Journals + newsletters

Felicia writes candidly about her experiences as a participant in the 2008 Asia Young Choreographers Project (AYCP) in Taiwan.

This article outlines a project that incorporates methods from phenomenology, cognitive ethnography and dance anthropology, as well as knowledge and theory from the neurosciences.

Sue talks about the challenges of sustainability for contemporary dance in Australia, and argues that the notion of creativity should be at the core of future debates about the intrinsic, cultural and economic benefits of dance.

The Ballet Russes symposium was devoted singularly to the collaborative practice in the creation of ballets since the advent of Serge Diaghilev's Ballet Russes in 1909. Curator of Dance at the National Libray of Australia, Lee Christofis gives his account of the conference.

Nina Melita gives an account of Pavlova's first Australian tour, during which the famous dancer astounded her audiences with her artistry and passion. Pavlova was an honest and outspoken person who did not particularly enjoy attention from the press.

Postcolonial theorist, Homi Bhabha proposes an interstitial space exists in between polarities along axes of subjectivity. Georgie Boucher uses Bhabha’s notion of the interstitial subject to investigate how Umiumare might utilise strategically in-between subjectivities in performance.

Melissa Blanco Borelli uses some of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s postmodern philosophical ideas of becoming, and Elspeth Probyn’s provocative conceptualisation of belonging, as ways to theoretically read choreography.

Eleanor Brickhill reflects on a 2005 research project which was not intended to come to any conclusions, but to hopefully illuminate certain ironies or conflicts. She talks about "taste" and how it can create boundaries and divisions between people.

This is part 2 of a broad hypothoses of an intuitive science of dance. Elizabeth Dalman and neuroscience researcher Paul Howard Mason (1982 – ) joined forces to explore the evolutionary characteristics of a discrete social system, with a belief that choreography involves processes that expose the social machinery of human expressive systems.

Felicity Mandile (Virtual Schooling Service, Education Queensland) talks about the World Dance unit embedded within the VSS Dance Course and in particular, an innovative project that utilised videoconferencing technology to create a collaborative choreographic environment between two indigenous groups of students.

Shona Erskine interviews Mark Gordon, director of the Australian Choreographic Centre, and Ruth Osborne, artistic director of the Quantum Leap Youth Choreographic Ensemble in Canberra. This discussion of the program, indicates how this kind of project can have a direct influence on the community and the public perception of dance.

Amanda Card writes about American iconoclast Yvonne Rainer, French scientist/choreographer Xavier Le Roy and Sydney dance group The Fondue Set. According to Card the work of both Le Roy and The Fondue Set pay homage to dance and its history, and she offers a critique of it.

Following on from her article in Brolga 30 about Pavlova’s first Australian tour, Nina Melita investigates audience reaction to the second and final tour in 1929. She talks about the effects on the community, aspects of Pavlova’s personality, personal life and Pavlova's views on the arts in Australia.

Martin del Amo talks candidly and elegantly about the way he makes work—how he begins, how he collaborates with others and how they "get things done".

Poetic reflections by Trevor about the work he makes. This prose evokes—rather than explains—the why, when and how of his devising processes.

Brain Lucas writes a generous, reflective musing on how even established artists are in a constant and continuing state of development and growth.

Julie-Anne Long takes us on a journey, through the inspiration, creation and realisation of a working process. She reflects on collaboration and the influence of place with a word skill that replicates her expertise as a dancing devisor.

Shelley Lasica talks candidly and elegantly about the way she makes work – how she begins, how she collaborate with others, and how they get things done.

Helen Herbertson provides some poetic reflections about the nature of her. This results in some beautiful, powerful prose that evokes, rather than explains, the why, when and how of her devising processes.

The Fondue Set – Jane McKernan, Elizabeth Ryan and Emma Saunders – offer up a fascinating response to a set of provocations. They reveal their process in a three-part harmony that speaks to the particular concerns of this group of female artists.