Dancehouse is currently accepting Australian screendance works for Official Selection as part of the biennial Dance (Lens) Festival 9-13 July 2025.

Dance (Lens) is Dancehouse’s program for all things screendance. The biennial Dance (Lens) Festival in winter 2025, combines an opening week of in-person screenings, workshops, talks and special events to celebrate recent screendance works locally and internationally. Dance (Lens) Festival is also available digitally On Demand in July following the in-person screenings.

In 2025, Dance (Lens) is co-curated by Siobhan Murphy and two additional curators to be announced in May 2025. The curators will oofer programs of screendance works and supporting “In Focus” public programs reflecting current developments and/ or historic threads in international screendance.

Works that will be considered for the Official Selection will have been completed from 1 January 2023.

All Officially Selected works are paid a screening fee for Dance (Lens) of $250 for each in-person screening as well as a pass to the entire festival.

At a minimum, there will be one in-person screening of the work but Dancehouse actively pursues re-screenings across Australia and internationally on behalf of the Official Selection artists.

Curatorial Criteria

Official Selection screendance works as part of Dance (Lens) 2025 will include:

• A mix of appealing screendance works representing diverse artists, dance forms, ideas, and with specific appeal to different audiences and communities; 
• Works with quality artistic and production values that match the form, style, available resources, and creative ambition of the work;
• Screendance work that is exemplary of broad genres or forms, and/or is experimental and innovative;
• Works created specifically for the screen rather than documentations of live dance work.

Dance (Lens) Notes

• The Dance (Lens) Festival encourages filmmakers at all stages of their careers: from passionate amateurs to industry veterans, showcasing a broad understanding and exploration of screendance;
• Works may include expanded choreographic possibilities, temporalities, contexts, and/or traditions; both human and non-human bodies;
• The Festival explores and celebrates the boundaries and expectations of screendance works acknowledging that choreography of the camera, frame, rhythm and editing are central to the form;
• Documentation or archival recordings of live performance are not considered screendance;
• The majority of the Official Selection program will comprise short screendance works under 10-12 mins;
• Dance (Lens) Festival welcomes proposals for non-standard screendance works: long-form works, durational installation, VR, live-editing performance, multi-screen etc. If selected, these works will likely need to be considered as a special event presentation within Dance (Lens) Festival.

Submissions

Submissions for Official Selection for Dance (Lens) Festival 2025 will: 

• Be created by credited lead artist/s who are Australian residents aged 18 years or older;
• Hold all relevant rights (like music) for the film including both world-wide digital broadcast and in-person screenings;
• Have been completed within the last 2 years (from 1 January 2023);
• Have a specific relationship to choreography for the lens.

To submit your work for Official Selection, you will be asked to provide:

• A link (ideally, Vimeo or similar) to the full screendance work at no less than Full-HD (1920 x 1080) resolution at widescreen 16:9 ratio. We recommend links are password protected.
• A synopsis and credits for the work.
• Hero Images (max 3) — either frames from the feature or production stills — to represent your film (ideally landscape 300 dpi @ 1920 x 1080)

If selected, Dancehouse will request a trailer and/or 3 x 15 second grabs of HD video footage of the film for promotional purposes (Full-HD (1920 x 1080) resolution at widescreen 16:9 ratio).