Encoded Dances (excerpts & artefact collage)

Each practice session makes marks that layer and support the next. We don’t erase what’s come before, but retrace our steps and share our experiences with each other. We practice in different environments: street, sidewalk, garden, creek, hill, park, alley, theatre, foyer, hallway, tutorial room, dance studio, lounge room, balcony, porch. These varied practices in varied environments both disrupt and dissolve habitual codes and lay foundations for new pathways to be forged. During this dance, you are invited to choose a seat from three different seating banks and change your facing as the dance progresses. 

This is a collage of artefacts from solo and shared practices with different artists in a variety of different environments. The soundscape is a collage of sounds, dialogues, and descriptions of practice collected over the last year and a half. You might hear intimate dialogue about dance, clips of collaborative negotiation, discussion of ideas and directions improvised directions from shared workshops with Rosalind Crisp and Deborah Hay, or thick descriptions from both the inside and the outside of dancing.

Susannah Keebler, dancer and choreographer 

Soundscape constructed by Myfanwy Hunter and Susannah Keebler

Soundscape mastered by Padma Newsome

Lighting by: Siobhain Geaney

featured in the soundscape and collage are documents from shared performance practice with:

Myfanwy Hunter, violist

Chelsea Byrne, dancer    

Bronwen Kamasz, dancer

Irene Metter, documentarian

as well as solo performance by Susannah Keebler

CURIOS

In this dance the audience is invited to take a generative role. First they are welcomed to choose a seat  at tables and in stools around me, the dancer. On the tables are my notebooks with notes about the about the dance materials of this piece as well as notecards with words that reflect on this piece and the beautiful historical, anatomical drawings by Albinous. I then perform the first section. Then I invite the audience to reflect on their experience and and if they want, to take time to draw or write words about the experience. The paper has sticky on the backside, so that after reflection time, the audience is then invited to stick their reflection on my costume. Then the second half is performed. After the performance, I harvest the new reflections and add then to the older notecards for the next performance. The new input changes the materials over time.

creation and performance: Susannah Keebler

music: Padma Newsome

lighting: Siobhain Geaney

dramaturgy: Kliment Poposki

camera: Angela Valdez

photos and editing: Susannah Keebler

Note from Susannah: I’m sharing my new cabinet of dance curios collected over the first part of 2018, including movement figures and ideas, the performance technique I learned from doing Helen Herbertson’s piece, “Pause,” as well as exploring different ways of being a dancer/choreographer in relationships with you, an audience.

Padma Newsome is an Australian composer, performer, recording artist, teacher, choir encourager, songster, and community musician. He dwells in Mallacoota, Victoria. The music you heard was written for and performed by his sister Sue Newsome on the Bass Clarinet.

Macedonian-born and raised Kliment Poposki immigrated to Australia with his family in 1990. He has completed a science degree at RMIT, three years of intensive training at The National Theatre Drama School, and is a graduate of Nomad Dance Academy Macedonia. Kliment travels between Australia and Macedonia where he continues to work in the arts as a freelance artist and is an active member of Lokomotiva and Nomad Dance Academy Macedonia . Kliment is currently studying Masters of Dramaturgy at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA).