Research Residency

Justin Shoulder mentored by Victoria Hunt
Composer: Nick Wales

ABOUT THIS RESIDENCY
Justin Shoulder inhabits the Drill Hall for three weeks with mentor Victoria Hunt and composer Nick Wales. Continuing his investigation into becoming mythic avatars, Shoulder will elaborate on his new figure Jax (evolving) the trickster: a figure at the crossroads of construction and collapse. They will look at the performance possibilities of articulating bodily transformation with the methodologies of Bodyweather finding the gestural language native to this figure. Jax (evolving) becomes a vehicle to examine ideas of decomposition: biological and societal.

Critical Path and Performance Space partnership to support artists undertaking movement and choreographic research in the framework of live and performance art. The residency is process-focused, facilitating the development of exciting and inventive works by emerging or established artists. These projects  forge a bridge between the research focus of Critical Path and the development and presentation work of Performance Space.

Watch Justin’s showing presented at the Drill Hall on May 6th.


Justin has been working in performance, installation and nightlife/community events production for the past 9 years. He considers his practice to be a part of a queer ecology co-creating both the spaces for performative expression as well as the figures that inhabit these spaces with his collective The Glitter Militia. Over this time Shoulder has created a family of performance figures called The Fantastic Creatures drawing from the universal storytelling form of the mythical creature. Each creature he has birthed is realised through the construction of full-body highly sculptural avatars and animated by their respective gestural vocabularies. They inhabit nightclubs, theatres, galleries and the street as well as screen based and virtual spaces.

 

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Critical Path

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