Lian Loke is a multi-disciplinary artist, educator and researcher, working across dance, durational and site-specific performance installation, costume, and interactive kinetic media and robotics. Her practice questions the role of the body in contemporary society, and how our notions of self are open to transformation through inter-cultural, inter-species and inter-media relations and rituals. Research interests include new movement languages and metamorphic embodiment practices informed by tactile, kinaesthetic interactions and imaginings with body extensions, objects, structures and spaces, and how to choreograph heterogeneous systems combining software, kinetic materials, and space for audience interaction. Lian has 15 years of training in the Japanese Bodyweather dance methodology with de Quincey Co since 2007. From 1998 to 2006, she trained under American choreographer and teacher Annetta Luce in somatic and shamanic dance practices, including Body-Mind Centering and Qigong.
Lian’s solo and group dance performances and performance installation work are primarily in non-traditional performance spaces, art galleries, museums, ARIs, disused buildings, public space and outdoor festivals. As a solo and ensemble dancer, she has performed with de Quincey Co (2013, 2014, 2017) and The Living Room Theatre (2015, 2017, 2018). Her performance installation includes Sydney Performance Contemporary, Carriageworks, Sydney (2015), Volcana Brainstorm, Koganecho Bazaar, Yokohama, Japan (2019) and SHErobots, TU Delft, The Netherlands (2024). She has been awarded Australia Council for the Arts funding for creative development and curation of multi-disciplinary interactive art and performance.
Experimental Choreographic Program Lab, 2024