Dance (Lens)
Dance (Lens)
Dance (Lens) is Australia’s premier platform for advancing screendance.
Hosted biennially by Dancehouse, Dance (Lens) Festival is a national advocate for this hybrid medium, fostering its development and expanding its reach. Since the COVID Lockdowns of 2020, Dance (Lens) has been integral to Dancehouse’s program, illuminating the form, and the works and practices of both Australian and international 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.
Dance (Lens) Mini 2024 offered a program of workshops, masterclasses, a scratch night, talks and screenings ahead of the Dance (Lens) Festival in Winter, July 2025.
Dance (Lens) Mini 2024
Dancehouse offered an exciting taster of screendance installations, talks, workshops and a Scratch Night as part of Dance (Lens) Mini 2024 (26-30 November 2024) and as the lead-in to the biennial Dance (Lens) Festival in July 2025.
The 2024 Dance (Lens) Mini welcomed the installation of Sue Healey’s moving celebration of Australia’s pioneering women in dance ON VIEW: ICONS. The work was launched as part of the Moving Portraits opening event with an in-conversation with Sue Healey, Siobhan Murphy, Cobie Orger and Alice Cummins and the screening of terra by Cobie Orger, and Doing the Work by Siobhan Murphy.
The inaugural Dance (Lens) Scratch Night shared works-in-progress of new screendance works for feedback, and as always, Dance (Lens) Mini features three spectacular Dance (Lens) Workshops with Sue Healey, Siobhan Murphy, and Cobie Orger.
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.
!['Composite Acts' (2019), David Rosetzky [still].](https://www.dancehouse.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/STILL-—-Composite-Acts-by-David-Rosetzky-1000x530.jpg)
Dance (Lens) Mini 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.
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 >>
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.