Greetings from cold dreary Adelaide (well apart from today where the sun came out and I defrosted a little bit!). What am I doing in Adelaide?
Well, currently I'm working with Leigh Warren and Dancers for their season in the Oz Asia Festival of "Dreamscape". Learning Jiri Kylian's "Dreamtime" which has been a bit challenging as it's much more classical than the work I have done lately. This week ahead we have Elka coming over from NDT which should be quite an amazing experience. Possibly a little bit scary as I am performing the part in the piece which she once performed herself!
At the same time we are remounting "Maria De Buenos Aires" for the Brisbane Festival. I am quite enjoying revisiting the tango choreography as it feels a little less foreign this time - though I do miss being able to dance with my husband in the work. Chris Aubrey is doing a fabulous job as Zaimon's replacement in the work though so I am lucky.
I'm also teaching dance classes at Gravity Dance Studios and community class for Leigh Warren and Dancers.
Recently I found out that I have been successful with my application to do the Ausdance QLD Choreographic Laboratory in October/November this year so I'm excited about that!
In other news, Brisbane Dance Artists Hub (BDAH) has successfully initiated Pro Dance Classes Brisbane and professional level dance classes commence on Tuesday mornings and Thursday evenings this week - so happy to have been involved in getting these classes up and running and hoping that they can continue so Brisbane Independent Dancers have the opportunity to maintain their technique on a regular basis.
For now, I must get back to grant writing ... but I'll leave you with a little snippet of footage from "Inhabited" - my solo for EDC's "Solo - A Festival of Dance".
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
A bit of this ... a bit of that ...
Gosh, well it has been far too long since I last posted on my blog! 2011 has been an exciting year so far. I have enjoyed working on quite a few different dance projects and even did a short course in web design.
In April/May, I was commissioned by EDC to create and perform a solo for their season of "Solo - A Festival of Dance". It was a fantastic opportunity and a perfect little challenge to push myself that little bit further outside of my comfort zone. I was also fortunate to be able to collaborate with Ryadan Jeavons who created original music for me to dance my solo to.
In March this year I received a scholarship from SCOPE to do a short course in web design through Dynamic Web Training. It was so great to be creative in a different way and I discovered that I did in fact have many transferable skills from my dancing that were useful for web design. Now it's a matter of finding the time in between everything else that I do to be able to put my new skills into action!
This year I have also forged forward with Brisbane Dance Artists Hub (BDAH) ... initiating the first meeting in person for the group in May. The group is currently looking to set up regular ongoing professional level classes in Brisbane.
I also worked for Ausdance QLD helping to organise some of the Australian Dance Awards (being held in Brisbane this year!). This was a great experience from which I learned so much about the behind the scenes organisation of such a big event.
Currently I'm working with Leigh Warren and Dancers learning Jiri Kylian's "Dreamtime". It's challenging to learn an old NDT piece for many reasons - one of which is because it's very balletic and I haven't really done ballet in a very long time, the other is because everyday we watch beautiful NDT dancers make the movement look so easy when it's actually not! We perform this for the Oz Asia Festival in September in Adelaide. After this we remount "Maria De Buenos Aires" for the Brisbane Festival in mid September.
Amongst all of this I danced for electropop duo, Edge of Colour's new single "Tokyo" and have been doing lots of dance teaching around Brisbane.
Work with Zaimon Vilmanis and Ryadan Jeavons hasn't finished ... we are still looking to expand upon the developments of "A Likely Distrust" that we started through a Fresh Ground Residency supported by the Judith Wright Centre and Arts Queensland.
So what's next after LWD? Well, there's a few things in the pipeline, but as to be expected ... none of them are confirmed yet ... so anything could happen!
In April/May, I was commissioned by EDC to create and perform a solo for their season of "Solo - A Festival of Dance". It was a fantastic opportunity and a perfect little challenge to push myself that little bit further outside of my comfort zone. I was also fortunate to be able to collaborate with Ryadan Jeavons who created original music for me to dance my solo to.
In March this year I received a scholarship from SCOPE to do a short course in web design through Dynamic Web Training. It was so great to be creative in a different way and I discovered that I did in fact have many transferable skills from my dancing that were useful for web design. Now it's a matter of finding the time in between everything else that I do to be able to put my new skills into action!
This year I have also forged forward with Brisbane Dance Artists Hub (BDAH) ... initiating the first meeting in person for the group in May. The group is currently looking to set up regular ongoing professional level classes in Brisbane.
I also worked for Ausdance QLD helping to organise some of the Australian Dance Awards (being held in Brisbane this year!). This was a great experience from which I learned so much about the behind the scenes organisation of such a big event.
Currently I'm working with Leigh Warren and Dancers learning Jiri Kylian's "Dreamtime". It's challenging to learn an old NDT piece for many reasons - one of which is because it's very balletic and I haven't really done ballet in a very long time, the other is because everyday we watch beautiful NDT dancers make the movement look so easy when it's actually not! We perform this for the Oz Asia Festival in September in Adelaide. After this we remount "Maria De Buenos Aires" for the Brisbane Festival in mid September.
Amongst all of this I danced for electropop duo, Edge of Colour's new single "Tokyo" and have been doing lots of dance teaching around Brisbane.
Work with Zaimon Vilmanis and Ryadan Jeavons hasn't finished ... we are still looking to expand upon the developments of "A Likely Distrust" that we started through a Fresh Ground Residency supported by the Judith Wright Centre and Arts Queensland.
So what's next after LWD? Well, there's a few things in the pipeline, but as to be expected ... none of them are confirmed yet ... so anything could happen!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Where am I? What am I doing?
Unfortunately it has been a while since I last wrote a blog entry. It has been a time of planning and of identifying goals I want to achieve in the future.
I am currently in the process of applying for a Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor's Young and Emerging Artists Fellowship to gain new knowledge, experience the working practices of a well known choreographer, and hopefully discover new devices to guide the development of my own choreographic processes and identity. So if you haven't seen much of me, I have disappeared into the abyss of grant writing ... but never fear, I will re-surface soon!
Right now I am also working with Leigh Warren and Dancers for "Maria De Buenos Aires" in collaboration with the State Opera of South Australia. It's fantastic to be learning some of the basics of how to Tango and to be involved in the creation of the dance material for the show. Working in heels, took a little getting used to, but believe it or not I actually ended up asking for the 2.75 inch heels instead of the 2.5 inch ones ... crazy I know! Working with the opera singers is lots of fun, though I still haven't improved my singing ability!
I'm also busy creating a solo work for the South Australian Children's Ballet Company Silver Gala season in November. It will be a wonderful chance to give back to the company that inspired me to become a dancer when I was a young girl.
As a participant in the SCOPE program I am putting together an action plan for my future and it's really exciting to be taking steps to achieve my long term goals.
Together with Zaimon and Ryadan, we have still been meeting up to continue making plans for further development of "A Likely Distrust" ... hopefully we will be able to do a second stage development of this project soon.
A few weeks ago I gave a contemporary class for the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts' Adelaide Audition. It was certainly nice to be on the other side of an audition for a change!
I will endeavour to make more regular blog entries and keep you updated on my adventures in coming months. For now, I must return to fine tuning my fellowship proposal ... if only I had the training in writing that I have in dancing too!
I am currently in the process of applying for a Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor's Young and Emerging Artists Fellowship to gain new knowledge, experience the working practices of a well known choreographer, and hopefully discover new devices to guide the development of my own choreographic processes and identity. So if you haven't seen much of me, I have disappeared into the abyss of grant writing ... but never fear, I will re-surface soon!
Right now I am also working with Leigh Warren and Dancers for "Maria De Buenos Aires" in collaboration with the State Opera of South Australia. It's fantastic to be learning some of the basics of how to Tango and to be involved in the creation of the dance material for the show. Working in heels, took a little getting used to, but believe it or not I actually ended up asking for the 2.75 inch heels instead of the 2.5 inch ones ... crazy I know! Working with the opera singers is lots of fun, though I still haven't improved my singing ability!
I'm also busy creating a solo work for the South Australian Children's Ballet Company Silver Gala season in November. It will be a wonderful chance to give back to the company that inspired me to become a dancer when I was a young girl.
As a participant in the SCOPE program I am putting together an action plan for my future and it's really exciting to be taking steps to achieve my long term goals.
Together with Zaimon and Ryadan, we have still been meeting up to continue making plans for further development of "A Likely Distrust" ... hopefully we will be able to do a second stage development of this project soon.
A few weeks ago I gave a contemporary class for the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts' Adelaide Audition. It was certainly nice to be on the other side of an audition for a change!
I will endeavour to make more regular blog entries and keep you updated on my adventures in coming months. For now, I must return to fine tuning my fellowship proposal ... if only I had the training in writing that I have in dancing too!
Friday, August 6, 2010
Dance Informa Review of the Helpmann 100 Centenary Scholarship
Here's a link the the Dance Informa review of the Helpmann 100 Centenary Scholarship.
http://www.danceinforma.com/EZINE16_Helpmann.html
http://www.danceinforma.com/EZINE16_Helpmann.html
Friday, June 4, 2010
Brisbane Dance Artists Hub
If you are an Independent Dance Artist in Brisbane check out the group page on Facebook. Let's start communicating with each other and set the wheels in motion for a better dance future!
How did "A Likely Distrust" go?
Well it has been a while since I last wrote on my blog and I do apologise! It has been a very busy few months.
"A Likely Distrust" was a "Fresh Ground" residency from the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts which allowed Zaimon Vilmanis, Ryadan Jeavons and myself to collaborate and explore the integration of multimedia with live performance. It was a fantastic four week project where all three of us were able to build on our collaborative language and start new processes for creating work that integrates multimedia with live performance. One of our motto's for the project was to "stop worrying about the effect of this project on future projects". This was very challenging for us but helped us to free our minds to create new ideas and to go further with those ideas than we would have had we censored ourselves and been too focused on creating a final production.
Our showings of some of the things that we came up with during our residency were extremely useful in providing critical feedback for us to take into consideration for our next endeavour. Asking specific questions about what the audience saw in our showings and what resonated with them proved much more useful than the usual post showing forums that chat about the process.
We are excited by the possibilities of where we can go next with what we have discovered and achieved from this residency. How refreshing it was to be supported by the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts who provided us with the freedom to really experiment with our ideas!
Check out "A Likely Distrust" facebook fan page and/or www.zaimonvilmanis.com to view videos and find out more about the project.
"A Likely Distrust" was a "Fresh Ground" residency from the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts which allowed Zaimon Vilmanis, Ryadan Jeavons and myself to collaborate and explore the integration of multimedia with live performance. It was a fantastic four week project where all three of us were able to build on our collaborative language and start new processes for creating work that integrates multimedia with live performance. One of our motto's for the project was to "stop worrying about the effect of this project on future projects". This was very challenging for us but helped us to free our minds to create new ideas and to go further with those ideas than we would have had we censored ourselves and been too focused on creating a final production.
Our showings of some of the things that we came up with during our residency were extremely useful in providing critical feedback for us to take into consideration for our next endeavour. Asking specific questions about what the audience saw in our showings and what resonated with them proved much more useful than the usual post showing forums that chat about the process.
We are excited by the possibilities of where we can go next with what we have discovered and achieved from this residency. How refreshing it was to be supported by the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts who provided us with the freedom to really experiment with our ideas!
Check out "A Likely Distrust" facebook fan page and/or www.zaimonvilmanis.com to view videos and find out more about the project.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
What's In Store for 2010?
So what is in store for 2010 you ask?
My Summer Dance Classes at QUT will finish up on the 12th of January, ready for me to start back with Leigh Warren and Dancers in Adelaide for "Frame and Circle" which will be performed at the Space Theatre at the Adelaide Festival Centre from the 10-14 of March as part of the Adelaide Festival. I'll then return to Brisbane to commence working with my husband, Zaimon Vilmanis for a short term residency as part of the Fresh Ground Program at the Judith Wright Centre in Fortitude Valley to develop the project "A Likely Distrust". To keep an eye on this project check out www.zaimonvilmanis.com. In amongst these projects will no doubt be bits of teaching in both Adelaide and Brisbane too.
In May, or maybe even before, I'll update you again on more that's in store for the year.
Hoping you have had a delightful Christmas and have commenced this New Year being happy and healthy!
My Summer Dance Classes at QUT will finish up on the 12th of January, ready for me to start back with Leigh Warren and Dancers in Adelaide for "Frame and Circle" which will be performed at the Space Theatre at the Adelaide Festival Centre from the 10-14 of March as part of the Adelaide Festival. I'll then return to Brisbane to commence working with my husband, Zaimon Vilmanis for a short term residency as part of the Fresh Ground Program at the Judith Wright Centre in Fortitude Valley to develop the project "A Likely Distrust". To keep an eye on this project check out www.zaimonvilmanis.com. In amongst these projects will no doubt be bits of teaching in both Adelaide and Brisbane too.
In May, or maybe even before, I'll update you again on more that's in store for the year.
Hoping you have had a delightful Christmas and have commenced this New Year being happy and healthy!
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