Dance (Lens)

Dance (Lens) Festival is Australia’s premier platform for advancing screendance. Hosted biennially by Dancehouse, the festival is a national advocate for this hybrid medium, fostering its development and expanding its reach. Since the pandemic, this festival has been integral to Dancehouse’s program, illuminating the form and the Australian screendance artists.

Dance (Lens) is co-curated by screendance artists and curators. Participating curators have included:  Siobhan Murphy (Victoria | 2021, 2023); Feras Shaheen (NSW | 2023); Gitta Wigro (UK | 2023); Melissa Ramos (NSW | 2021); and André Shannon (NSW | 2021).

Traditionally, Dance (Lens) hosts a taster program in the non-festival year. This year’s mini program for 2024 offers workshops, masterclasses, and smaller screenings announced 6 November 2024.

The next Dance (Lens) Festival is in Winter 2025.

Dance (Lens) 2024

Dancehouse’s celebrated screendance festival Dance (Lens) is coming in winter 2025. 

Ahead of the Dance (Lens) Festival in November 2024, whet your dance on screen appetites with an exciting taster program of screendance installations, workshops, masterclasses, and a special “RUSH” night for aspiring makers to share their work and get draft feedback from other artists.

Dance (Lens) workshops and masterclasses will be on sale from 1 October with the full program announced on 6 November 2024.

Dance (Lens) Festival 2023

Dancehouse’s biennial festival of dance on screen returned in 2023 from 13-31 from July with 37 screendance works screened at Dancehouse and digitally on demand. The festival also includes live and online talks, and four workshops for screendance makers.

The 2023 Dance (Lens) Festival was curated by three screendance artists and curators: Siobhan Murphy (Vic), Feras Shaheen (NSW) and international renowned guest curator Gitta Wigro (UK). The curators programmed the festival from a National callout, including the ‘Official Selection’ program of recent local Australian screendance works made in the last two years.

Dance (Lens) Official Selection featured a variety of screendance works including a home-grown spaghetti western, an exploration of cataclysm from expert Bharatnatyam performer Anandavalli, an interspecies collage of dancing human-worm chimeras, a surreal and whimsical animation about parklife during COVID lockdowns, and an extended music-video clip celebrating Jamaican dancehall.

Dance (Lens) Festival in 2023 was supported by the Besen Family foundation.

Read more>>

Dance (Lens) 2022

Ahead of the 2023 Dance (Lens) Festival, Dancehouse hosted a weekend taster from 26—27 November 2022 including screendance workshops for all experience levels, with Siobhan Murphy and Cobie Orger, and a special IN FOCUS screening with David Rosetsky.

Read more >>

Dance (Lens) Festival 2021

The Dance (Lens) Festival showcased over 30 outstanding international and national screendance works curated by André Shannon, Melissa Ramos and Siobhan Murphy.

Dance (Lens) ran On Demand from 29 July—29 August 2021 during COVID lockdowns in Melbourne. The Festival also hosted a repeat in-person screening live at Dancehouse over one weekend (19—21 November). Live movie marathon program >>

Read More>>

Talks, extras and bonus features >>

Dance (Lens) 2020

In 2020, during the long days of the COVID-19 lockdowns in Melbourne, Dancehouse initiated Dance (Lens) a digital broadcast series highlighted outstanding screendance works from Australia and overseas alongside artist Q&As with makers and curators.

At a time when dancing together was impossible, Dance (Lens) explored the embodiment and disembodiment of dance, speculative stages, screening history, and the communal experience of watching dance on the other side of the screen.

Read more >>

Talks, extras and bonus features >>