2020 Keir Choreographic Semi Finals

Eight New Works will Premiere in 2020 Keir Choreographic Award Semis March 3-7 | Finals March 12-14 The Keir Foundation, Dancehouse, Carriageworks and the Australia Council for the Arts today announced the program of new works that will premiere in the Keir Choreographic Award Semi-Finals from March 3 - 7 at Dancehouse in Melbourne. Four works will be chosen to perform at the finals at Carriageworks in Sydney from 12 – 14 March. The biennial Keir Choreographic Award (KCA), now in its fourth edition, is dedicated to the commissioning of new choreographic work and promoting innovative, experimental and cross-art form practice in contemporary dance. The winner of the prestigious Award will be chosen by a jury of five internationally renowned leaders in contemporary dance and receive a cash prize of $50,000 . The jury will announce the recipients of the 2020 Keir Choreographic Award and the $10,000 Audience Award on 14 March. The 2020 artist selection represents an outstanding mix of early-career to established practitioners, from states and cities across Australia, with diverse perspectives on and approaches to contemporary dance. Presenting work in March are: Alison Currie & David Cross , Angela Goh, Riana Head-Toussaint, Amrita Hepi, Jo Lloyd, Zachary Lopez, Lewis Major, The Farm . Read more about the artists here. The 2020 Keir Choreographic Award jury tasked with the responsibility of selecting the eight new commissions and to decide the recipient of the Award are: Paola Balla (Wemba Wemba and Gunditjmara, AUS); Claudia La Rocco (USA); Mette Edvardsen (NO); Serge Laurent (FR); and Takao Kawaguchi (JP). PROGRAM ONE 4 works x 20 min + interval TUE, 3 MARCH - 7pm THU, 5 MARCH - 7pm SAT, 7 MARCH - 2pm JO LLOYD (VIC) ~ That's Her Name THE FARM (QLD) ~ Hold Me Closer Tony Danza RIANA HEAD-TOUSSAINT (NSW) ~ Very Excellent Disabled Dancing ANGELA GOH (NSW) ~ Blue Sky Mythic

PROGRAM TWO 4 works x 20 min + interval WED, 4 MARCH - 7pm FRI, 6 MARCH - 7pm SAT, 7 MARCH - 7pm + Awards Ceremony AMRITA HEPI (VIC) ~ Rinse LEWIS MAJOR (SA) ~ Lien ALISON CURRIE & DAVID CROSS (SA/VIC) ~ Delimit ZACHARY LOPEZ (NSW) ~ Peril

[SEE BELOW FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEW WORKS] THE KCA WORKS 2020 [caption id="attachment_31014" align="alignright" width="330"] JO LLOYD. Image Peter Rosetzky[/caption] JO LLOYD — That's Her Name Choreographer/Performer: Jo Lloyd Designer/Performer: Andrew Treloar Composer/Performer: Duane Morrison

That's Her Name will investigate the body as an inscriptive surface augmented through movement and materials. Lloyd uses unfamiliar methodologies to uncover physical vocabularies and behaviours between the three performers to display the unresolved body in performance — serving as a dialogue and reflective encounter for those viewing and being viewed. Using fictional and actual history as stimulus, physicalities will be activated based on the real and imagined. Fictional characters will be performed as evidence of this history. Language will be used simultaneously as a system and as a proposition for the work, to compose the sound score, choreograph the costumes and direct the action. The dance is an ongoing negotiation between performers — materials towards a choreography. What will occur has the potential to be a two-hour opera in 20 minutes, the preparation for a public speech, a crime scene, or all of these. [caption id="attachment_31013" align="alignright" width="329"] THE FARM Image Art Work Agency[/caption] THE FARM — Hold me closer Tony Danza Concept: The Farm (Kate Harman, Michael Smith and Gavin Webber) Performers: Kate Harman and Michael Smfith Music: Anna Whitaker Design: Vilma Mattila

Once we hear something, it can't be unheard and once we say something it can't be unsaid. Hold me closer Tony Danza is an investigation into how we form meaning and a provocation that perhaps our understanding of the world is intrinsically flawed. The light-hearted reference to a commonly misheard song lyric contains a deeper proposition about how we accumulate information and the damage we can do with our opinions and a lack of empathy or connectedness. The Farm questions the randomness of the things we find important, how we form meaning and the whole idea of certainty itself. They speak about the world by embodying their experience within it, where the act of performing reflects a desire to be an involved and evolved participant on our planet.

[caption id="attachment_31011" align="alignright" width="331"] RAINA HEAD-TOUSSAINT. Image Tracy Schramm[/caption] RIANA HEAD-TOUSSAINT — Very Excellent Disabled Dancing Choreographer/performer: Riana Head-Toussaint Performers: Georgia Cranko and Holly Craig Videographer: Lux Eterna Sound Designer/Composer: Andrew Batt-Rawden Outside Eye: Imogen Yang

In Very Excellent Disabled Dancing , three visibly disabled dancers expose the distinct, persistent differences in the way dance is consumed and understood when performed by people with disability. The work involves a synergy of movement and video. The dancers physically demonstrate the effects of the external, objectifying gaze, amplified by capturing and projecting their movement via live video feed.This is then contrasted against movement from a place of knowledge and resistance — magnified by intimate, pre-recorded footage. The dancers lay bare anatomical preoccupations, saccharine sympathy and uninformed hostility — confronting and defiantly reframing the dominant gaze to make way for genuine engagement with, understanding of, and appreciation for diversity in dance.

[caption id="attachment_31009" align="alignright" width="330"] ANGELA GOH. Image Catherine McElhone[/caption] ANGELA GOH — Sky Blue Mythic Choreographer/Performer: Angela Goh Composer: Corin Ileto

Curtains open. There is no dance being performed on the stage. The dance that is not being performed is a ballet, Giselle . The backdrop is medieval and the elements are supernatural. It's Act 2, and you know that she someone died at the end of Act 1. Time is an arrow that has been shot off stage, out of frame. You go out-of-render, looking for it, but it's nowhere to be found. Damn. But then! Duration has no direction. Good. We will orient ourselves here. Sky Blue Mythic imagines dance as a non-human entity, existing on timescales longer than our cultural narratives, in spaces beyond the locality of the body, and forms unknowable to human-centric sensing. In a quest to move away from anthropocentrism, Sky Blue Mythic allows dance to alienate itself from human expression, in turn requiring the body to become an interface rather than a vehicle. By imagining a history of dance that is not humancentric, Sky Blue Mythic encounters possible worlds beyond our own reflection. This work confronts the notion that we do not exist in a vacuum but are staring into a void.

[caption id="attachment_31008" align="alignright" width="331"] AMRITA HEPI. Image courtesy of the artist[/caption] AMRITA HEPI — Rinse Choreographer and Performer: Amrita Hepi Dramaturg: Mish Grigor Costume Designer: Aleisa Jalbert Sound: Daniel Jenatsch

What is it about the beginning that remains intoxicating? The persistent lust for the initial thrill of a romance, scene, cannon, theory, relationship, meal, country — the opening lines. This work explores the romance of beginnings and what happens when the inertia takes over. Rinse questions whether being on the brink of extinction, or endings, has intensified the seduction of the past. The fraught idolisation of the singular narrative under the grip of hegemony. Through recreating an entropic origin myth on stage, Rinse travels from end to end, positioning personal narratives in relation to dance, art, feminism, cannons, the void, desires, popular culture and colonial history. An intimate solo based on a dynamic improvisational score, Rinse is a continuation of Hepi's fascination with hybridity under empire and contemporary dance's preoccupation with the neutral body. [caption id="attachment_31010" align="alignright" width="330"] LEWIS MAJOR. Image James Williams[/caption] LEWIS MAJOR — Lien Choreographer: Lewis Major Performers: Sarah Wilson, Sophia Van Gent, Paolo Castro, Jo Stone Composer: James Brown

With major fluctuations and disruptions presenting themselves across the world, Major observes an increased awareness of the competing identities that exist within himself as an artist and within his work. Lien is concerned with cultural, artistic and autobiographical notions of being between places and groups as well as concepts of division, hierarchy, conquest, colonisation — the thraldom of man by man. Unpacking the world that our ancestors have bequeathed to us, Lien interrogates the foundations of our current zeitgeist and asks at what price we enjoy the comforts we have inherited. The work explores the degree to which we are responsible for the deeds and the choices of those from whom we descend. As we build our own stories and our own world in relation to theirs, Lien flows from private to public, intimacy to extroversion, and the individual to the collective. Choices of connection, space and community are made between the performers and the audience. Through the dual lenses of action and inaction, Major investigates the complex and unrelenting theme of man against the world and the personal versus the political.

[caption id="attachment_31007" align="alignright" width="331"] ALISON CURRIE & DAVID CROSS. Image Jess McKinlay and David Cross[/caption] DAVID CROSS & ALISON CURRIE — Delimit Co-directors: David Cross & Alison Currie Performer: Cazna Brass Lighting Design: Goven Ruben Costume Design & fabrication: Ellie Boekman

Delimit examines the relationship between menial, process-driven labour and dance. Playing with ideas of staging and set making, the work seeks to interrogate how the making of an art installation offers a frame in which to understand dance and its assorted modalities in different ways. The collaboration between visual artist David Cross and choreographer Alison Currie has been developed through a long-term appreciation of each other's practice and a realisation that despite their work appearing very different, their conceptual interests are closely linked. Delimit slips between functional and abstract, exploring live action as an unstable liminal space between labour and performance. [caption id="attachment_31012" align="alignright" width="332"] ZACHARY LOPEZ. Image Luke Hiscox[/caption] ZACHARY LOPEZ — Peril Concept/Choreography: Zachary Lopez Performers: Yilin Kong, Zachary Lopez Sound Design: James Brown Costume Maker: Jennifer Do

This work is an exorcism of undesired narratives imposed on the Asian body. Drawing from folklore, ritual and the concept of material culture, two bodies endure states of dissonance and turmoil, vibrating between fantasy and the fantasised. They attempt to interrogate histories, conjure spirits and escape the threat to and of their bodies, creating a hypnotising cleanse. In collaboration with Yilin Kong and sound designer James Brown, a new reality unfolds. Peril enables bodies to transcend objectification and pass into a unified identity. 2020 KEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARD SEMI FINALS ⏤ March 3-7 Dancehouse, Melbourne Bookings: www.trybooking.com FINALS ⏤ March 12-14 Carriageworks, Sydney Bookings: carriageworks.com.au