Appearing
We begin with curiosity to move further toward something unknown…
To go in close means forgetting convention, reputation, reasoning, hierarchies and self… risking incoherence, even madness. For it can happen that one gets too close and then the collaboration breaks down and the painter dissolves into the model. Or the animal devours or tramples the painter into the ground. (John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket)
Coherence/incoherence, going in closer, collaboration, the animal: all are key to this enquiry.
Nikki will work with dancer/performer Kirk Page and video artist Sam James alongside improviser/double bass player Sam Pettigrew and scenographer/designer Benedict Anderson. They will investigate focal length with filmed and live somatic material, to potentially disrupt the viewer’s empathic distance from the perceived subject/object. They will ask what part rhythm and pitch play in the reception of an image and question the usual hierarchies of spatial, aural and somatic dynamics.
Nikki Heywood’s work in contemporary performance making spans four decades: devising and directing original movement-based theatre and dance, making solo performance, participating in collective creation, running skills based workshops for students and emerging practitioners and assisting the creative process of others as mentor or dramaturg. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate at University of Wollongong.
Museum of the Sublime: relic # 6, Fraser Studio, Sept 2011. Photo: Heidrun Löhr