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Cover Image: Briana Kell lies on the ground with flowers beside her head. | Research Development Lab | Image by Sarah
Introduction
Associate Artist
Residencies
Labs & Workshops
Critique & Discourse
Studio Presentations
Interchange Program
Interchange Festival
Workshops
Lab
Presentations
The first part of this publication: ‘Fall Back’, presents an overview of 2017 from January to October. This includes ArtistLed Research & Development, Labs & Workshops, Critique & Discourse, and Studio Presentations.
Spring Forward then features a selection of some of the exciting activities that will top off the year. Many of these make up
Critical Path’s Interchange Festival, which will run from the 1012 of November. This festival is part of our Interchange Program which provides opportunities for international and intercultural connections, sharing, exchange and dialogue.
- Claire Hicks, Director
As one our initiatives to build leadership capacity within the dance sector, Critical Path invites an independent choreographer, with experience of supporting other artists and initiating sector development projects, to be Associate Artist for up to two years.
Our 2017 Associate Arist, Adelina Larsson, is the founder and director of ‘Strange Attractor’, a choreographic development platform that offers infrastructure for independent artists to experiment and undertake artistic research.
In 2017 she is undertaking her own research, as well as mentoring Brianna Kell and Sarah Houbolt during their Research Development Lab. Adelina is also curating the Saturday Evening of Critical Path’s Interchange Festival. Her next research residency is in late November.

Participants in various positions and locations throughout

JANUARY - OCTOBER 2017

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Independent choreographic artists are at the centre of all we do. Beside the more public development projects such as First Run (led by Brooke Stamp & Rhiannon Newton) or Dianne Busitill’s Nothing to buy, Nothing to sell, Nothing to lose, we have many artists working at the Drill throughout the year engaged in research on their own artistic practice. In the corner of the building (next to the kitchen), our Research Room artists work away exploring their ideas, reading, writing and inviting conversation. Artists come from far and near: Emily Johnson (USA), Eko Supriyanto (Indonesia), Margie Medlin (Germany/ Australia), Anna Konjetzky (Germany), Chloe Fournier, Stella Chen with Geraldine Balcazar and Rhiannon Newton.
EMILY JOHNSON
MARGIE MEDLIN
ANNA KONJETZKY
CLOÉ FOURNIER 02/01 30/01 03/04 25/04
EKO SUPRIYANTO 12/01 04/01--21/01 12/02 07/04 18/04
STELLA CHEN + GERALDINE BALCAZAR 11/04
RYUICHI FUJIMURA + KATE SHERMAN 30/01
CAROLINE GARCIA
AMAARA RAHEEM (CP + UNSW) 03/0222/01 13/01
LIZZIE THOMSON 31/07
TIMOTHY OHL (UNSW) 18/04 17/07-30/04 30/07
ADAM WARBURTON02/08
MAYA GAVISH 11/01 12/01ATLANTA EKE
TAREE SANSBURY
ANTHONY COXETER 22/05 03/07 18/09
CARLY SHEPPARD 04/09 - 09/09 19/02 FIRST RUN 19/05 - 15/05
NOTHING #DIANE BUSITTIL 18/06
RHIANNON NEWTON 29/09 - 01/09 10/09 4/07 11/07
DANCING SYDNEY 03/07 09/06-15/12 23/07 19/09
INDEPENDENT DANCE CLASS 18/07

‘We researched on ‘Wabi Sabi’, Japanese aesthetics as a source for choreography…. Every now and then, I felt uncertain whether these scores helps to capture/embody the feeling of Wabi Sabi since the concept/aesthetics of Wabi Sabi itself is so elusive. However, it wasn’t until the last day of our residency when we invited a small number of peers for our sharing that
‘IT FELT TO ME LIKE A JOURNEY INTO AN UNKNOWN DESTINATION’
- RYUICHI FUJIMURA
the moment of revelation arrived. I saw so many possibilities unfolding before my eyes including some answers and more questions when our scores were translated into other bodies.’

Directional lines and circles drawn on paper with pencil. | Responsive Residency | Image by Caroline Garcia
‘The main line of inquiry for this project was to question the idea of a choreographic interlude. The process of distilling and expanding on the choreographic interlude by employing the scaffolding of the Fly Girls’ dance routines, has been successful in applying what an interlude is in this specific context, its significance and meaning in the wider framework of ‘In Living Color’, and therefore possible structures of how one can perform an interlude, before it is no longer considered to be an interlude anymore.’
I WAS ABLE TO DEEPEN MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE SOCIO - POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE TV SHOW, AS WELL AS ITS NARRATIVE IN A USTRALIA .




hand signalling, 30 sec
‘My residency at Critical Path and UNSW has been in exchange with neurosurgeon and family friend, Dr Brindha Shivalingam. We’ve spent hours talking about movement, brain-surgery, life, death, love, and loss in relation to our pathways of migrating to Australia from Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1984 after the onset of the civil war. I’ve spent other hours in the studio processing these



conversations, letting them meander in, through and across my own brain-body connectors allowing new, emergent understandings about neurons, muscles, wires to produce new ways of dancing and doing.’

WE EXPERIMENTED WITH ... METHODS TO SHIFT THE AUDIENCE ’ S PERCEPTION : TRANSPARENCY AND RELFECTION , SATURATED COLOURED LIGHT, DEPTH PERCEPTION AND RETINA BURN WITH AN INTENSE FLASH BULB
‘During the research residency [Alejandro Rolandi and I] explored three core questions: how can we create illusionary or ‘special’ effects in a live and performative context; how can we shift an audience’s perception with light and the body in space; how would these effects affect choreographic choices. [we] were... making new discoveries and developing methods for creating illusions that can be used in performance making.’
| RESPONSIVE PROGRAM

| Experimental
Atlanta was joined by composer Daniel Jenatsch and technologists
Ready Steady Studio (Hana Miller and Jacob Perkins) to collaborate on a choreographic experiment that used a collection of programmed tennis ball machines. She utilised principles of game theory to structure the movements of the dancer, the machines and their relationship to one another and explore
the fraught relationship between technological advancement and the growing obsolescence of the human body as a technology for movement production.

Working with project partners Erin Brannigan (UNSW), Julie-Anne Long (Macquarie), Amanda Card (USYD) and Real Time, Critical Path has invited artists Anandavalli, Branch Nebula, Frances Rings, and Martin del Amo to consider their own archive/ing. This research project seeks to address ephemerality - its potentials and its problems - by finding, creating and
reinvigorating old and new, public and private dance archives: not only the kind that exist in ephemera, text and objects, but also those that are produced and maintained within/through the body dancing.

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Outside of the Drill Hall, artists undertake research and creative development projects in other locations; at our partners’ spaces across NSW, and internationally. At the beginning of 2017, Matt Shilcock undertook his residency with Dance4 in the UK. Taree Sansbury investigated the simplicity and implications of physically weaving materials at Campbelltown Arts Centre and at UNSW.
Katina Olsen was the selected artist for a two week residency at Mirramu in Bungendore, NSW. Taiwanese artist I-Chin Lin will also undertake a residency here in November.
INTERNATIONAL RESIDENCIES

Taree used her residency to investigate the simplicity and implications of physically weaving materials and what is revealed from the practice of a tradition passed on through thousands of years to this present day.
Her work explored mi:wi as a concept; intertwining contemporary Indigenous dance techniques and the traditional
practice of weaving from the Ngarrindjeri people of South Australia.
Taree developed choreographic material for three performers, bringing together text, video, and movement. Her research explored how the temporalities of the weaving practice might be embodied in dance.


‘I was fortunate enough to be hosted by Dance4 (Nottingham, UK) in a month long research and development residency, further developing and compiling my movement language ‘Osteogenuine’.
The immersive period allowed me to deconstruct and compile 6 years of research into an articulately defined
[ RESEARCH WAS ] DIVIDED AND CATEGORISED IN A SYSTEM INSPIRED BY MY STUDIES IN ALCHEMY
structure; categorising information and exercises in digestible and deliverable packages.’

workshop participant
while other particpants

The year kicked off with Critical Path hosting a workshop by Charles Koroneho. The week is offered in two different pathways: Movement & Hybrid Training only (mornings) or Full Week Performance Workshop, including Research & Movement Creation. By the end of September our Intercultural Lab had brought artists to undertake their own development processes and to engage with each others and that of guest workshop leaders. Adam Warburton with Elle Evangelista, Anandavalli with Vicki van Hout, Nick Power with Alejandro Rolandi were joined by guests Laura (Amara) Osweiler, Annalouise Paul and WeiZen Ho. The lab was facilitated by Raghav Handa.

Charles Korenho (New Zealand) offered a week-long performance workshop for 30 choreographers, dancers, theatre directors, actors, performance artists, somatic practitioners, and dance & performance studies researchers.
Participants collectively explored content around death, grief, Maori cosmology, and approaching
‘ INVALUABLE , LIFE SHIFTING ’ - LUX ETERNA
performance from community-driven and ceremonial perspectives.

Close-up of Luke Campbell and Anna
another. |
In Partnership with Metal (UK) and Accessible Arts (Aus), Kate Marsh and Welly O’Brien facilitated Luke Campbell, Matthew Massaria and William McBride with supporting artists Elle Evangelista, Bonnie Curtis, Sandi Sissel, Sarah-Vyne Vassallo, Kelly Drummond Cawthon and Anna Vaisanen.
The three lab artists worked individually and collectively on their practices by
‘K ATE AND W ELLY ... WERE ATTENTIVE AND HANDS - ON WHEN THIS WAS HELPFUL , AND THEY ALSO ENCOURAGED AND SUPPORTED AUTONOMY.’
- W ILLIAM M C B RIDE
defining and presenting a choreographic idea in progress and encouraging innovation within their craft.

Takao Kawaguchi arches over with one leg supporting him and his opposite arm up. | Body Sculpting Workshop | Image by Bibi Serafim
Takao Kawaguchi’s (Japan) ‘Body Sculpting’ workshop shared the creative process behind his performance: ‘About Kazuo Ohno’, including analysis of videos and images of the legendary Butoh dancer, Kazuo Ohno.
This workshop was made possible through a partnership between Ausdance and Critical Path.
‘ LEARNING ABOUT TAKAO ’ S ARTISTIC PROCESS WAS GREAT AND GAVE ME INSIGHTS INTO HOW I MIGHT BE ABLE TO APPLY THIS IN EXPLORING MOVEMENT PRACTICE .’
- KRISTINA TITO

Ivey Wawn crouches, speaking into a microphone. | Labs and Workshops | Image by Margie Breen
Critical Path sent Samantha Spurr, Ashley Dyer and Samantha Rochelle to the Mill, Adelaide, where Ame Henderson (Canada) engaged with artists on exploring how choreographic thinking – spatial, temporal and sensory – can enhance a diverse range of artistic practices. At Critical Path Ame engaged Ivey Wawn, Jessica Holman, Lisa Maris McDonnell, Nikki Heywood, Raynen
O’Keefe and Wendy Morrow around her investigations of how in re-performing text as gesture, the dancer elucidates historiography as a choreographic matter – and how dance can remember.

Two editions of Critical Dialogues, 7.2 and 8, were released this year, focusing on Artists with Disability and Dance & the Environment respectively. As always these publications provided a rich array of perspectives from the local dance community, and those from further afield, around these themes.
Multiple talks and forums also took place. Among these, three ‘Talking Dance’ talks stemmed from Critical Path’s partnership with Sydney Festival. Kate Marsh hosted a talk at the Drill Hall during her residency, while Rosalind Crisp led a discussion in the space the following month.
As well as Studio Presentations, Teita Iwabuchi and Kentaro!! held talks and forums during their time in Australia in partnership with the Japan Foundation, Sydney.

Critical Dialogues 7.2 was ‘Claiming Spaces: Artists with Disabilities
Redefining Dance’. Following the impact and continuing to meet the needs of artists with disabilities
Critical Path produced this second volume of ‘Claiming Spaces’. It takes a ‘danceaturgical’ approach; offering choreographers space to think, reflect and create.
Environmental Impact, co-edited by Liz Lea and Kyle Page examined the the profound ways in which environment shapes experience and output in the creative realm. This discourse spanned physical, psychological, changing and remote & regional environments, connection to place, disconnection from place, vastness, intimacy and nontraditional spaces.

Seven speakers sit, as one of them talks and gestures. |
At Carriageworks, a series of three conversations between Sydney Festival artists explored ideas about their performance works and broader practice. These ‘Talking Dance’ events were: ‘Global Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledges & The Environment’, ‘Beyond the Choreographer’ and ‘Handle with Care’. Participating were Wesley Enoch, Frances Rings, Taree Sansbury,
Eko Supriyanto, Latai Taumoepeau, Jala Adolphus, Juliette Barton, Amber Haines, Amrita Hepi, Miranda Wheen, Jacob Boehme, Future Fidel, Amit Lahav and Jodee Mundy.

This talk examined the position of disabled artists in both the UK and other geographical contexts. Drawing from her recent PhD research and ongoing shared practice with artist Welly O’Brien, Kate discussed how notions of ‘inclusion’ in dance have shifted, challenging pre-conceived ideas about access and participation. She explored how we use and disseminate the breadth of dance
experience that exists in disabled artists and asking where the disabled leaders in dance are.
Kate also undertook a 3 week residency with Critical Path as part of a collaboration with Metal (UK).

Melbourne choreographer Rosalind Crisp and collaborating artists Andrew Morrish, Peter Fraser and Vic McKewan led a seminar at the Drill Hall at the end of their research week. They explored ideas and methods for developing dance practice in relation to place.
Titled ‘Dance in the Anthropocene’, the focus of seminar was developing
a process and language for a dance practice that seeks to explore, embody, understand and connect to unfolding environmental devastation.
Explorations and Showings from the DIRt artists laboratory in Orbost, Victoria also took place as part of the seminar.

Critical Path has hosted a number of public studio presentations so far this year by International artists from Japan, UK, Switzerland, Sweden/Portugal. The presentations run alongside or come out of research and development projects by these artists.
Aomori Aomori, a project by Sioned Huws (UK/Japan) with Reina Kimura (Japan) was developed with artists and the local community in February. The project was shadowed by artists Anna Kuroda and Ryuchi Fujimura who were part of the final presentation.
SIONED HUWS + REINA KIMURA
JOSZEF TREFELI + GARBOR VARGA 01/03
JONATHAN BURROWS + MATTEO FARGION 18/02 02/05
DINIS MACHADO 24/06
TEITA IWABUCHI 22/07
KENTARO!! 29/07 - 03/05

Teita Iwabuchi dances with his head thrown forward. | Teita Iwabuchi’s Presentation | Image by Bibi
Teita Iwabuchi’s (Japan) 30 minute solo presentation focused on the ‘structure of the human body’ and the ‘interaction of space, music, and human body’. Earlier Teita had led a workshop for 10 artists exploring the connection between physical movement and mental awareness.
Kentaro!! (Japan) also presented his technique based primarily in hip hop dance. Kentaro!! creates unique and innovative works that transcend the patterns of conventional styles of dance. Hosted at Dancekool’s studios in Sydney’s CBD, the day included a workshop for 16 professionals drawn from Western contemporary and street dance backgrounds.

Dinis Machado (SE/PT) invited local choreographers Dan Daw (UK/AU) and Brooke Stamp (AU) to each create a short piece to be part of his ongoing project Barco Dance Collection. Barco is a research project that Dinis runs parallel to his activity as a choreographer to map and investigate the practices of others. Brooke and Dan were asked to think that the space where each dance happens is
not in the room we are in but within the body itself.
Dinis presented, for the first time, the entire collection of 16 pieces including the premiere of the two new Australian works at the Drill Hall.

Jonanthan and Matteo, sitting, perform for an audience. | Presentation: Sitting Duet and Body Not Fit For Purpose | Image by Bibi Serafim
Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion presented three works at the Drill Hall, ‘Sitting Duet’, ‘Body Not Fit For Purpose’ and ‘Speaking Dance’ which showed their breadth of their work over the past ten years. Their duets mix the formality of classical music composition with an open and often anarchic approach to performance and audiences. Jonathan opened his process to twenty artists
during a three day workshop. He focused on particular questions of time, form and composition which underpin their work, as well as the strategies they use to disrupt what they do and connect with audience.

Jozsef and Garbor dance close to the floor in highly textured costumes. | Presentation: Creature | Image by Claire Hicks
József Trefeli and Garbor Varga presented a studio preview of ‘Creature’ which tackles ethnographic material to place his contemporary choreographic practices under the magnifying glass of its archaic heritage. Creature shows us the kinship between the language of contemporary dance and the exoticism of folk dances. The result is a surprising piece, crazy with energy, rich with self-
deprecating humour and spiced by extravagant costumes.
During an intensive research residency
József Trefeli and collaborating artist, Gábor Varga, engaged with Anja Mujic, Carl Sciberras, Eliza Cooper, Ryuichi Fujimura and Fiona Gardner to research their next creation focusing on couple dances.


RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
RESPONSIVE PROGRAM
GENERAL
Interchange is a five-year initiative that began in 2014 and which focuses Critical Path’s programming on the value of exchange opportunities. For 2017 this has meant residencies in Australia for International artists such as Phillipe Blanchard, I-Chin Lin and Reina Kimura, as well as workshops and Labs by Bill Shannon, Ame Henderson and Geumhyung Jeong.
The Interchange program also includes our Interchange Festival, which will take place from the 10 - 12 November at The Drill Hall.

Reina (Japan) and Anna, a sydneybased Japanese artist will collaborate on an exploration of their shared understanding of their practice in relation to their understanding of Japanese culture and the arts.
Each emerging artist works in relation to place in their choreography and therefore the project takes both artists
from their home location (Tokyo and Sydney) to explore what their work means in relation to an ‘unknown’ Australian place (Launceston, Tasmania). The two artists will work together and in parrallel to explore these relations and present their ‘findings’ to audiences in Launceston & then Sydney. Critical Path will partner with Tasdance for this residency.

The meeting and connection of different cultures is at the heart of Interchange Festival 2017; international and intercultural exchange as part of choreographic process, as part of artists’ practice. Each day has a different focus. On the Friday evening we will be acknowledging Country, on Saturday we will talk about the Political Body and on the Sunday we will discuss the
Start and End of the Body. The festival wll also include workshops and talks by International artists. Over this weekend we invite you to join us to share your and others experience of working across and between cultures.
10 - 12 NOVEMBER 2017
T HE D RILL H ALL

Bill Shannon covers his face with his hands, while wearing a set of surfaces with scenes projected onto them on his head
‘Translations’ will be an intensive workshop facilitated by world-renowned multidisciplinary artist Bill Shannon (USA) for artists with physical disability. Bill invites participants to explore their individual movement patterns as the basis for a personal artistic language.
In a second open workshop Bill invites participants to deconstruct his Shannon
Technique, without the use of crutches.
Bill is also offering workshops in Brisbane with Ausdance QLD & QUT, and with DIA in Northern Rivers NSW.
NOVEMBER 2017
T HE D RILL H ALL


Geumhyung Jeong stands in a room of masks and mannequins | Image by Kiyong Nam
Choreographer and performance artist
Geumhyung Jeong (South Korea) is back at The Drill Hall to run two week-long development laboratory. In her work, she constantly negotiates the relationship between the human body and the things surrounding it. Geumhyung explores the potential of the body - its sensuality, power to change its surroundings, and ability to undergo transformations
through the power of desire. Her projects combine dance and puppetry and bring attention to technical aspects of theatre.
30 OCTOBER - 10 NOVEMBER 2017
T HE D RILL H ALL

A human-like figure with bright red eyes hunches over with one arm-raised. | Carrion | Image by Performance Space
Justin Shoulder is back at The Drill working on the final development of his new solo work ‘Carrion’ (premiere) to be presented by Performance Space at Liveworks Festival. Justin’s development has been supported by Critical Path and Performance Space. 9 - 14 OCTOBER 2017 T
D RILL H ALL

Alison Plevey (Solo Practice ProjectBody As Material 2016), Matt Shilcock (Dance4 UK Residency 2017) and Amaara Raheem (Responsive Research Residency CP & Creative Practice Lab, UNSW) will share where their research has taken them and where they are now.
13 NOVEMBER 2017










































