Dance (Lens) 2025 — IN FOCUS
Free daily events and talks at Dance (Lens) Festival 2025
1/3
A Journey Through 2001 Days (2025) by Jonathan Sinatra
IN FOCUS: talks and events
For Dance (Lens) Festival, join us for free daily talks and discussions celebrating the works and practices of screendance artists, curators and thinkers.
Stay around after each talk for a night of screenings at 6.30pm and 7.30pm.
— IN FOCUS events are free
IN FOCUS: Festival Opening with Bronwen Kamasz and Jonathan Sinatra
5.30pm, Thursday 10 July
To kick-off Dance (Lens) Festival, join us for a social launch event to hear about the festival, celebrate and meet the artists, performers, curators and audiences whilst experiencing two exciting and very unique encounters of dance on screen by local artists.
Bronwen Kamasz will present a short “live-editing” performance of Stand Walk Ride. Featuring pre-recorded footage, rhythmical editing techniques, ambient soundscape, and a honed improvisational mind, Bronwen captures, and mixes live for us, the choreographic perambulations of populations as they navigate through the city.
Jonathan Sinatra’s installation Dance Odyssey: 2001 Days launches on opening night. Unfolding across three screens in the Dancehouse foyer, this immersive work draws from Jonathan’s Daily Dance Project—a durational discourse of dancing, filming, and exploring movement in various environments and spaces. This evolving collection of movement traces the passage of time and the unfolding of creative practice. Filmed across seasons and shifting emotional and physical states, the work forms a living archive of presence, persistence, and transformation.
IN FOCUS: Joshua Faleatua, Threading Frames (NZ)
5.30pm, Friday 11 July
Get an inside look into Fale’s recent works Inside and Behind Tomorrow—focusing on world building and challenging the conventional boundaries of space and time. This event will reveal his creative process, sharing his techniques and ideas behind his approach to movement on film. From surreal dreamscapes to distorted environments, Fale reimagines street dance as a tool for building new realities and reshaping narrative.
IN FOCUS: Generations from ReelDance to Dance (Lens)
5.30pm, Saturday 12 July
Join ReelDance Retrospective curator Erin Brannigan in a discussion with choreographers Tony Yap and Michelle Heaven on their careers and practices across live performance and dance on film.
Founder of instrumental Australian dance on film organisation ReelDance, Erin Brannigan has selected works featuring Tony and Michelle with collaborators Dianne Reid and Jessica Wallace.
Local dance luminary Tony Yap has two portraits in Dance (Lens) Festival 2025: Tony by Dianne Reid (2007); and I am Many by Lee Kien Fei (2025). Michelle Heaven’s Interior (1997) created with Jessica Wallace has been digitised for screening from the National Film and Sound Archives for Dance (Lens) Festival 2025. Michelle also appears in Margie Medlin and Sandra Parker’s In Absentia (2001).
With Erin, they discuss the role of dance screen in their careers and their choreographic practices ongoing to the present.
Read More
Bronwen Kamasz is a multi-disciplinary artist. Working across the visual and the performing arts Bronwen has a range of discrete practices that occasionally cross over. In the visual arts Bronwen trained as a sculptor, she now uses those skills to create video art, in her photographic practice, and for puppet making. In the performing arts Bronwen is an improvisor. She is also a puppeteer, actor and dancer and is currently developing a live improvised video art practice. Bronwen is a core member of several collectives including Environmental Performance Authority (EPA) who collaboratively create site specific walking performances. On Monday nights Bronwen co-facilitates ‘In the Moment’ performance improvisation peer practice with Peter Trotman as part of Dancehouse’s Dancehousing program. This weekly event has grown over the last few years into a substantial part of the Melbourne performance improvisation scene.
Jonathan Sinatra is a Melbourne-based dance artist, educator, and videographer with over 25 years of experience in contemporary performance and improvisation. He is the creator of The Daily Dance Project—a durational dance and video practice spanning over 2000 consecutive days, exploring movement, presence, and place through daily filmed improvisations. His work draws on Contact Improvisation, site-responsive choreography, and visual storytelling to trace the intersections between body, landscape, and time. Jonathan has performed and taught extensively across Australia and internationally, including long-term collaborations with Russell Dumas and Dance Exchange. His current focus lies in transforming dance documentation into installation and performance works that invite reflection, participation, and ongoing transformation.
![The_ongoing_process_of_trying_to_make_sense (2023), by Martin Klukas [Germany]](https://www.dancehouse.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/the-ongoing-process_-mesmilling-two_-copy-1000x562.jpg)
![Noora (2023) Anna Kekkonen [Finland]](https://www.dancehouse.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/NOORA-Credit-Anna-Kekkonen-In-photo-Noora-Vastinen-2-1000x563.jpg)
![MisFit (2023), by Conner Bell [USA]](https://www.dancehouse.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/MisFit_10-1000x500.jpg)
