Delegates' background and work interests
Anja Ali-Haapala
Anja is a dance researcher, artist and teacher based in Brisbane. After completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) at Queensland University of Technology in 2010 Anja commenced her research pathway through an Honours project which was awarded First Class Honours in 2011. She is currently completing her PhD in the field of Dance Audience Reception. Her topic explores new audience relationships that emerge through open rehearsal experiences.
Dance audiences and the creative process: In her research Anja is exploring audience relationships with choreographers, dancers and dancework in the context of open working rehearsals, as well as subsequent performances. Focusing on non-expert audience members, she is investigating the experience within the rehearsal space and how exposure to the artistic process might shape the theatrical experience for this audience. With the cooperation of Sydney Dance Company and The Australian Ballet, a new open rehearsal model was trialled in mainstream industry environments in 2013.
Tiina Alinen
Tiina Alinen was born on Kalkadoon country in the mining town of Mt Isa and is of Finnish cultural heritage.Tiina has enjoyed a diverse career as a performance maker, dancer, teacher, producer and arts manager with Australian and international dance companies, festivals and community arts projects. During her thirty-year career, she has created over 40 new works and is a passionate advocate for the independent arts sector. From 2011–13, she held the position of CEO with BlakDance Australia Limited and continued to create new work as an independent artist. In 2014 Tiina return to her artistic practice in performance making, project collaborations as well as arts management on a consultancy basis.
Intercultural dance: exploring a Finnish migrant connection with Indigenous cultures through dance: In June of 2013, Tiina was awarded a Master of Arts Research from QUT. This research is a dance-based, autoethnographic study which explores Tiina's connection with land as a Savolainen woman born on Kalkadoon country; an Australian-born Finn. Edward Relph states “the more profoundly inside a place the person feels, the stronger will be his or her identity with that place” (1976, 49). Tiina is interested in how a sense of ‘place identity’ has informed her choreographic practice. Autoethnography is important because it places the research within a lived experience: an insider account of a lived experience within the White Australia Policy as a first generation Australian-born Finn. It also speaks to the space in-between for those, like Tiina, who feel they do not fit into mainstream identity but look like they do.
Carol Brown
A choreographer, performer and teacher, Carol is currently artistic director for Movement Architecture Productions (MAP) a performance research collaboration, director of Choreographic Research Aotearoa and Associate Professor in Dance Studies at the University of Auckland. Her practice takes place at the intersections between movement, architecture and performance and includes solos, group works for theatre, performance installations and site-responsive works. Committed to creative collaborations, she fosters work that is experimental and evolves through intense dialogue and research with other art forms and media in particular architecture, music and media design.
Creative collaborations: One of the deepest human yearnings is a desire to know, to understand. At the same time, we are a mobile species. On the move, we come to know through movement. These two tendencies—a desire to know and a desire to move—underscore creative practice, choreography as research and our ability to adapt within an evolving world. Over the last twenty years, Carol has negotiated thresholds between institutional and ex-situational spaces for choreographic research as a means to pursue her artistic drives. She is interested in further discussion about some of the values and geopolitical issues of performance research taking place on both sides of the Tasman.
Clare Dyson
Clare creates collaborative dance, theatre, film and site-specific performances in Australia, Europe and America. She has published research on dance, written a reference book on Australian dance, presented at conferences and has recently completed her PhD on audience engagement with contemporary dance. Clare has been the Artist-In-Resident at prestigious venues in the US, Berlin, Paris and Brisbane. She has received fellowships and awards including an Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance in 2006. She is currently working at QUT.
Performing the unutterable: mapping the experiential in contemporary dance: Clare's research questions how a ‘lived experience’ of contemporary dance could be deepened, engaging audiences in a variety of experiential ways. It situates the body of the audience member as a site of understanding and meaning-making and challenges the traditional presentation paradigm of Western contemporary dance. This research considers audience within the artists’ creative process from the inception of a creative work, rather than after the work has been created and presents a series of creative, analytical and experiential ‘tools’ that challenge the dominant modes of creation, presentation and meaning-making in contemporary dance.
Helen Herbertson
A highly experienced arts practitioner, Helen has worked across many facets of the arts profession including significant periods as choreographer, performer, artistic director, independent producer, project manager, teacher, mentor, board member and artistic advisor. She has been crafting dance performance for over three decades, regularly presenting in Australian and international festivals, and is consistently active in the development of Australian dance, dancers and choreographers through her many leadership and advisory roles. Helen holds a MA from Victoria University (2003 Professional Achievement Award) and a Graduate Diploma in Information Management (Archives) at Monash University including practicum work at the Performing Arts Museum and the Melbourne University Archive (1998).
Choreography and performance: Helen's research sits firmly in choreography and performance, a sustained investigation of “what it is to be human”. It focuses on the dynamic flow between people and place—the interaction of body and landscape or situation—interior life with light, form, place —person and place. The approach fuses an expressive, physical language with a detailed exploration of the performance site, emphasising the integration of lighting and design while working collaboratively, from inception with performers and creative teams. The constant has been an insistent, absorbing need to find ways to work with a most exquisite form of communication—poetic, alive, subtle, human-sized, real, illusive, devilish—so powerful in making connection.
igloo
Based in London, Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli work together as igloo. Bruno graduated from Central Saint Martins with a first class degree in graphic art before setting up a multimedia platform for interactive design. He has since worked with artist John Latham, muf 1 architects and co-curated Wired Worlds a computer games exhibition at the National Media Museum, Bradford. Bruno is a recipient of a Wingate Scholarship through which he continues his research into technologies to abstract the human body, its movement, and its senses. Martelli develops serious games projects involving architectural modeling and works on sensory installations for special needs children.
Ruth graduated from University of Kent Canterbury with a BA (Hons) in Performing Arts. She studied with the Marcel Marceau Group whilst on a scholarship at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti USA. She continued her education at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. Nominated for a Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Art in 2000, she has worked with many artists including Sandra Fisher, Gary Rowe, Leonard McComb RA and Gaby Agis. Gibson is an Arts & Humanities Research Council fellow in the Creative & Performing Arts at Coventry University's School of Art & Design researching avatar and environment design in relation to her dance and motioncapture practice.
Together, their practice examines figure and landscape and the relationship between natural and artificial, transposing sites to create ambiguous topographies. They create environments, installations and performances using a wide variety of media including print, video, and computer games. Their first work together won them a BAFTA nomination and their work has featured in numerous exhibitions and festivals including the 52nd Venice Biennale. Ruth & Bruno were artists in residence at Deakin Motion Lab in 2012.
Technology, design, science and movement: Ruth and Bruno use animation tools and digital methods to explore and realise unique approaches for developing real-time screen based works. They explore new territories in science and new display technologies, paying specific attention paid to the modification that nature undergoes as technology develops. The exploration of the interface between motion capture technology & movement practices invokes questions about the relationship between motion capture/movement tracking and the dancing body. The sensing body can interact with motion capture and help researchers and dancers to understand more about how immersive environments affect user, viewer engagement, ultimately enhancing kinaesthetic awareness and engagement. Ruth and Bruno are also interested in the creation of serious games projects and interactive environments for a wide range of users. They make creative virtual worlds and interactive experiences using a range of technologies including computer
Avril Huddy
Avril’s diverse dance career comprises performing and producing dance work, establishing and curating independent performance venues, tour management, and teaching. She has taught dance technique, creative movement, Pilates and Feldenkrais for community groups, amateur dance groups and professional dance organisations. She has taught across the three tiers of the Australian education system, writing and implementing curriculum, designing and leading workshops for dance students, dance teacher in-services and professional development opportunities for dance teachers, dance educators and community arts workers. Avril is a STOTT Pilates instructor and Feldenkrais Practitioner. She is currently a Lecturer in Dance at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Her approach to dance pedagogy and curriculum incorporates her extensive theoretical and embodied knowledge with her professional dance experience. Avril received a 2009 Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.
Exchange and integration of current ideas, trends and practices: Through her work at QUT, Avril helps to facilitate the exchange and integration of current ideas, trends and practices, which enhances her teaching, performance work and research. Her particular areas of interest are:
- Tertiary dance teaching/training and dancer teacher education; the teaching artist; authentic learning experiences within tertiary dance
- Health, ageing and wellbeing
- The dancers voice; Facilitating creativity: illuminating the information exchange between choreographers and dancers (Masters thesis)
Steph Hutchison
A choreographer, performer and teaching artist, Steph’s current practice is informed by the collaborative and artistic potential of contemporary dance, improvisation and circus arts. She has presented her own work in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, and created commissioned works for Arts Centre Melbourne, fLiNG Physical Theatre and Little Devils Circus. Steph has had the privilege to work with cinematographer Claudia Maharaj, Simone Litchfield, Megan Beckwith, Kim Vincs, Stephen Sewell and Kathryn O’Keeffe (as Inverted Dance Theatre). She recently completed her MA by Research Work: a Poetics of Endurance within the Viscous Solo at Deakin University.
Limits, hybridity and endurance: What are the limits of the body, self, physicality, endurance and performance in solo work? While hybridity might be viewed as a negative construct, this project imagined hybridity filled with possibility and potentiality that in turn brought to the surface a new kind of viscous physicality. Work takes an idea of baselines from Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and imagines this concept as training–practices (running, tumbling, climbing or aerials everything at once improvisation and contemporary dance) and performance-practice (everything at once extended improvisation which sought to work with the body as science experiment for what was possible physically, mentally and psychically in endurance contexts) and performance.
Janet Karin
A former principal dancer with The Australian Ballet, Janet devised a system of training and dance education that produced many leading dancers, directors, choreographers and teachers. She has worked extensively in arts development, serving on the Australia Council Dance Committee and the ACT Cultural Council as well as being involved in a range of Ausdance initiatives. As Kinetic Educator at The Australian Ballet School, Janet uses imagery and proprioceptive feedback to enhance performance. She is a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia and is currently President of IADMS.
The brain, the body and dancing: Janet is interested in understanding and refining the way dancers move. This encompasses the neuromotor system, the use of somatic theory and imagery in ballet training, and injury risk factors during adolescence. Her recent research includes imagery and performance enhancement; stability and variability in movement control; and currently a 3-year series of studies on changing risk factors during adolescence, including lower leg kinematics, proprioceptive feedback, muscle activation in arabesque, and relative skeletal proportions. Research partners include leading researchers from Queensland University, Trinity Laban, London, Australian Catholic University and Victoria, Deakin, Notre Dame and Tel Aviv Universities.
Sela Kiek-Callan
Sela first began working as a dancer, teacher & choreographer after graduating from WAAPA. In 1996 she moved to the UK where she performed with Green Candle Dance Company, Kantikoy and Lisa Torun and Dancers. She worked as a lecturer in dance at Coventry University (19972004) and has a Master of Philosophy in site-specific performance. Since returning to Australia in 2004 Sela has choreographed and/or performed for various Dancehouse seasons, the St Kilda Festival, the Australian Youth Dance Festival, for Quantum Leap Youth Dance Company in Canberra and for students at the VCA Secondary School. Sela has been a sessional lecturer on the dance degree programs at both VCA and Deakin University, and has completed a practice-based PhD in dance through Deakin (2011).
Sensory and affective relations with the built environment: In her PhD Sela explores the layers of perceptions experienced by dancers when using the Burwood campus at Deakin University. She used the sensory and affective experience of the campus to identify and articulate a range of movement factors which were used to develop a shared group compositional language for the dancers in the studio. This study drew on the work of architects, artists and philosophers interested in documenting and analysing our sensory and affective relations with the built environment. Sela examined dancers’ bodily apprehension and use of architecture in order to discover how we understand and attune to the built environment. The dancers’ perceptions revealed insight into the experience of weight, balance and rhythm in our perception and use of architecture that open up ideas for architectural imagination and dance practice.
John McCormick
John teaches motion capture and dance at Deakin University and is recognised as one of the pioneers of new media dance, motion capture and telematic performance. He was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship in 2007 – 08 for real-time motion capture and networked performance. John was a founding member of Company In Space, and Dancehouse, Melbourne. He was awarded an MA in Animation and Interactive Media from RMIT University. Along with Adam Nash he founded Squaretangle, developing and presenting work at Hidden Cove, Arts Electronica and Neutral Ground.
Computer-based gesture recognition: John's research aims to develop a new approach to computer-based gesture recognition that extracts behavioural parameters from complex human movement.
Vanessa Mafé-Keane
Brisbane independent choreographer, Vanessa Mafé-Keane graduated from Stuttgart Ballet School in Germany and danced with the Queensland Ballet. She spent the next 10 years in Geneva, where she danced with Le Ballet du Grand Theatre, touring regularly throughout Europe, later becoming a freelance artist with Vertical Danse-Compagnie Noemi Lapzeson and co-founding member of an experimental performance group Co M-S-K. Returning to Brisbane, Vanessa obtained her MFA (QUT) and has recently commenced her PhD also at QUT. Vanessa regularly teaches at QUT and continues to choreograph works that explore collaborations between movement, video, installation and sound.
Choreographic processes and models: Within the current cultural climate, Vanessa has observed independent choreographers’ struggle to pursue and establish their artistic career outside the infrastructure of mainstream dance companies. Consequently the focus of my dance research in both performance-based and dance research is related to clarifying the tacit understandings in embodied dance practices to explore the collaborative and interdisciplinary potential within the choreographic process as well as the development of new choreographic processes and models. She is currently enrolled in a practice-led PhD at QUT called, Telling Bodies, Mapping Knowledge: Recontextualising the dancer’s corporeality using a modular choreographic model.
Pauline Manley
Pauline's dancing history is one that has always sought new ground, so her techniques are based in formal eclecticism and range from yoga to swing to improvisation. After a lifetime in avant-garde dance and performance she completed her undergraduate dance degree at UWS in the 1990s and then a PhD at Sydney University Centre for Performance Studies. It was there she really fell in love with phenomenology.
What does it mean to make dance philosophical? How can phenomenology provide a framework for improvisation, academic dance, creative writing, studio research, personal practice and the witness of others? Pauline's doctoral thesis sought to investigate the nature of the dancing consciousness, welding dance practice and phenomenology. She irecently edited a collected volume on dance film: Dancefilm: Movies, Moves and Music.
Jeff Meiners
Jeff is Chair of Arts SA’s Independent makers and presenters peer assessment panel (performing arts) and lecturer in dance education and community dance at the University of SA. He has taught dance to people of all ages and abilities, and runs programs to support development through dance in both in Britain and Australia. Jeff has written for the NSW Board of Studies, BBC Radio's Dance Education workshops and contributed to many dance and drama education texts. Jeff is a world leader in dance education and has represented Ausdance at many dance and arts education conferences.
Construction and realisation of an inclusive dance curriculum in all primary schools: The study includes inter-related projects: a geneaology tracing influences upon the new dance curriculum for all young Australians, Critical Discourse Analysis focusing on my dance writing for ACARA’s Arts Shape paper and a case study capturing pre-service teachers’ experiences. The research design supports an auto-ethnographic investigation with theoretical approaches informed by the work of Foucault and Bourdieu. The research aims to provide insights into power mechanisms operating on the new dance curriculum.
Dafna Merom
Dafna is a public health researcher who combines her epidemiological expertise with her undergraduate studies in exercise science, dance and education disciplines. She danced in the Rubin Academy, Jerusalem for four years (ballet, modern dance and chorography). Dafna emigrated to Australia in 2000, completed her PhD at Uni in New South Wales University (2007) and was awarded the NHMRC Post doc Fellowship (2009-2012) in the University of Sydney. Her public health research spans over 15 years. She was recently joined the University of Western Sydney as A/Professor of Physical Activity and Health and holds an Honorary Associate position in the School of Public Health, University of Sydney.
Health benefits of active lifestyles: Dafna’s research focus is devoted to improving the knowledge-base on the health benefits of active lifestyle, physical activity measurement and surveillance and the evaluation of population based initiatives to promote physical activity utilising environmental and media-based approaches. Her current special interest is to determine whether the health benefits of active lifestyle in old age is greater when engaging in multi-dimensional motor skills versus functional uni-dimensional physical activities such as walking, gardening or swimming. Dance is a complex motor skill that involves physical, mental and social dimensions simultaneously. It may elicit substantial neuromuscular and cognitive benefits that have the potential to protect older adults from falls and cognitive declines through improved balance, coordination, reaction time, attention concentration and memory.
Tracie Mitchell
Tracie is a choreographer, filmmaker, dance advocate, producer and educator. Her artwork has been presented worldwide and celebrated for its unique fusion of dance and the camera. Her titles have screened at leading festivals including IMZ in Cologne, Monaco and Brighton and Dance on Camera New York. She was director of Dance Lumiere Australia’s first dance screen festival and director of ReelDance Inc. 2008–2010. She is a sought after teacher and has led masterclasses and workshops throughout Australia. In 2012 she completed her PhD Moving Pictures: Dance screen making as a Choreographic Practice.
Sandra Parker
Dr Parker is a director, choreographer and researcher based in Melbourne. She is an Australia Council Dance Board Fellow and in 2001 received the accolade of an Australian Government Centenary Medal for Services to Australian Society and Dance. Her work has been supported by numerous grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria, the City of Melbourne, the City of Port Phillip, the Australia China Council and the Besen Family Foundation. Sandra holds a BEd, an MA and a PhD from the University of Melbourne.
Embodiment, perception & choreographic strategies: My PhD research focused on the notion of trace and choreographic practice. Current research interests include embodiment, perception, choreographic strategies and the audience/performer relationship. Through my Australia Council for the Arts Dance Board Fellowship, during 2012 and 2013/14, I am engaged in the research and development of a series of installation works focusing on the auditory, visual and embodied engagement between the audience and the performer.
Rachel Pedro
Rachel teaches undergraduate theory units and practical classes in music theatre and Latin American dance styles at Queensland University of Technology. Her postgraduate supervisions have focused on the professional/educational interface in the choreographic process, new media choreography, event management for dance, and receptive participation at Brisbane-based contemporary dance performances. Also a Latin dance instructor, Rachel has worked extensively at Rio Rhythmics Latin Dance Academy in Brisbane, where she was instrumental in structuring a teaching program that served approximately 1000 students.
Globalisation and Brazilian dance styles in Australia: Rachel is currently undertaking a PhD about globalisation and the development of the Brazilian dance style samba de gafieira in Australia. The purpose of the PhD is to demonstrate how globalisation has changed the way in which samba de gafieira has been translated into the Australian context since the 1940s. More specifically, the research focuses on the changing politics of the hybridising process that occurs when a dance style is translated into a new culture, using two case studies: Rio Rhythmics Latin Dance Academy in Brisbane and an academy in Brazil. Her research has included the psychology-based study of achievement-goal orientations in participants of recreational Latin dance classes.
Maggi Phillips
Maggi is an Associate Professor and the coordinator of Research and Creative Practice at the WAAPA, a position that enables daily access to the integration of artistic innovation and research. Together with Associate Professor colleagues, Cheryl Stock and Kim Vincs, Maggi has completed the publication of Guidelines for best practice in Australian Doctoral and Masters Examination, encompassing the two primary modes of investigation, written and multi-modal theses, the culminating document of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council grant, Dancing between Diversity and Consistency: Refining Assessment in Post Graduate Degrees in Dance.
Form, presentation and assessment of artistic research : My research has concentrated on the pursuit on the parameters of form, presentation and assessment of artistic research across the academic spectrum. I would like to delve further into studio observation practices to try and tease out what might differentiate (or not) performance-making and/or processual development from ethnographic methods of ‘seeing’ and documenting behaviour. Lately, I have also become intrigued by the invisible forces of legitimacy that tend to edit out humour and playfulness from contemporary dance (and other domains) and the possible role of ‘skipping’ as an embodied metaphor of ‘thinking’ about irregularity.
Jenny Roche
Jenny has worked as a contemporary dancer since the early 1990s performing with a wide range of choreographers in Ireland and internationally. In 1999 she co-founded Rex Levitates Dance Company with her sister Liz Roche, and performances with the company included the Meet in Beijing Festival, The South Bank Centre, London and The Baryshnikov Arts Centre, New York. She completed her practice-based PhD in Dance at Roehampton University in 2009 and joined the faculty of the Irish World Academy of Music & Dance at the University of Limerick in 2011. In 2013 she joined the dance team as a lecturer in the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT and is currently writing her first book, which is due for publication in 2014.
Multiplicity, embodiment and the contemporary dancer: Jenny's doctoral research explored the choreographic process from the dancer’s perspective through practice-based research. Writing from the working processes of three solo commissions by three choreographers, she drew connections between this auto-ethnographic research and current philosophical thinking on embodiment and multiplicity. Jenny is currently extending her knowledge of embodiment through explorations of the relationship between somatic practices and dance. She is developing this work further into phenomenological explorations of the dancer’s experience of incorporating and performing choreographic precepts.
Courtney Scheu
Courtney is a Brisbane-based dance artist who completed her Honours in Choreography at QUT in 2012. In collaboration with Ashleigh Musk, Courtney has choreographed and performed work for QL2's On Course, Dance Compass and the 2High Backbone Youth Arts Festival. Courtney was selected to perform with Tami Dance Company in the improvisation work PeepDance—Brisbane Tel Aviv during the Brisbane Festival 2011. She was also invited to perform with Tami Dance Company in the Venice Biennale 2012. Courtney has presented work for the Brisbane Dance Industry Night and performed in the Anywhere Theatre Festival 2012.
Movement scores in improvised performance : Courtney's Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) focuses on exploring the use of movement scores in improvised performance. She is interested in the concept of improvisation as both the reconciling of impulse and the ultimate act of consciousness. Using a practice-led methodology, she has worked with five dancers to explore the nature of structured improvisation techniques and the degree to which the dancer has a role in shaping their involvement. The performative outcome will be a 30 minute piece in a theatre setting. She is also developing a written score of the work to be presented alongside the practical component.
Kate Stevens
As a cognitive psychologist, Kate applies experimental methods to the study of temporal phenomena such as music and dance. Research investigating dance and cognitive psychology includes audience response to dance and choreographic cognition (with Shirley McKechnie), and perception and memory in dance. Kate has BA (Hons) and PhD degrees from the University of Sydney and is currently Professor in Psychology and lead the Music Cognition and Action research program in the MARCS Institute at the University of Western Sydney.
Learning and memory in dance and music
- Long-term memory for dance:
a) learning a new work: recall piece under various conditions over 6 – 12 months—what is recalled; what is forgotten?
b) recalling an earlier work—cues to recall; analysis of group recollection. - Investigate learning of asymmetric (culturally less familiar) metres—compare music alone, movement alone, and music + movement. If adults are enculturated to particular metres then childrens’ performance will be superior; explore interaction between music and movement.
- Distributed creativity—the idea that creativity is relational and stimulated by pair/group interaction. Investigate movement material created in solo, non-interacting pair, and interacting pair conditions.
Monica Stevens
Monica, Barburum/ Kuku Yalanji/Yidinji, is a dance consultant and Aboriginal woman from far north Queensland. She was a founding member of Bangarra Dance Theatre, is a key player in the formation of the national Indigenous dance peak body, BlakDance Australia, and is a member of the Australia Council ATSIA Board. As a professional dancer, Monica has performed in numerous productions with the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre and worked with leading lights including ballerina Roslyn Watson, choreographer Dorethea Randall, Michael Leslie, Richard Talonga, Malcolm Cole, Marilyn Miller and Sylvia Blanco. Monica has been taught many significant traditional dances and continues to maintain cultural connections with her community.
Coding Indigenous dance : Monica is currently working on a project coding Indigenous dance at Deakin Motion.Lab in collaboration with the Yirrkala and Saibai communities.
Garry Stewart
Artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre since 1999, Garry studied at the Australian Ballet School and performed extensively with several Australian companies and on many independent works. In 2001 Garry was awarded a Centenary Medal for his service to Australian society and dance, and he has received two Australian Dance Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography for The Age of Unbeauty (2002) and for Honour Bound (2008). Devolution won the 2006 Helpmann award for best new Australian work. In 2009 Garry created The Centre and its Opposite for the Birmingham Royal Ballet and Un-Black for the Ballet de l'Opera National du Rhin in France. In 2011 he choreographed Object for the Royal Flanders Ballet (Belgium) and a new version of The Rite of Spring for Ballet du Rhin.
Cheryl Stock
Cheryl is Director of Postgraduate Studies, Faculty of Creative Industries, at QUT. She received an Australian Dance Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2003 and is currently lecturing and researching in the areas of contemporary performance (dance-led and interdisciplinary), site-specific installation and interactive performance, intercultural arts (particularly in an Asian context), and practice-led research. Cheryl has had an extensive career as director, choreographer, performer, teacher and researcher. She was founding director of Dance North (1984 – 95), and has facilitated 19 cultural exchange programs in Asia. In 2006 she produced and directed a transcultural interactive work Accented Body, which took place across six sites with distributed presences in Seoul and London, and she coordinated the World Dance Alliance Global Summit in Brisbane in 2008.
Writing embodied practice / interactive dance and the reinvention of corporeal space: Research of past 5 years has interrogated the contested landscape of claims to knowledge formation and the continuing development of alternative epistemologies in a post practice-led environment. Related to this enquiry is exploration of the unease produced by apparent differences in qualitative outcomes between works created in an industry setting and those created through practice-led research. Another research dimension in nascent stages revolves around the question: what is danced spatiality in the absence of gravity? Through forms of interactivity in choreography we aim to investigate responsive spaces, renegotiation of corporeality in which gravity is not a given and the effect of 3D dance on the aesthetics of process.
Kate Usher
Kate graduated from Queensland University of Technology in 2008 with a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Dance); she has a Graduate Certificate in Arts Administration and a Masters in Creative Production and Arts Management. Her Masters thesis The Business of Dance: Identifying the Skills and Knowledge for becoming a Self Producer was awarded a High Distinction. Kate has worked on community arts events and for the Queensland Arts Council as both a performer and event coordinator, and she has produced, choreographed, performed and toured independent contemporary dance works in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide. In 2012 Kate commenced work at QPAC as a Project Officer with the Children and Family Engagement team.
Skill sets for independent artists: An investigation into the self-producer’s skill set for Independent Dance Artists (IDAs) in Brisbane was made via an online sector survey and interviews with two leading artists. The results revealed that IDAs have some capability with the self-producer’s skill set, however overall indicated their skill set to be ‘average’. This highlighted areas for improvement to increase the ability of IDAs self-producing and therefore the creation and delivery of live performance. This supports research around managing creative careers, and the recommendations in this report are designed to reflect gaps in skills and knowledge and be practical tools which are integrated into an artists’ complete and holistic practice.
Jordan Vincent
Jordan Beth Vincent has a PhD in 20th century Australian dance history from the University of Melbourne. Since 2008, she has worked as a dance reviewer for The Age newspaper in Melbourne and Dance International Magazine, as well as contributing to a variety of academic and non-academic publications including the UK-based website DanceTabs, Brolga– an Australian Journal about Dance, Shaping the Landscape: Celebrating Dance in Australia (Routledge, 2012) and the forthcoming 12 Australian Choreographers (Wakefield Press, 2012). She lectures in dance history at the Victorian College of the Arts, is the President of Ausdance Victoria, and currently serves on the selection panel of the Australian Dance Awards.
Choreographic process and artistic influences: My PhD is about the perceptions about dance and dancers in Australia between 1919 and 1939. I have also written on gender and leadership in 20th century Australian dance. Recently I have been developing content for a new Australian undergraduate dance history course, Dance Lineages, that focuses on connecting key Australian dance artists with reference to their social, political and cultural contexts. My other area of interest is choreographic process and artistic influences. One of the main purposes of my website Talking Pointes is to profile Australian choreographers about these areas. My hope is that I will eventually be able to use that data to understand choreographers working across different dance genres or as a way to reflect on the development of an individual artists’ career. In the meantime, the profiles make in-depth information about how choreographers work on specific projects available to students, researchers, or interested audience members.
Kim Vincs
Kim is an Associate Professor in Dance and Motion Capture at Deakin University, and directs the Deakin Motion.Lab, the university’s motion capture studio and research centre. She is a choreographer and interactive dance artist who develops new ways of investigating and creating dance using digital technology.
Integrating scientific and artistic approaches : Kim is currently working on 'Capturing Dance: using motion capture to enhance the creation of innovative Australian dance', a three-year project, supported by the ARC’s Discovery program, which aims to identify choreographic movement signatures using motion capture, in collaboration with Mathematician Vicky Mak (Deakin University) and Biomechanist Richard Smith (University of Sydney). I also collaborate with cognitive psychologists Kate Stevens (MARCS Auditory Laboratory, University of Western Sydney) and Emery Schubert (University of New South Wales) investigating choreographic structures and audience response. Most recently, I led a series of projects developing new ways of using motion capture and 3D stereo projection to enhance the spatial impact of live dance performance.
Jacob Williams
Since leaving Dubbo Ballet Studio in 2008, Jacob went on to study a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) at QUT. During this time, Jacob has been fortunate enough to work with artists from diverse genres including Natalie Weir, Grant McLay and Keith Hawley. Through QUT, Jacob has also attended and performed in 8th Guangdong Modern Dance Camp and Festival. Currently Jacob is completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) with the hope of pursuing further research.
How have choreographic communities of practice developed within the Brisbane independent dance sector? The Brisbane independent dance sector consists of a complex network of choreographic Communities of Practice (CoP). Literature that archives such Brisbane based CoP and their development is non-existing. Jacob aims to address this lack of data through the analysis of the three case studies: the Crab Room, the Cherry Herring and Polytoxic. These case studies are analysed using Etienne Wegner’s CoP model (1998) to measure both internal and external development. This information will record a period of Brisbane history that has been important to the formation of the current sector and will identify the processes and relationships that have lead to the development of creative incubators.