2018 Keir Choreographic Award Semi-Finals

Dancehouse, in partnership with The Keir Foundation and Carriageworks, just announced the program order that the eight artists who have been selected for the 2018 Keir Choreographic Award will perform in at the Semi-Finals at Dancehouse next month. Only four will continue on to the finals at Carriageworks.

The artists were selected by a high-profile international jury to take part in the biennial competition, dedicated to the commissioning, presentation, promotion and dissemination of new Australian choreography – Australia’s first major choreographic award, supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.

Both programs will include four works at 20 minutes each, plus an interval. Program One will include works by Prue Lang, Bhenji Ra, Branch Nebula and Nana Biluš Abaffy on March 6 at 7 p.m., March 8 at 7 p.m. and March 10 at 2 p.m. Program Two will include works by Amrita Hepi, Lilian Steiner, Luke George and Melanie Lane on March 7, 9 and 10 at 7 p.m. Following Program Two, the Awards Ceremony will be held.

Learn more about the works being presented by 2018 Keir Choreographic Award artists below. Then read more about the jury here. To book tickets to the Semi-Finals in Melbourne, visit dancehouse.com.au.

PRUE LANG – YONI

Concept/choreography: Prue Lang
Performers: Mikaela Carr, Lauren Langlois, Amber McCartney, Tara Jade Samaya
Dramaturgical Assistant: Philipa Rothfield

This work is driven by Prue’s longstanding study of and engagement with feminism – and her preoccupation with games as tools for structure and fluidity. Prue uses this framework to explore, question, counterpoint, discover and re-imagine the physicality of subjects – intellectually and metaphorically.

BHENJI RA – THE WETNESS

Concept/choreography: Bhenji Ra
Performers: Angel-Ho, Bhenji Ra
Sound Design: Angel-Ho
Costume Design: Matthew Stegh

This work, which considers queerness and transness, is based on the quote, “She’s slippery, she’s fish, she’s hard to catch and she’s meant to be.  She’ll slip through your fingers, no matter how big and wide they are, lost from your sight she’s saying, ‘you can’t have me’.” 
  

BRANCH NEBULA – STOP-GO

Concept/choreography: Lee Wilson and Mirabelle Wouters (Branch Nebula)
Collaborating Artists: Phil Downing, John Bayliss

Stop-Go opens Branch Nebula’s choreographic toolkit for public inspection and use. It provides the audience with everything they need to create a satisfying night, including tension and resolution; high stakes; complex movement, and engaging personas.

NANA BILUŠ ABAFFY – POST REALITY VISION

Concept/choreography: Nana Biluš Abaffy
Performers: Milo Love, Geoffrey Watson

This work explores why it is that we need the body now, in this era of post truth. It is as though its appearance here now is some kind of proof. The presentation of the body as evidence that reality still exists.

AMRITA HEPI – A CALTEX SPECTRUM

Concept/choreography: Amrita Hepi
Performers: Jahra Rager, Tyrone Robinson, Sarah Vai
Set Design: Alice Joel
Music: Daniel Von Jenatsch, Sarah Scott

This work ponders if it’s possible to transcend class through movement or if society’s inscriptions remain firmly imprinted on the body. Three performers conduct an embodied exploration of cultural corporeality, navigating a complex entanglement of the theatre’s social function, a motorbike and its ensuing somatic assumptions.

LILIAN STEINER – MEMOIR FOR RIVERS AND THE DICTATOR

Concept/choreography: Lilian Steiner
Performers: Lilian Steiner, Reuben Lewis
Music: Reuben Lewis, Marco Cher-Gibard

Memoir for Rivers and The Dictator is a choreography for both the physical and the sonic body. It is about time and the body. It looks at the ways in which the human experience of time figures within the body, the ways in which the body accrues and absorbs events of various qualities, and with it, develops wisdom and value.

LUKE GEORGE – PUBLIC ACTION

Concept/choreography: Luke George
Collaborating Performers: Luke George, Latai Taumoepeau, Timothy Harvey, Brooke Powers, Leah Landau
Collaborator (Media & Technology): Nick Roux

This work is a collective negotiation between bodies, objects, artist and audience. Using conflict resolution principles (an alternative method used to bring disagreeing parties to a non-violent understanding) the group is set the physical task of moving a difficult object from one place to another. This is the starting point for a choreographic investigation into groups and group processes.

MELANIE LANE – PERSONAL EFFIGIES

Concept/choreography: Melanie Lane
Performers: Melanie Lane, Chris Clark
Music: Chris Clark
Costume Design: Paula Levis

Personal Effigies is a synthesis of constructed bodies for a singular body, drawing from avatars, puppets, dolls and effigies. In collaboration with musician Chris Clark and costume designer Paula Levis, a storytelling of romance and morbidity unfolds. The artificial and the natural, intimacy and its melancholic impossibility, are negotiated in this solo dance.

Photo courtesy of Amrita Hepi.