DANCE (LENS) PROGRAM
Official Selection #1 - curated by Siobhan Murphy, Feras Shaheen and Gitta Wigro
Katma (2023)
“كتمة/KATMA” – is a slang term used back home in Sudan among the youth to describe a party. It means “suffocation/no room for breathing”، which primary used to describe a peak of a party, or a party that is lit.
KATMA aims to explore party and club culture, drawing inspiration from Sudanese parties back, parties in Sydney (Soul of Sydney, Freedom Session), and parties from back in the day (The Loft parties in New York, Warehouse Parties in Chicago, and the rave parties in UK).
KATMA explores elements from those parties, translating the essences of this cultural movement elevating it into a conceptual dance film context.
This project is commissioned by Destructive Steps Dance Association and supported by: Inner West Council, and PYT Fairfield (Powerhouse Youth Theatre).
Lead Artist Bio
Azzam Mohamed, also known as Shazam is a dancer, performer, choreographer, and educator from Sudan based in Sydney. Azzam’s dance practice encompasses a range of styles, from traditional cultural dance through to street dance and clubbing dance styles.
Azzam’s dance practice involves teaching at studios and festivals, performing and touring in stage shows, competing in dance competitions and judging, organizing events, facilitating workshops, and mentoring and coaching current and emerging Hip Hop dancers. He won the House Dance Style Category of the City Sessions dance competition in Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl in February 2022, which was supported by Arts Centre Melbourne and Creative Victoria. later that year, he was invited to join the judging panel for Destructive Steps, Australia's largest street dance festival.
Azzam is equally active in the realm of live performance. Together with his crew Riddim Nation, he was invited to work on and perform in Nick Power's production of Two Crews, which had its world premieres in Sydney and Adelaide in 2020. Azzam co-created, choreographed, and performed in The Risk of Hyperbole, a collaborative multidisciplinary production directed by leading artist Jack Prest, in 2021. The work was commissioned by Phoenix Gallery, and supported by Creative NSW and Ausco.
Laeviter (2023)
“laeviter” – Latin: barely, slightly, touch
This film is dedicated to the lives of all the women and girls institutionalised at the Abbotsford Convent from 1863-1974.
Supported by Abbotsford Convent, City of Yarra, Creative Victoria
Lead Artist Bio
Prue Lang is an Australian choreographer returned to Melbourne after 17 years living and working in the European dance field. Her practice focuses on rigorous choreographic innovation, conceptually driven aesthetics, cross-disciplinary collaborations, and choreography in the expanded field. Her mode of artistic production is underlined by her feminist and environmental values. After graduating from VCA in Melbourne, Prue joined Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre touring internationally. In 1996 she moved to France to work with the Choreographic National Centre in Angers (Bouvier/Obadia), Compagnie Cre-Ange in Paris, as well as creating and facilitating her own independent projects and improvisation events. In 1999 she began an important collaboration with William Forsythe as a leading soloist and choreographer of the Frankfurt Ballett and The Forsythe Company. She created five original works for the company, before establishing herself as an independent choreographer.
Her diverse and extensive repertoire of choreographic works spans 20 years and has been presented in International festivals, theatres, galleries and museums throughout the world including Theatre National de Chaillot (Paris), Festival Faits d’hiver(Paris) Rencontres choregraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint- Denis (Saint-Denis), Maison Rouge (Paris), Mains d’oeuvres (Saint-Ouen) Tanzplattform Deutschland (Germany), HAU (Berlin), Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Tanzhaus NRW (Düsseldorf), STUK (Belgium), Les halles de Schaerbeek (Brussels), Transart (Italy), Kalamata Festival (Greece) REDCAT (Los Angeles) TATE Modern (London), NGV Triennial, Carriageworks, Adelaide festival, Dancehouse and Dance Massive (Australia).
Awards include: Most Outstanding Dancer, Most Innovative Production and Most Outstanding Choreographer by Europe’s Tanz’s Annual Critics’ Survey, PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA award for Hybrid Art, Green Room Awards for Best Choreography and Best Design.
Tiny Passenger (2023)
Sugar, give me sugar.
Commissioned by The Australian Ballet & Telstra for the Emerging Choreographer Initiative
Lead Artist Bio
Amber is a Naarm/Melbourne-based dancer and choreographer. Her practice incorporates prosthetics, mask-making, film and practical special effects to create new augmented bodies, foreign to both the performer and viewer. Amber has worked extensively with Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc and is a creative associate of Tasdance. In 2022 she was honoured to receive a Chloe Munro Fellowship from Lucy Guerin Inc. She won a Green Room Award for Best Performer in Prue Lang’s Project F and was a finalist for Telstra Emerging Choreographer Award. This year Amber premiered her solo ‘Baby Girl’ for MONA FOMA in the Nolan Gallery, Mona. In 2020 Amber was a recipient of Solitude 1, Chunky Move’s home-based residency program and created her film ‘Softtrap’ for the 2021 Activators program. She has presented solo work for Tasdance, Lucy Guerin Inc’s ‘Pieces’ and ‘Now Pieces’, Dancehouse. Amber has enjoyed performing for Dancenorth and Antony Hamilton Projects as well as independent choreographers and multidisciplinary artists; Jenni Large, Prue Lang, Jo Lloyd, James Batchelor, Su Huiyu, Kyall Shanks, Jonathan Homsey and Niharika Senapati.
Pivot <<movement II>> (2023)
Pivot is a musical score and an experiment, an invitation to interpret and respond to a sparce notation consisting of mood and temporal cues and accompanied by a click track. This second movement draws on choreographic and somatic principles to embody what is typically experienced only through sound. It thus seeks to investigate the meditative quality of repetition while disrupting patterns of sequence, orientation and perspective, as contrasting states converge.
Lead Artist Bio
Cobie has been engaged with the moving image for over 15 years. She creates meditative works for screen centred around the body in motion, nature and the everyday. These works manifest as independent projects as well as collaborations with choreographers and composers such as Sandra Parker, Jude Walton, Lost Few, Thomas Meadowcroft and Aviva Endean. They have screened in galleries, theatres, cinemas, foyers, personal computers or on building facades. Commissions have come from programs within diverse art organisations including Ensemble Offspring, Speak Percussion, Chamber Made, Next Wave festival and Dancehouse. Some of her work can also be found in the digital collection of The ReelDance archive.
Sketchbook (2022)
This animation is a reflection on who I am and what it feels like to be left alone to get to know myself as a human and artist in a post-pandemic world. Overthinking and discarding ideas, scratching out the parts of ourselves we believe aren’t worthy of attention or admiration. Cycling through many thoughts and ideas and learning that not everything deserves to be thrown away. Sometimes we just need to take a breath, step back and look at the bigger picture.
This animation originally premiered in the Dance Film ‘Collection’ by Lion Heart Dance Company and Pride Productions in August 2022.
This project is supported by Lion Heart Dance Company, Benjamin Curé, Pride Productions and Andrew J Liu
Lead Artist Bio
Rachel Owens is a dancer and artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. She trained at multiple institutions, some including The Victiorian College of the Arts Secondary School, The National Institute of Circus Arts, Transit Dance and Yellow Wheel, and holds a Diploma of Dance as well as a Certificate III in Circus Arts. Rachel is currently a company dancer for Lion Heart Dance Company under the direction of Benjamin Curé. She is an amateur, self taught animator and this is her first animation screen play.
Banshee Cried Silver (2023)
Banshee Cried Silver is a spaghetti western inspired, love-tragic, comedic, dance drama film. It is both a sincere and absurd exploration of movement and storytelling. Set between undeveloped land beneath a train station and a forgotten alleyway, a secret love affair sets off a series of events that spiral into tragedy, vengeance, dance, betrayle and bloodshed.
Lead Artist Bio
Harrison Ritchie-Jones is an independent artist based in Naarm (Melbourne). He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2014, and was awarded the Undergraduate Most Outstanding Creative Scholarship. In 2018 he was nominated for a Green Room Award for Best Male Performer for Stephanie Lake’s Pile of Bones, and premiered his work Shimmer of The Numinous as part of Next Wave’s Kickstart program. He has worked with numerous artists and dance companies across Australia and is currently touring nationally and internationally with Stephanie Lake’s Manifesto. In August 2023 he will perform in Chunky Move’s new major work 4/4.”Alex has worked as director, cinematographer and editor on many short form documentary and narrative pieces both in Australia and Europe. Although she focuses her work in the practice of documentary, she is passionate about all aspects of visual storytelling and works freely across the medium. She completed a Masters in Documentary Filmmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2022 where she was awarded the Orloff Family Charitable Trust Award for Excellence for her documentary film, ‘Above Water’. She is also a graduate of the European Film College in Denmark. Her short film 'Oliver' won both Best Animation and the Audience Choice Award at WIFT Australia V-Fest in 2021.Nicholas Roder is a Melbourne-born, Stockholm-based musician/composer/arranger with a passion for beautiful and moving music. Nick’s work includes creating music for screen, video games, dance, and his solo project Indigo. Nick has composed music for several video games including ‘This Dead Winter’, and ‘Roadwarden’, which was featured in ‘2022 game of the year’ lists published by The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Telegraph UK and PC Gamer. In 2022 Nick worked alongside singer-songwriters Ryan Downey, Darvid Thor and Jesse Glass to create string arrangements for their upcoming releases, all due in 2023. In 2020 Nick conceptualised and founded Indigo, a project that focuses on the deep sonic and musical exploration of little-heard ensembles. The first album ‘Part I’ was released by Melbourne label Music Company and features nine pieces for bass guitar and tenor saxophone.
DANCE (LENS)
Out of Line - curated by Feras Shaheen
A Kiss (2021)
A first kiss is never easy. A film featuring Mr Kriss.
Credits
Director: Jacob Sutton
Featuring: Mr Kriss & Regina Bakeeva
Window (2023)
Perspectives shift when lenses tilt. Playing with physical and metaphysical concepts of perspective, featuring spoken word from A.Girl, choreography by Sela Vai and score by Mo Aung.
‘Window’ was created as part of the Latitudes film series. Traversing movement, music, and art, Latitudes weaves together artistic commissions by artists from the underrepresented Western Sydney region in dynamic short films that explore themes central to the Western Sydney experience through objects in the Powerhouse Museum’s collection.
This film was created and filmed on Darug, D’harawal, Gadigal and Wiradjuri Country. The creators of this film acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land and their continuous connection to Country, community and storytelling. We pay respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Credits
Words: A.Girl
Music: Mo Aung Choreography by Sela Vai
Commissioned by Powerhouse
Director: VERSUS (Tanya Babic & Jason Sukadana)
Featuring: A.Girl Sela Vai
Thanks to our location partners: Blacktown City Council, Blacktown Netball Courts and Plantbank Mt Annan
Special thanks to: Panavision Australia, Ayeesha Ash, Campbell Bickerstaff, Damian McDonald, Stella Palmer and Ramona Telecican
Subversus is a creative studio dedicated to creating positive cultural subversions.
We’re idea led instigators, collaborators & multi-disciplinarians committed to presenting new voices and perspectives in our work.
You can find our work on screens of all sizes, in live experiences, on digital platforms, and sometimes within the spaces in between.
We make innovative stuff you want to see, hear and experience.
Goal (2023)
Roused by ambition, two men face the price of their prize. They race side by side and yet are mentally miles away. The game is not over, it’s a tie…
“The tie so sorrowful that you wear and that adorns you oh civilized one take it off if you wish to breathe” – Guillaume Apollinaire
Credits
Director: Bear Damen
Choreography: Mathilde Gilhet in collaboration with the performers
Featuring: Simon Bus and Roy Overdijk
A very special thanks to: Young Marco, Cinesupply, Het Raam, Jacqueline Bourgeas, Isabelle Bals
Complex Beats (2021)
Mr Kriss builds his own beats.
Credits
Director: Jacob Sutton
Featuring: Mr Kriss
Produced by Art Partner
Heavy (2022)
Set in a technicoloured retro-futuristic labyrinth, a woman is haunted by the memory of her ex-lover.
The song Heavy 沉重 is a poignant anthem of longing, departure, and closure. Through choreography, design and performance the clip explores a love past, and an intergalactic journey through memory and time. I also wanted to explore the concept of evolution and transformation after heartbreak.
Credits
Music: Rainbow Chan
Director: Anita Lee
Producers: Anita Lee and Michaela Le
Choreographer: Amy Zhang
Cast: Rainbow Chan, Sho Yoneya, Amy Zhang and Jennifer Poon
Banqiao Rooftop, Still Space (2023)
Body and ball on a green rooftop in Banqiao District, New Taipei.
Banqiao Rooftop, Still Space portrays the elusive interaction between body and ball in a liminal space. It is an explorative work attempting to capture paradoxical feelings of tensity and release, felt through movement on the green roof surface.
Filmed in New Taipei, in December 2022.
Credits
Directed and performed by: Julius Hulshof
Shot by: Sun Chingyen
Music and sound: Margo Proxy
Graphics and title design: Dias Aubakirov
Edit: Julius Hulshof
Louis Vuitton – Virgil Abloh Tribute (2021)
Credits
Director: Jacob Sutton
Coming Home (2022)
Coming Home is an intimate portrait of Freedom Dabka Group, a group of Palestinian-American performers who use the traditional Dabka dance as a means to connect to their community, their culture, and each other. Shot on 16mm under the unique constraints of 2020-21 featuring archive photography from The Palestinian Museum.
Credits
Written & Directed by: Naim Naif & Margot Bowman
Produced by: Meghan Doherty
Production Company: Portal NY
Music Director: Gisela Fullà Silvestre
Featuring archive photography from The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive