REELDANCE PROGRAM
Sunrise at Midnight (2001)
Sunrise at Midnight is both a documentary portrait of Yumi Umiumare, a contemporary Japanese/Australian butoh dancer, and a Japanese Ghost story set in the Australian Desert. The film is inspired by an historic photograph of a troupe of Japanese female performers who toured outback towns at the turn of the century, and the tale of one such performer, Noriko, who wandered into the desert and never came back.
Credits
Writer/Director: Sean O’Brien
Choreography and Dance: Yumi Umiumare, Tony Yap
Producer: Sophie Jackson and Sean O'Brien
Camera: Simon Von Wolkenstein, Sean O'Brien
Editor: Nick Meyers
Set Design: Robert Herbert
Music: Satsuki Odamura and Anne Norman Electronic
Soundscape: Kazumichi Grime
Lead Artist Bios
Sean O'Brien: Sean O’Brien has been making films, producing radio documentaries, recording oral history interviews, and creating visual art, for many years. Key works include short films The Sapphire Room and Sunrise at Midnight; film documentary Two Thirds Sky – Artists in Desert Country; radio features Red Dust Travellers, Asia Overland and Do That Dance!; plus conducting numerous oral history interviews with key Australian creatives, and presenting exhibitions of his drawing and painting works.
Yumi Umiumare: Born in Hyogo, Japan, Yumi Umiumare is the only Butoh Dancer in Australia and the creator of original Butoh Cabaret works. Originally a member of the seminal Butoh Company DaiRakudakan in Tokyo, she came to Australia to perform at the Melbourne International Festival in 1991. Yumi has been creating and teaching her distinctive style of works for nearly 30 years, receiving critical acclaim and garnering her and her collaborators several Green Room Awards
Tony Yap: Born in Melaka, Malayasia, Tony Yap is an accomplished dancer and multidisciplinary artist who explores and creates an individual dance-theatre language informed by psychophysical research, Asian shamanistic trance dance, butoh and 'psycho-vocal' experimentations.
Catching and Killing (2006)
Inspired by the films of Swedish artists Gunilla Heilborn and Mårten Nilsson, this night escapade by a group of friends is punctured by dancing that is at once trancelike, then possessed.
Credits
Director: Squareyed Films (Sean Gilligan and Sarah-Jane Woulahan)
Music Artist: Youth Group
Choreographer: Jane McKernan
Performers: Lizzie Thomson, Brian Fuata, Hannah Gee-Claugh, Jacob Livermore and Chafia Brooks.
DOP: Tim McGahan ACS
Art Direction: Michelle Sotheren
Make-Up: Emma Louise
Hair: Chris Stewart
Label: EMI Music Australia
Lead Artist Bios
Sean Gilligan: Sean has directed over 40 music videos for many of Australia’s (and a few of NZ's) most acclaimed and iconic musicians including Missy Higgins, Silverchair, The Birds of Tokyo, Gin Wigmore, The Sleepy Jackson, The Living End, Kasey Chambers and Tim Finn. His music videos have racked up over 17 million views on YouTube. Sean’s films have won accolades and screened widely. His latest as writer/director, The Baby Whisperer, premiered at Screamfest LA in 2017 and Flickerfest in 2018 before hitting the festival circuit and screening internationally. His feature documentary Fantome Island, premiered at The Brisbane International Film Festival and won Best Australian Film at the Human Rights, Arts and Film Festival. It screens regularly on NITV and is frequently streamable via SBS On Demand.
Sarah-Jane Woulahan: Sarah-Jane Woulahan is a Melbourne-based writer and director whose work spans fiction, documentary, art and VR. Her shorts have screened at festivals internationally including SxSW and her Screen Australia funded sci-fi short A Terrible Beauty premiered at MIFF 2016, its feature incarnation Love is a Dream receiving development funding from Screen Australia Gender Matters initiative. Her most recent short drama, Objects of My Disaffection premiered at MIFF 2020, screening at numerous festivals and winning awards such as Best Film and Best on screen performance. Often working in the realm of dance and music film, she directed the half-hour fiction dance work Ward of State, directed music videos for Australian's most well known artists and created a feature length video art piece, Seven Stories, for VIVID Sydney. She’s represented for commercial work by Monster & Bear where she specialises in progressive content tackling political and social issues such as feminism, disability and mental health.
Jane McKernan: Jane is a choreographer and performer who lives and works on Gadigal land Sydney. She is a member of the collaborative dance trio The Fondue Set, with whom she has co-created six evening length works, including the Green Room Award winning, No Success Like Failure (2008). The Fondue Set presented work at Dance Massive, Sydney Festival, Melbourne International Festival, Sydney Opera House and Carriageworks among others. They have created work in collaboration with Wendy Houstoun (UK), Miguel Gutierrez (US), and Rosalind Crisp (AUS). Her own choreographic work includes Mass Movement (2014), Opening and Closing Ceremony (2012); One Thing Follows Another (2014), Double Act (2011) and Teacher Training (2019). Jane has worked with Wendy Houstoun, Gail Priest, Rosalind Crisp, Lizzie Thomson, Paul Gazzola and Agatha Gothe-Snape. From 2016 -19, Jane was lecturer at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. She is currently the Creative Producer at ReadyMade Works.
Nun's Night Out (2004/5)
An absurdist dance fantasy shot on Super 8, Nun’s Night Out follows a flock of nuns 'landed in the landscape’ in and around the historic village of Hill End. At the close of the day they make their way to the Royal Hall for a curious vaudeville show. Through surreal vignettes the veil of propriety is slowly removed to reveal dark currents of sensuality, ribaldry and untameable desire.
Credits
Director: Samuel James and Julie-Anne Long
Choreographer: Julie-Anne Long
Composer: Drew Crawford
Performers: Kathy Cogill, Martin del Amo, Julie-Anne Long, Rakini Devi, Michael Whaites, Bernadette Walong, Narelle Benjamin
Photographer: Heidrun Lohr
Lead Artist Bios
Samuel James: Samuel James is a filmmaker and projection designer living on Gundungarra and Dharug land, Blue Mountains. Since 1994 he has collaborated on more than 250 works with contemporary performance companies. His projection work is often seen in Australian Festivals, being born from developments with independent dancers and experimental companies. He has worked internationally in Europe, Canada and South Korea and regularly participates in international residencies (Norway, Czech Republic, Iceland, Finland, The Banff Centre, Calcutta, Berlin). He has an expanding animated archive and develops and presents this work mapped onto theatrical, urban and natural spaces. He completed an MFA on Digital Animism. In his video drawings, the act of mark making superimposed in virtual space is an unconscious response to spirit of place.
Julie-Anne Long: Julie-Anne Long is an award-winning dance artist based in Sydney. She works in a variety of dance contexts as dancer, choreographer, director, producer, mentor, dramaturg, curator and teacher. Julie-Anne has a significant solo practice, as well as a more communal, collaborative way of working with other like-minded artists, within the diversity of Australian contemporary performance. Julie-Anne is currently a Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts at Macquarie University.
Keep Walking (2007)
This video is in the tradition of the juxtaposed images that have been a hallmark of music videos since their inception. Local B-boys B*boy Red and B*boy Hideboo perform alongside children, animals, skipping athletes, tacky music producers and the director himself.
Credits
Director: Justin Kurzel
Music: Mess Hall
Choreographer and performers: B*boy Red and B*boy Hideboo
Label: EMI Music Australia
Lead Artist Bio
Justin Kurzel: Justin’s background as one of Australia’s best theatrical designers informs his strong visual storytelling as a director. Justin’s first feature film SNOWTOWN premiered at Adelaide Film Festival in 2011, winning the Audience Award. Justin was awarded Best Director at the AACTA Awards and the film screened at numerous international festivals including Toronto in 2011 and International Critics Week Cannes in 2012, where it was awarded Special Distinction of the President.
Justin’s other films include MACBETH starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard for See-Saw Films which premiered In Competition at Cannes Film Festival in 2015; an adaptation of Peter Carey’s novel THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG produced by Daybreak Pictures and Porchlight Films, starring George McKay, Russell Crowe and Essie Davis which premiered in Gala Section Toronto International Film Festival in 2019.
River Woman (2005)
River Woman is an evocative dance film devised for television inspired by the rainbow serpent mythology, featuring a unique collaboration between Australian choreographer Bernadette Walong and award winning dance film-maker Michelle Mahrer. Bernadette Walong personifies the spirit of the serpent who emerges from primordial nothingness birthing life. Textured images of the Australian landscape are layered with the choreography using contemporary digital composting techniques to create an evocative mythical world, visually capturing the living interconnection of land, spirit, body and myth. Walong’s organic forms interwoven with Australian landscape images captures the beauty and sensuality of the human form in movement.
Credits
Director: Michelle Mahrer
Cinematographer: Cordelia Beresford and Michelle Mahrer
Performers: Bernadette Walong, Narelle Benjamin, Brett Daffy and Kristina Chan
Lead Artist Bios
Michelle Mahrer: Michelle Mahrer is a 5Rhythms dance teacher, Dance Movement Therapist and award winning film maker based in Sydney. She is a pioneer of Conscious Dance in Australia and facilitates classes and workshops that work with dance as a tool for healing and transformation. She has had an extensive international career creating numerous award winning documentaries and short films about dance working with several leading Australia choreographers including Stephen Page, Meryl Tankard & Gideon Obarzanek. Her most well known films include “Urban Clan” a portrait of the Bangarra Dance Theatre, and the cult classic “Dances of Ecstasy” a sensory journey into the world of trance and ecstasy experienced through dance and rhythm. www.michellemahrer.com
Bernadette Walong: Bernadette was a former Assistant Artistic Director (1994), Choreographer, and Dance Artist with Bangarra Dance Theatre where she co-created the highly acclaimed, seminal work Ochres (1995). Bernadette has decades of experience as a Performer, Choreographer, Educator and Consultant in remote, regional and urban Australia, as well as in Europe, Israel, the United States, South America, Asia, the Pacific, and West Africa. Beyond dance she’s worked in theatre, education, commercials and film, and lectured in Performance at University of Western Sydney from 1999-2007.
Potsdamer (2000)
A single take performance in a Berlin U-Bahn underpass by Martin del Amo inspired by the ongoing construction work at Potsdamer Platz. Choreographically, del Amo experimented with a strategy he calls ‘physical fragmentation’ – the body is divided into separate body zones, each of which is choreographed individually, independently from each other.
Credits
Video: Samuel James
Choreography and performance: Martin del Amo
Lead Artist Bios
Samuel James: Samuel James is a filmmaker and projection designer living on Gundungarra and Dharug land, Blue Mountains. Since 1994 he has collaborated on more than 250 works with contemporary performance companies. His projection work is often seen in Australian Festivals, being born from developments with independent dancers and experimental companies. He has worked internationally in Europe, Canada and South Korea and regularly participates in international residencies (Norway, Czech Republic, Iceland, Finland, The Banff Centre, Calcutta, Berlin). He has an expanding animated archive and develops and presents this work mapped onto theatrical, urban and natural spaces. He completed an MFA on Digital Animism. In his video drawings, the act of mark making superimposed in virtual space is an unconscious response to spirit of place.
Martin del Amo: Martin is a Sydney-based choreographer and dancer with more than 25 years of professional experience. He started out as solo artist, acclaimed for his full-length solos fusing idiosyncratic movement and intimate storytelling. Over the last decade, Martin has also built a strong reputation as creator of group works and solos for others. Programmed by all major presenters in NSW, including Sydney Opera House and Carriageworks, his work has toured nationally in Australia and internationally to the UK, Japan and Brazil. Martin regularly teaches for a wide range of arts organisations and companies, and has extensively worked as mentor, dramaturg, movement consultant and dance writer. His contributions to the Australian arts sector have been recognised with the prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship (2015) and the Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance (2018).
Arachne (2002)
The story of an idyllic love affair interrupted in the most disturbing way.
'The spider teaches you to maintain a balance -
between the past and the future, physical and spiritual,
male and female. The spider is the guardian of
the ancient languages and alphabets.’
Credits
Director: Matthew Bergan and Narelle Benjamin
Choreographer: Narelle Benjamin and Brett Daffy
Composer: Huey Benjamin
Performers: Narelle Benjamin, Brett Daffy, Russell Page
Sound designer: Huey Benjamin
Lead Artist Bios
Matthew Bergan: Mathew Bergan has a background in contemporary dance and performance. He brought his dance skills to film in the 1990’s choreographing and directing dance on screen including, Resonance, Body Corporate, Nice Feet, The Father Is Sleeping. Today Mathew is a writer and producer working on a dance documentary about the British artist Lindsay Kemp. He is also an embodied councillor and presently completing a post grad in Gestalt psychotherapy.
Narelle Benjamin: Narelle Benjamin has danced and choreographed with many Australian companies and independent artists over the years. Narelle received the Australia Council Dance Fellowship for 2014-2015. Her full length works, In Glass, Hiding In Plain Sight, and Cella were awarded Australian Dance Awards, as well as Best Female dancer in Cella.
The Fondue Set Presents the Lorraie Desmond Show (2006)
The Fondue Set presents ‘The Lorrae Desmond Show’ is based on the footage of the original show seen on ABC TV. This work was commissioned by the Campbelltown Arts Centre as part of the ABC Television’s 50th Anniversary Project. Our aim was to recreate and treat the exact movements performed by Lorrae Desmond in the original by giving them a slight distortion and twist, with a nod to the nuances and play surrounding the medium of “live television” during that special time in television history.
Credits
Director: Shane Carn
Choreographers and performers: Elizabeth Ryan, Jane McKernan, Emma Saunders
Cinematographer and editor: Shane Carn
Producers: Elizabeth Ryan, Jane McKernan, Emma Saunders
Composer: Al Franks and Nan Whitcomb
Lead Artist Bio
The Fondue Set: The Fondue Set (Elizabeth Ryan, Emma Saunders and Jane McKernan) are legends of the Sydney performance scene, making work together as a collective since their first show at the Hopetoun Hotel in 2001. Over the last 20 years, they have made works that consistently push the boundaries of dance as a genre, utilising humour; engagement with the audience; and highlighting the mistakes and the in-betweens of movement, while developing a distinct dance language towards an ‘awkward’; body (a language that is in dialogue with the presented, refined body of much contemporary dance).The Fondue Set have performed their work at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Sydney Festival First Night, The Sydney Opera House, Dance Massive, Carriageworks, Performance Space, Artshouse, Dancehouse, Campbelltown Arts Centre among others and have toured to Europe and Japan. They have worked with choreographers Miguel Gutierrez (US), Wendy Houstoun (UK), Paul Gazzola and Rosalind Crisp. Their work, No Success Like Failure, won a Green Room award in 2009.
Shadow Play (2007)
When the magical play world of a young girl is interrupted by her parents' conflict, she tries to pull them back together. Told through dance, Shadow Play is a film about the moment when we see our parents as humans. Shadowplay was adapted from an original dance performance choreographed by Rowan Marchingo and premiered at the Belvoir Downstairs Theatre.
Credits
Director: Madeleine Hetherton
Choreographer: Rowan Marchingo
Producer: Linda Micsko
Composer: Caitlin Yeo
Performers: Rinniya Johnson-Page, Kirk Page and Alexandra Harrison
Lead Artist Bios
Rowan Marchingo: Rowan Marchingo was a member of Australian physical theatre company Legs On The Wall from 1999-2009, performing in many of their landmark productions including Homeland, Clearance, Runner’s Up, Eora Crossing, Flying Blind, Four on the Floor, On the Case, and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony. His other credits during that time include movement direction for award-winning productions Snow On Mars (Theatre of Image) and When the Rain Stops Falling (Brink Productions), Assistant Director for Baghdad Wedding (Company B Belvoir), plus numerous other theatre, film, festival and commercial projects. From 2010-2015 he worked as a programmer and director of public events across Australia. Highlights include directing Sydney New Year’s Eve 2015 at the Sydney Opera House and directing the Australia Day 2010 Evening Spectacular in Darling Harbour. In 2016, Rowan switched his focus to working as a director and creative producer of brand experiences. He is currently Head of Content for GPJ Australia, where he leads a creative team of video, film, broadcast, digital, social and live experience specialists across a wide variety of regional and global content-driven campaigns.
Linda Mickso: Linda Micsko is an AACTA Award winning producer. She produced series two of the critically acclaimed comedy series The Letdown for ABC and Netflix, the Matchbox Pictures / ABC comedy series Maximum Choppage, the ABC comedy series Laid, and the ABC ‘Fresh Blood’ TV Pilot The Record. Linda’s accolades include winning the Crystal Bear for Best Short Film at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival. Linda’s feature film project The Sound of Light was one of nine international projects selected worldwide for the 2019 Venice International Film Festival’s Biennale College Cinema program. During her nine years at Porchlight Films, Linda worked on films such as Lore, Animal Kingdom, Dead Europe, The Hunter, Prime Mover, The Home Song Stories, Jewboy and Little Fish in roles varying from Associate or Co-Producer, to Executive in Charge of Production. Linda is currently producing The Office for Bunya / BBC / Amazon.
Madeleine Hetherton-Miau: Madeleine Hetherton-Miau is a multi-awarded director and producer. Inspired by the adage ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ her documentary filmmaking has taken her from diamond diving in Africa to wildlife trafficking in Burma and through the remote Australian outback. In 2012 she co- founded the independent production company Media Stockade with Rebecca Barry. She is a key creative on films and programs that captivate and surprise audiences the world over, screening on National Geographic, Netflix, ABC, BBC, Discovery, Hulu, Al Jazeera and more. Recent work includes the award-winning 8-part series ‘The Surgery Ship’ for National Geographic Channel, the true crime series ‘Debi Marshall Investigates: The Family Court Murders’ for ABC and ‘Back to Nature’. She is currently directing the feature documentary 'Mozart's Sister' for Sky Arts UK and PBS and Australian theatrical release in 2024. www.mediastockade.com Full credits at IMDB.
Niche (2002)
A dance-film that inhabits an intimate place – the edge, surface and the space in between.
Credits
Creator: Sue Healey
Composer: Darrin Verhagen
Performer: Shona Erskine
Director of Photography: Mark Pugh
Super 8 film projections: Louise Curham
Editor: Sam James
Lead Artist Bio
Sue Healey: Sue Healey is a Sydney-based choreographer, educator, filmmaker and installation artist. She was awarded the prestigious Australia Council Award for Dance in 2021. Her film Eileen won the prestigious Opus Klassik in Berlin (Best Music Video) in 2023. Sue was a 2021 and 2019 Fishers Ghost Award Finalist, 65th Blake prize finalist 2018, Digital Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery Australia 2017 finalist (portrait of Eileen Kramer). She created 2 major public art commissions in 2017; En Route for Wynscreen and City as Portrait Gallery exhibited at the Customshouse, Sydney. She has won 6 Australian Dance Awards for Dance on Film/New Media and for Independent Dance and 2 Hong Kong Dance Awards for On View: Hong Kong (Best Visual Design 2017) and On View: Panoramic Suite 2021.
I Dream of Augustine (2005)
A woman keeps performing for an imaginary audience, her body displaying increasing distress while her mind is elsewhere. A screen-dance work that explores themes of voyeurism and control through the male gaze, inspired by photographs of the ‘hysterical’ patient Augustine taken at the Salpetriere hospital, Paris in the 1880s.
Credits
Devised and Directed by: Cordelia Beresford,
Choreographer and performer: Narelle Benjamin
Camera: Cordelia Beresford
Editor: Sally Fryer
Costume designer: Justine Seymour
Sound: Andrew Plain
Music: Hugh Benjamin
Producers: Cordelia Beresford, Joe Weatherstone
Lead Artist Bios
Cordelia Beresford: Cordelia Beresford is a photo-media artist whose work explores female introspection, psychological disturbance and representations of women on camera. She devises experimental narrative techniques using choreographed movement and cinematic aesthetics, and has collaborated with celebrated contemporary dance artists in Australia and the UK. She has extensive experience as a cinematographer shooting on film & digital video across drama and documentary. Her screen-based artwork has exhibited at the ACMI, Performance Space, Carriageworks, Flowers Gallery UK, & at numerous international festivals. Her work has won: 2 Dendy Awards at Sydney Film festival; nominations for the AFI Awards; Best Film or TV work at the Australian National Dance Awards (twice); & First Prize at ReelDance Festival of Australian & New Zealand Dance- Screen works and ACS Awards. The work has been supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, Screen Australia, the NSW Film & TV Fund, UK Arts Council, City of Sydney Museums, and screened on ABC Australia, SBS, and Channel 4 UK. Cordelia is currently teaching at Sydney College of the Arts.
Narelle Benjamin: Narelle has been a modern dancer since 1985. Her company credits include Dark Swan, One Extra Dance Company, Chrissie Parrot Dance Collective, Chunky Move, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Australian Dance Theatre. and has also worked with various other Australian and international choreographers. She has won The Age Best Dance Performer of the Year1994, and has been nominated for three Green Room Awards, a Mo Award, and an Australian Dance Award: all for Dance Performer of the year. Narelle choreographed and performed in Cordelia Beresford’s award winning short film Restoration (Dendy Short Film Prize, Sydney Film Festival 2000, Best Film Australian Dance Awards in 2000.) She then went on to choreograph, perform in and co direct Arachne (second prize Reel Dance Awards) in 2002. On a Wing and a Prayer is Narelle’s latest film which she directed, choreographed and performed. On A Wing And A Prayer has screened as part of the 2003 Melbourne International Arts Festival, and was nominated for best film at the 2003 Australian Dance Awards.
Girls Like That (1999)
Students from Newtown Performing Arts High School feature in this deceptively simple video staged in an inner-west laneway with low-fi visual highlights such as balloons, sparklers and lowrider bicycle, topped off with a choreographed chorus.
Credits
Directors: Andrew Lancaster & David McCormack
Music: Custard
Choreographer: Lisa Ffrench
Dancers: Newtown Performing Arts High School students
Producer: Vincent Sheehan
Cinematographer: Max Davis
Editor: Roland Gallois
Lead Artist Bio
Andrew Lancaster:
Andrew Lancaster is an award-winning Australian director and composer. He combines cinematic vision and natural performances with music, sound, choreography and rhythm. His first film, Accidents Happen, starred Geena Davis and premiered at the Tribecca Film Festival in 2009. It won awards at festivals in Giffoni, Stiges and the Netherlands. He also directed The Lost Aviator, a film about his great uncle, a pioneering aviator who disappeared mysteriously. The film was screened at the BFI London Film Festival and the Miami IFF. He directed Joud, a cinematic journey through Arabia with a live score by the London Contemporary Orchestra. His film scores include The Hunter and recently Inshallah a Boy, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival this year. He also won the Aria Award for Best Australian Music Video in 1999 for Girls Like That.