Critical Path in partnership with Sydney Festival 2018 present Talking Dance, a series of conversations between the Festival artists exploring ideas in their performance works and broader practice.
What does dance mean here and now to us? How does it place us, how does it reflect who we are now? If choreography is the art of bodies in space and time, then dance offers us a unique way to engage with our place in time.
Dancing Now – Memoir & Autobiography
The artists discuss what it means to create work from memoir and autobiography, where personal story sits in relation to a wider cultural politic and identity.
Jimi Bani (Queensland Theatre), Dan Daw, Ghenoa Gela.
Three makers, tell their stories through their words and their bodies. They tell their own stories and that of others. They speak for themselves and for a broader community. Artists Jimi, Dan and Ghenoa discuss the ways in which they bring their own histories and that of others to their work. How a particular approach to creating can draw on diverse histories as much as the specific narratives that might infuse them.
FREE. Registration required
Sydney Festival 2018
Online or 1300 856 876
Speakers
Jimi Bani, a graduate from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, has had many leading roles across theatre and television. Recent theatrical plays include My Name is Jimi (Queensland Theatre Company), Title and Deed (Belvoir), The Shadow King (Malthouse Theatre) and Storm Boy (Sydney Theatre Company). He has also performed in the theatrical production of The Sapphires and went on to tour the show to both London and Korea. In television, Jimi played a leading role in the ABC television series The Straits and went on to play the title role in the telefeature Mabo. Most recently he has appeared in Black Comedy, Ready for This and Redfern Now.
Dan Daw has worked with Restless Dance Theatre (AUS), Australian Dance Theatre (AUS), Force Majeure (AUS), FRONTLINEdance (UK), Scottish Dance Theatre (UK), balletLORENT (UK), Candoco Dance Company (UK) and Skånes Dansteater (SWE). Throughout his performance career, Dan has worked with Kat Worth, Garry Stewart, Liv Lorent, Kate Champion, Janet Smith, Adam Benjamin, Wendy Houstoun, Sarah Michelson, Rachid Ouramdane, Nigel Charnock, Matthias Sperling, Marc Brew, Claire Cunningham, Javier de Frutos, Martin Forsberg/Jenny Nordberg and Carl Olof Berg. Blurring the divide between theatre and dance, Dan’s collaborations are a series of attempts. Exploring the notion of “success” and “failure” he plays, in different ways, with audience expectation in connection to his body’s deviating functionality.
Koedal (Crocodile) and Waumer (Frigate Bird) woman Ghenoa Gela is a strong Torres Strait Islander from Rockhampton, Central Queensland. Her background is in Torres Strait Islander dancing, and since receiving a Diploma in Careers in Dance, she has been a Sydney-based independent performing artist working across several mediums including dance, circus, television and stage. Her one-woman show, My Urrwai, premieres as part of the 2018 Sydney Festival at Belvoir St Theatre Downstairs.Her other choreographic credits include: Fragments of Malungoka – Women of the Sea, winner of the 2016 Keir Choreographic Award; for Force Majeure – Mura Buai – Everyone, Everyone (Choreographer/Co-Director with Artistic Director Danielle Micich) & Nothing to Lose (additional choreography with Kate Champion); short solo work, #GenuaGela as part of Performance Space’s Nula Nura Residency; Move it Mob Style (Choreographer and In-Studio Host);and Top 100 – So You Think You Can Dance Australia (2014).Performance & other credits include: ‘Dance Site’ Booraloola NT (Facilitator) and My Darling Patricia’s The Piper (Edinburgh Fringe 2015). She is currently a core member of the award winning show Hot Brown Honey. Ghenoa’s arts practice is inspired by her family stories and her passion to share her Torres Strait Islander culture.