Sue Healey premieres work at Performance Space

Performance Space, a cultural agency facilitating new artistic projects, will soon present the world premiere of ON VIEW: Live Portraits by esteemed Australian choreographer Sue Healey. Fresh from an acclaimed season of On View: Quintet as part of Melbourne’s Dance Massive festival, Healey brings together the distinctive forms of dance, film and portraiture to create a work that exposes diverse ways of thinking through the body.

As one of Australia’s foremost dance visionaries, Healey has had an illustrious career as a leading contemporary choreographer and creator of dance films that capture the majesty of movement on- and off-camera. She has worked consistently in galleries, theatres, traditional and non-traditional venues around the world and her most recent offering, ON VIEW: Live Portraits, continues to push the boundaries and preconceptions of dance as an art form in a stunning work that weaves deftly between live performance and recorded dance portraits.

“As a choreographer, I am immersed in the visual field – in both the acts of seeing and being seen,” explains Healey. “I am intrigued by the ways in which we observe and organise meaning within the visual field. In our screen-based culture we experience an overwhelming deluge of moving images on a daily basis. I am interested in how we articulate and shape this information to make sense of our reality.”

In Part 1 of ON VIEW: Live Portraits, Healey paints a series of video portraits of five Australian dance artists: Martin del Amo, Shona Erskine, Benjamin Hancock, Raghav Handa and Nalina Wait who will perform live in the theatre with their screen counterparts. Part 2 will involve video portraits of the legendary Dame Lucette Aldous and Professor Shirley McKechnie AO, icons of Australian dance, who will feature as part of a complimentary exhibition that will be open daily throughout the season.

Audiences are encouraged to interact with the work through the free exhibition and ticketed evening performances featuring the five core performers – in which multiple narratives and intersections between the characters are choreographed in the space. Each dancer’s unique physical, psychological and kinetic qualities are teased out through multiple layers of film, performance and light. The layering of different art forms enables Healey to explore the ways in which perceptions of dance can be deepened through multiple viewings and manipulations of the material she creates.

Running from Friday, July 17 to Saturday, July 25, a total of 10 live performances (including three matinees) of ON VIEW: Live Portraits will take place at Carriageworks, Sydney. A separate video installation will be open to the public from July 18–25, with the dates and times listed at performancespace.com.au.

Chloe Smethurst of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote, “Sue Healey and Judd Overton are a match made in dance film heaven. Combining Healey’s choreographic choices with Overton’s stunning photography and five unique dancers, ON VIEW […] is a remarkable experience.”

ON VIEW: Live Portraits highlights the artists’ unique skills in shaping and transforming identity through meticulous attention to movement across mediums and generations of dance artists. For tickets, visit the website or call 1300 723 038.

Images by Sue Healey.