Contours - Dance Film Exhibition | Exhibition manual

Contours - Dance Film Exhibition When you dance in the ancient wilderness, how you integrate into nature beyond the homocentrism?

Contours, the international collaboration of dance films was produced by Dancecology (Taiwan), Mirramu Dance Company (Australia) and Sue Healey. Following the core concept “biocentric” from Ecological Psychology, all the artists present the multi-dialogue between nature and human, time and recorded memory through the media -- dance film. The main project of Contours (including two films) were directed by Sue Healey and Peng Hsiao-yin, shot in ancient Lake George, embodied the grandiose land/ body-scape crossing time and space. En Route, directed by Sue Healey was shot in abandon railway cross NSW, Australia while Mirror Image, directed by Sigo Tseng shot in special canyon and seashore in Taiwan, both films possessed the aura of dance and nature. Peng’s another film Recycle Project reacted to the interaction between human and nature through a journey leading by plastic bottle.

The key-person in Contours is Dr. Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM, the artistic advisor and main performer in four of the films.

Her excellent interpretation presented the core spirit of Contours, the transform and lineage in human and nature. And as a dance legend, she showed that in dance films, how dancing body can integrate into internal landscape.

The Curator of Contours, Peng Hsiao-yin

Team of Exhibition Organizer: Dancecology, Mirramu Dance Company

Co-organizer: SLY Art Space

Curator: Peng Hsiao-yin

Artistic Advisor: Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM

Producer: Chen Yi-shu

Executive Producer: Chung Yi

Artists: Sue Healy, Tseng Huan-shin, Peng Hsiao-yin

Exhibition Design: Peng Yu-hung, Huang Po-yu, Tseng Huan-shin

Graphic Design: Ho Yun-fang Sponsor: NCAF, Arts ACT, Create NSW, DAC

Dancecology = Dance + Ecology A combined performing group in new style, founded in 2009, Dancecology is consisted of the artistic director Hsiao-yin Peng and her team. Combining performing and visual art, Dancecology’s works break the restrictions of stage, and present the unique atmosphere of environmental theater. Through the cross-over cooperative creation based on the ecological concepts “circulation” and “symbiosis”, they advocate the concepts of mutual-nourishing and self-curing in the ecological system, which present unconventional issues of nature and humanity's concerns. By developing the rhythm connecting with the natural environment according to the dancers’ individual particularity of body, they show the extraordinary power of body; further, they endeavor to create the common symbol imagination and identification along with the audience, being symbiotic with the nature and space.

The form of Dancecology’s work includes theater, site-specific or environmental theater, video art, dance film and installations.

They’ve toured to Australia, Nepal, USA, Italy, Portugal, Malaysia, Macau…etc.

Recently, Dancecology’s artists reach into the art media of dance film and their films have screened in Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Portugal, USA, Mexico, Malaysia, Macau and HK.

urator and Artist Curator Peng, Hsiao-yin Artistic director of Dancecology, Taiwan. She received M.F.A. of Graduate Institute of Choreography, Taipei National, TNUA, and B.A. of Agronomy, NTU. She is a former dancer of Neo-Classic Dance Company.

Inspired by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, she finds the connection between nature ecosystem and the dancing bodies, and founded Dancecology in 2009, gathering artists from different field such as dance, music, film, visual and digital art to create artistic work together.

In recent few years, Peng reaches her choreography into the field of dance film. She's been invited to be resident artist of Experimental Film Virginia, USA and New Work Forum: Screendance, Hong Kong. She is the curator and mentor of Dance and the Moving Image Workshop, cooperated with TPAC in 2016~17. Her film, Recycle Project, was the commission work of Jumping Frames International Dance Video Festival 2016, and she just won the 1-min competition of short film in Jumpimg Frames 2017, by the collaboration with Dennis Chen, Wonderer.

Artist Sue Healey

Sue Healey is a Sydney-based artist working in film, performance and installation. Experimenting with form and perception, Healey creates dance for diverse spaces and contexts: galleries, theatres and screens. Her current major work, On View, is a multi-tiered film installation and performance, produced by West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in Hong Kong, and Aichi Arts Centre, Nagoya, Japan 2017-2020. Sue was a 2018 finalist in the 65th Blake Prize and a 2017 finalist in the Digital Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery Australia. Sue has won 6 Australian Dance Awards for Dance on Film/New Media and for Independent Dance. She was recently awarded a Hong Kong Dance Award for Best Visual Design (On View: Hong Kong) in 2018.

Tseng, Huan-Shin (aka. Sigo)

Tseng designs theatre multimedia videos, he mainly investigates the body movement of dances and projects in multimedia. He was a member of Golden Bough Theatre and imitates the theory of Poor Theatre. Besides, he is a graduate from the department of chemistry of National Taiwan University that makes his works include both artistic and scientific concept. He always collaborates with choreographers and installation artists to mix the videos, space and performers based on the concept of site-specific theatre.

Tseng’s works were broadcasted at Italy Asolo Art Film Festival, Experimental Film Virginia, Kuandu Art Festival, Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art and New York, Australia, Mexico, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macao, Beijing etc. Continuously exploiting the possibilities of the combination of body performances and moving images, he participates actively in dance film creation and specializes in directing, film editing and post-production in recent years.

Exhibition Introduction Reflectng Weereewa: the Aura of Bodyscape and Land

※ Contours Project series

The core concept of Reflecting Weereewa is “the holism of human beings and universe”. The whole film was shot in Lake George (Weereewa), the 5th old lake in the earth for 5 million years old. In the ancient and vast wilderness, how can the human beings exist or integrate into nature? Confronting the changing environment, how can the dancers find the eternal kinetic energy? And in comparison with the great nature, how the tiny mankind can contend with the boundless power of life?

Through different generation, races, and quality of dance, the director Peng revealed her eternal inquiries to human and nature, and embodied the grandiose land/ body-scape crossing time and space.

CREDITS Director/ Choreographer: Peng Hsiao-yin Director of Photography: Chen Yi-shu Editor/ Colorist: Tseng Huan-shin Executive Director: Barbie Robinson, Chen Yi-shu, Chung Yi Music: Da Kung Art Director: Peng Yu-hung Performer: Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM, Vivienne Rogis、Amanda Tutalo、Miranda Wheen (Mirramu Dance Company) Chen Yi-ching, Chen Fu-rong, Chung Yi (Dancecology)

Reflectng Weereewa: the Aura of Bodyscape and Land（2018）

Weereewa – Portrait of a Landscape

※ Contours Project series

‘Everything is connected’ --Timothy Morton ‘I hold the simpleminded view that everything is related to everything else – and that every one is related to everyone else, and that every species is related to every other…I think it is not the world’s task to entertain us, but ours to take an interest in the world.’ --Robert Bringhurst This film is inspired by a place, Weerewa, (Lake George) in New South Wales, Australia. The lake is known for its unusual fluctuations in water levels—for many years it can be completely dry, and then seemingly overnight, fill with water. This film seeks to pay close attention to the subtleties of this landscape…the wood, lichen, webs, rocks, fauna and water. There is an urgency to re-calibrate our thinking towards our relationship to these things.

Weerewa is part of the Contours project, a collaboration between Mirramu Creative Arts Centre, Dancecology Taiwan and Sue Healey.

The traditional owners of the land are the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples and we pay respect to their elders past and present for their stewardship of the land.

CREDITS Editor: Sue Healey Director of Photography: Judd Overton Drone Pilot: Ken Butti Camera Assistants: Chen Yi-Shu, Tseng Huan-Shin (Sigo) Music: Darrin Verhagen Performers: Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, Miranda Wheen, Vivienne Rogis, Peng Hsiao-Yin, Chen Fu-Rong, Chen Yi-Ching, Chung Yi

Weereewa – Portrait of a Landscape（2018）

En Route A meditation on time-lines, life-lines and transience, En Route moves us through an array of forgotten rail spaces in New South Wales, Australia.

Railways have always sparked ideas about moving—being en route to somewhere else, somewhere out of the ordinary. Our ingenuity for devising ways to get from here to there—travelling through space and time with acuity—is the driving force behind this film.

The performer is a precise activator of these ideas, placed within the dynamic setting of the railway, as a physical investigator. Aged from 3 to 102 years old, these iconic Australian dancers create dynamic human trajectories along tracks and tunnels—a visceral exploration of the railway, as lines of action and portals to other times. They are pioneers and renowned inventors in the dance field, with a wealth of history within their bodies; including Eileen Kramer aged 102, who was a member of the internationally celebrated Bodenweiser Ballet in Sydney in the 1940’s; Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM, aged 82, known as the founder of Australian modern dance, who established the Australian Dance Theatre in 1965; Don Asker aged 69, acclaimed dancer/choreographer with the Netherlands Dance Theatre and now farmer in Eden, NSW; partners Anca Frankenhaeuserand Patrick Harding-Irmer, who were members of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre, performing internationally for 15 years, before returning to Sydney in 1990.

CREDITS Director and Editor: Sue Healey

Director of Photography: Judd Overton

Camera Assistant: Matt Chow

Film crew: The Graffer

Costume Design Assistant: Ella Lincoln

Post Production: David Gross - Definition Films

Music: Mike Nock and Lawrence Pike Performers: Don Asker, James Batchelor, Elizabeth Dalman, Jacob Edmonds, Anca Frankenhaeuser, Ghenoa Gela, Patrick Harding-Irmer, Lisa Griffiths, Raghav Handa, Kei Ikeda, Eileen Kramer, Nalina Wait, with children Barnaby Scott, Marina Seet, Aiya Ting, Leila Karlsen and Poppy Synnott.

En Route（2017）

Mirror Image Mirror: light and shadow from beyond the universe, Image: life on earth with body and soul. There are clouds, sky, sea and stones. There are cycle of rooting, reproduction, digestion and new born. Mirror reflects the eternity of time and formation of Image is followed by the reincarnation of life and never stops.

This film rewrites the theatric dance work as a challenge and shot on Taiwan ‘s famous outdoor locations: LaoMei Green Reef, Zhuolan Grand Canyon and sea shore of Nanfangao.

Story behind the screen “Mirror Image”was an international production of theatric dance work by Mirramu Dance Company (AU) and DANCECOLOGY (TW) and was touring to Canberra, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur. The original piece combined video art design by Sigo Tseng using multiple projections on different layers of huge cyclorama. Sigo also designed digital program of real-time operative interface (VJ) to synchronize different texture and color of moving images in response to the movement and strength of dancers. Grace Peng, the artistic Director of DANCECOLOGY, said “there is always another dancer behinds back stage”!

CREDITS Director and Editor: Tseng Huan-shin Director of Photography: Chen Yi-shu Second Camera: Peng Yu-hung Choreography: Peng Hsiao-Yin Music: Da Kong (Original soundtrack “Deaf Lake”) Bell sounds from “yuraki” by Toshi Tsuchitori.

Performers: Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, Peng Hsiao-Yin, Chen Fu-Rong, Chen Yi-Ching

Mirror Image（2018）

Recycle Project Recycle Project, directed by Peng Hsiao-yin, is the dance film produced by Dancecology. It's the commission work of Jumping Frames International Dance Video Festival 2016, and has been screened in USA, Hong Kong, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Macau, Malaysia, Australia and Beijing.

"We repeat, we recycle. In this loop of " recovery ", we continuously be filled and emptied of humanity and wastes, which co-exist and then be discard together. In waves of life, we are coming back and forth in the failure of resistance."

The Special Scene in Recycle Project

In the last session of Recycle Project, the main character and the group dancers were dancing in the “garbage”, huge hill of plastic bottles. This dramatic scene was shot in the special recycle station belong to Taiwan Buddhist Tzu-Chi Foundation. When audience watching this scene, they can almost feel the strange pressure of be buried under the bottles like all the dancers and also rancid smell of the garbage. But the most amazing thing behind the screen was that actually the recycle station of Tzu-Chi was odorless, and all the plastic bottles were collected, washed, preprocessed and classified by volunteers. One of the main concept of Tzu-Chi Foundation was to do good things with kind heart and equal to all beings, so they did a lot environmental education and recycling to encourage the ordinary people be aware of their surrounding. That is also the massage we want to deliver through the work of Dancecology. Especially in Recycle Project, through the journey leading by the bottle you bought, you will realize that one man’s life is equal to the recycle process of a bottle.

CREDITS

Director/ Choreographer: Peng Hsiao-yin Artistic Director: Sue Healey Director of Photography: Chen Yi-shu Editor: Tseng Huan-Shin (Sigo) Art Director: Peng Yu-hung Music: Vincent Juo Costume Stylist: Chen Shaw-chi Title Sequence/ Graphic Design: Shen Yun-yi Performers: Wong Chi-wing, Chen Fu-Rong, Chen Yi-Ching, Peng Chun-ming Yu Xiao-chu, Wang Yu-chun, Yin Yu-miao, Lee Po-ruey, Li Shiou-fen, Shen Yun-yi, Chu Pei-rong, Lin Chiao-tang, Floor D, Lin Yi-chi, Yao Sun-teck, Jiang Sheng-fong Commissioned by City Contemporary Dance Company for Jumping Frames International Dance Video Festival 2016

Recycle Project（2016）