Hyperlocal 2022 Program Artist: Samara Hersch

We are thrilled to announce Samara Hersch as Hyperlocal’s inaugural artist. As part of this pilot program, Samara will work with Abbotsford Convent, Dancehouse, Darebin Arts and The Substation, as a consortium of arts organisations to develop an innovative new performance work, produced by Performing Lines.

Samara’s project, It’s Going to Get Dark, considers how critical and radical perspectives might emerge whilst sitting in the dark with other human and non-human bodies. This new work continues Samara’s investigation into critical trans-generational discourse and the potentials of performance as conversation.

Samara will conduct four different labs in each organisation exploring: working intergenerationally (Abbotsford Convent); social choreographic practices (Dancehouse); the materiality of light and darkness (Darebin Arts); and sound spatialisation and design (The Substation). Samara will be working with a team of exciting artists from various disciplines.

Exemplifying Samara’s ability to move between the live, the virtual, and a multiplicity of simultaneous spaces, It’s Going to Get Dark was selected for its rich creative offering, its unique engagement of each Hyperlocal partner and their  distinct communities, and its potential to forge exciting new linkages across Melbourne.

Past

In 2020 and 2021, Dancehouse has supported the works of local independent dance practitioners by providing subsidised space, time and equipment to help artists develop their independent dance projects. To date, Dancehouse has supported:

• After Party by Yuiko Masukawa
• Arang(Eh!)tram by Nithya Nagarajan and Samara Hersch
• Colossus by Stephanie Lake Company
• Conquest of the Garden by Nebahat Erpoplat
• Finger Pointing at the Moon by Simon Ellis
• Freedom Ball by House of Deviné (HOD)
• Maloya Moshpit by Punctum with Muriel Hillier Toulcanon
• Residency for Maggie Chen, winner of House Party
• RINSE by Amrita Hepi
• SWEETSOUR by Victoria Chiu
• The Eleventh Hour by Sarah Aiken and Rebecca Jensen
• We Are Here by Jennifer Ma and collaborators