately seeking to deepen the connection between movement, sound, and space while expanding the limits of both styles.
@daniela_plonovadance
www.plonovadance.com
https://www.facebook.com/PlonovaDance
DANIELA ZAMBRANO
Daniela is a Sydney-based, Colombian-born choreographer and dancer, renowned for her versatility across urban, afro, latin styles and contemporary dance. She began her career with the National Ballet of Colombia, merging Colombian folklore with modern dance. Daniela holds a Bachelor of Choreography and Contemporary Dance from the Superior Academy of Arts in Bogotá (2014) and completed DIP 2023 Anton Lachky- Puzzle Work in Belgium. Under the pseudonym ‘Plonova Dance’ Daniela created acclaimed works in Colombia, addressing real-life issues through dance and improvisation. After relocating to Sydney in 2015, she choreographed notable projects such as ‘Borderlines’ (Hong Kong International Choreography Festival) and ‘Shapes & Shadows’ (ARA Darling Quarter Theatre). During the pandemic, her short films were featured in international festivals, including Inspire Dance Australia Film Festival 2022 and Florence Dance on Screen Festival 2022. Daniela also worked with UNHCR for ‘Displaced,’ raising awareness for refugees. Her latest work, ‘Pulse,’ premiered at Adelaide Fringe Festival 2024.
ASHLEIGH VEITCH
An improvised solo practice, exploring the dancing body as the carrier for all material.
Taking learnings from a workshop I did with Rosalind Crisp I would like to explore long improvisations using the body as the main form of research, no outside stimulus. The body is a vessel and a carrier, I am curious as to what my body will bring up and what material it can produce. My dancing body already has the score and how can I unlock it for myself?
@ash_veitch
ASHLEIGH VEITCH
Ashleigh Veitch (She/Her) is an emerging independent dance maker and artist based in Eora/Sydney. With a drawn interest to working with choreographic form and temporal speeds. Ashleigh has performed in works by Kristina Chan, Jasmin Lee Sheppard, Patricia Wood, Rhiannon Newton and Eliza Cooper as part of Dance Makers Collective’s “Future Makers”. In 2023, she presented her own work ‘ReRun’ in Dance Maker’s Collective “Big Dance 2.0” season, supported by FORM Dance Projects. In 2024, she created a solo work, titled “Longing” as part of “Move FM” in Sydney Fringe Festival. Ashleigh trained at Ev & bow (2017) and The Victorian College of the Arts (2020) attaining a BFA in Dance.
AMELIA GILDAY with NICK VAGNE
An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Identity and Performativity
Under the Influence is an interdisciplinary work that combines movement, video, and music. The piece delves into the complexities of perception and the intersections of identity and performativity, with a focus on gender. Originally developed through ShopFront Arts’ ArtsLab program, the work builds on traditional storytelling through an innovative blend of live performance and multimedia.
@moonbureau
@chronicallyamelia
https://www.facebook.com/MoonBureauArts
AMELIA GILDAY & NICK VAGNE
Amelia Gilday and Nick Vagne are innovative theatre-makers committed to bold, boundary-pushing storytelling. Amelia, is an interdisciplinary artist and producer. They recently directed Hemlines (Moon Bureau) at Sydney Fringe, is currently part of KXT’s Step Up Program and was named an Out for Australia 2024 30 Under 30 Winner. Nick, a queer, nonbinary artist, is known for blending comedy and tragedy in experimental works focused on fringe communities. Their recent projects include co-directing Manifesto for Milk Crate Theatre and creating In Between Moments with Shopfront’s Young Company. Together, Amelia and Nick co-directed Shopfront Arts’ 2024 senior ensemble work, When I Grow Up and performed in Hello, Are You Still There? (Shopfront Arts x Milk Crate Theatre).
HEADER: Daniela Zambrano, Emily Yali, Bonnie Zhang & Natalia Machado. Shapes & Shadows, 2020, ARA Darling Quarter Theatre, Sydney. Photo credit: Andrew Szopory
1: Reina Takeuchi & Crystal Valdez; photo: courtesy the artists.
2: Lizzie Thomson, TACET, 2016, Performance; Presented in Choreography and the Gallery for the 20th Biennale of Sydney at the Art Gallery of NSW; Photo credit: Document Photography.
3. Daniela Zambrano, Emily Yali, Bonnie Zhang & Natalia Machado. Shapes & Shadows, 2020, ARA Darling Quarter Theatre, Sydney. Photo credit: Andrew Szopory
4. Ashleigh Veitch, Move FM, 2024, Sydney Fringe Festival performance at The Neilson Studio, Sydney Dance Company. This project was supported by Sydney Fringe and Dance Makers Collective; photo: Bianca Yeung
5. Nick Vagne and Amelia Gilday, Under the Influence: 2.0 development, 2024, interdisciplinary theatre; Shopfront Arts Co-Op, Supported by Shopfront Arts Co-Op’s ArtsLab and Open Shop programs; supplied by Moon Bureau