Research articles

Nothing feels more antithetical to the spirit of dance than Andy Warhol’s legendary mode of disengagement, his desire to remain uninvolved, unmoved, untouched, both emotionally and kinetically. But Warhol exerted a considerable influence on experimental dance during the 1960s—an influence especially visible in the work of the so-called post-modern choreographers who created their most innovative dances under the auspices of The Judson Dance Theatre. Conversely, Warhol himself was undoubtedly influenced (in ways that have yet to be widely acknowledged) by some of the work he is known to have seen at Judson, particularly the early dances of Yvonne Rainer. This paper will examines that reciprocal exchange of influence.

This paper is a discussion of one observer’s experience of the Choreolab held as part of the World Dance Alliance Global Summit in Brisbane, July 14–18. The Lab was a five-day intensive experience with choreographers Lloyd Newson and Boi Sakti mentoring a diverse group of choreographers and dancers. The report focuses on how the Lab’s goals for international exchange, cultural diversity, and professional development were enacted in the evolving structure of the Lab and in the movement created during the Lab. ‘Creative industries’ and ‘creative campus,’ two conceptions of how the arts are accounted for economically and within university curricula and special events offerings, are also discussed. These concepts are interrelated with the Lab, especially in considering the consequences of each for social and scholarly communities and for the arts within universities. The report concludes with a call for increased awareness of creative industries and creative campus initiatives and their impact on dance within universities and on issues of intellectual property.

This paper examines the dances and performance spaces created by classical Indian dance patrons and performers, who were moulded into the nationalist mode, premeditated by the bureaucrats and consequently fabricated by the traditional masters, i.e. the gurus. In the absence of an academic institution for dance studies, the non-performers, the bureaucrats and intelligentsia created dance scholars who ultimately furthered the nationalist idea of a glorified dance history. Odissi dance, post independence, reconstructed in its neo-classical avatar, by traditional master-performers, came to be practised mainly by urban women who later became the carriers of the dance form. The paper questions the resultant historiography and engages in a dialogue with the dancers to study the malleability of its boundaries, as established by the gurus and transmitted thence.

An engagement with performance is an experiential event. To have a lived experience within a performance construct infers that the experience is somehow ‘more live’. This paper situates the body of the audience member as a site of understanding and meaning making, and challenges the role of the traditional ‘passive’ presentation format and ensuing ethical considerations within that assertion. It looks at the relationships between audience experience and a series of creative tools that facilitate subtle shifts in this traditional dance paradigm. Along with the tools of audience agency, liminality, variations of site and proximity – tools that create engagement via physical interactions with the audience – can ‘performer authenticity’ also become a tool of connection with the audience? This paper looks at the overarching field of contemporary dance, with a primary focus on Western contemporary dance and the traditional dance paradigms prevalent in the construction and presentation of that form. It outlines the role of the experiential within this form and highlights established research and creation tools that encourage audience connection via audience interaction. It also looks at the role of the dancer within this construct, citing both current qualitative research into audience responses, as well as current theory and creative practice from an international field of artists creating work with the ‘authentic dancer’.

Dance artists and educators from the Asia-Pacific region, America, and Europe discuss how emerging digital technologies affect the role of dance in higher education. Topics include: the creation of long-distance choreographic exchanges, digital curation projects with artists exploring relationships between mediatised performance and site-responsive work, and the impact of distance learning on re-imagining the locations and characteristics of dance audiences. Discussion revolves around possibilities for the digital world’s affect on how, and what we teach; its capacity to transform the message, medium, and reception of dance; and its contribution to the development of higher education programs and artistic futures.

Tradition should be viewed objectively and re-evaluated. This paper explores contemporaneity of the creative arts from the point of view of a teacher-performer interested in the various functions of ‘dance’. It examines the system of classical dance training as it used to be and as it is now. Since tradition and the degree of talent are social constructs and are highly subjective, a re-examination of dance criticism becomes important. The economics, which underplay tradition and talent comes under scrutiny. This paper questions the various changes that plague the scene of classical dances in India in its global context.

Yukihiko Yoshida (PhD Candidate, Graduate School for Media and Governance, Keio University) began work on creating an interdisciplinary dance research network in Japan in 2000. Although the technology to which Yuki refers is now mostly obsolete, his story is interesting from an historical perspective.

Dr Kim Vincs (Deakin University, Melbourne) reports on her investigation into the reasons that dancers continue their practices and manage to sustain themselves in a bleak economic environment.

Dr Cheryl Stock (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane) talks about a collaborative site-specific project in 2002 which brought together ten independent artists to rekindle the unique experience of live performance—one that the virtual world simply cannot replicate.

Catherine Stevens and Renee Glass (MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney) describe their different methods and tools of analysis to investigate how the mind works when creating and/or watching dance or movement. Methods include a case study of choreographic cognition and development and application of a psychometric instrument called the Audience Response Tool.

Liz Schwaiger (PhD Candidate, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne) looks at an underfunded and underresourced Australian dance industry. She talks to dancers about how they perceive the term 'mature dancer' and about how we might creatively develop hybrid microcosms of opportunity in a culture which does not highly value dance.

Marianne Schultz (University of Auckland) talks informally and passionately about the ground-breaking company Phantom Limbs during the 1970s and 80s.

Sarah Rubidge PhD,(Senior Research Fellow, School of Visual and Performing Arts, University College Chichester) reflects on the practice-led research she did for her PhD in this keynote address, and how it led to a radical shift in her artistic practice—from live dance works to interactive installation works.

Dianne Reid (Dancehouse, Melbourne) writes poetically and fluently about her working processes and what dance means for her. As a dancer she reflects on the world through the instrument of her body. Her choreography is a montage of her other lives "public and private, past & present, actual & virtual, real & imagined, stage & screen, as live body and televisual body."

Dr Maggi Phillips (Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University Perth) examines the two ecologies of which human dance activity partakes within the frames of diversity, change and balance. Can environmental thinking shed any light on the problem of the sustainability of dance?

Screening for dance readiness is an accepted practice used to identify risk factors to injury and minimise “down time” from performance. The results can be used to design and implement programs to help directors, teachers and choreographers better understand possible physical limitations rather than perceive technical fault. Screening is not considered to be a strict filtering tool for acceptance into companies or dance schools but rather to gain a baseline profile of an individual and a good opportunity to introduce the dancer to healthcare providers. This paper aims to arm dance practitioners with practical, research-based strategies to apply in the realm of traditional teaching procedures.

Sarah Neville, (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane) talks about her choreographic project which was motivated by an attempt to understand some of her creative peers who were computer programmers. Her dance and technology research made her confront the fact that she is a choreographer whose work is deeply connected with, and influenced by, the digital age.

Shaun McLeod (Deakin University Melbourne) pays tribute to some of the people who have been vital to establishing and sustaining regular meetings for dance artists to practice improvisation as performance. He talks about the groups' activities and some of the values and artistic concerns that meld the disparate individuals and practices into a flexible but functioning community.

Professor Shirley McKechnie (Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne) talks about the disparities that divide and exclude relationships between artists and communities in daily dance experience in her keynote address. What connects the disciplines?; how do we articulate the relationships between dance practices, the audiences we hope to engage, and the supporters that we hope to influence?

Pauline Manley investigates eclecticism and variance in relation to personal practice, academic and public pedagogy and the Continuum performance model.