Live screenings of the Dance (Lens) program will be held from 19–21 November.

World Premiere

SOURSWEET (2021) — RDYSTDY & Victoria Chiu

A collaboration between artists RDYSTDY and choreographer Victoria Chiu, this experimental short film illuminates three generations of conflicting attitudes to assimilation as seen from a contemporary perspective. It is a mindscape of memories and stereotypes, exploring the tension between wanting to challenge culture, but not wanting to erase it; wanting to break from history but not wanting to forget it.

Director & Dramaturgy: Hana Miller
Choreographer & Dancer: Victoria Chiu
Cinematographer & Editing: Jacob Perkins
Producer: RDYSTDY & Victoria Chiu
Movement Cinematographer: Gregory Lorenzutti
Sound Design & Mix: Daniel Jenatsch
Set Design: Cate Consandine

Supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Creative Victoria, and Dancehouse.

Your Time (2017) — Phebe Schmidt

A robotic character acts out her own surreal dreamscape, straining to remain focussed on an ambiguous and elusive end-goal. In this uncanny space, unbound by time and place, an intermediate world emerges that blurs the line between the real and the unreal. Your Time examines notions of selfhood — seeking to make visible the gaps between self, image and brand through nebulous concepts of ‘reality’ and ‘authenticity’.

Starring: Sue Thompson
Directed by: Phebe Schmidt
Director of Photography: Jonathan Haynes
Produced by: Zachary Bradtke and Tobias Willis
Production Design: Thomas Llewellyn
Script: Spencer Lai
Spoken by: Ellie Baer
Sound: Patrick Mooney
Creative Consultant: Audrey Schmidt
Choreography: Amanda Betlehem
Costume Design: Lauren De Innocentis
Makeup: April Valentine
Makeup Assistant: Lia Jackson
Hair Stylist: Xeneb Allen
Colourist: Jake Houston Harris
Gaffer: Lochlan Broughton
1st Assistant Camera: Felicia Smith
Production Assistant 1: Rhys Mitchell
Best Boy: Scott Pope
Production Design Assistant 1: Madeleine Williams
Production Design Assistant 2: Samantha Hogan

This project is supported by Creative Victoria, Australia Council for the Arts, City of Melbourne, City of Greater Dandenong and Yarra City Council. 

Void (2020) — Claire Marshall

Void explores ideas of psychological entrapment as a solitary figure journeys through her psyche — a labyrinthine staircase where multiple selves slowly emerge. Part dance film, part psychological horror, dancer Erin O’Rourke’s psychic entrapment mirrors her physical confinement, winding upwards, gazing downwards.

Director & Producer: Claire Marshall
Cinematographer: Saroj Kumar Chauhan
Dancer: Erin O’Rourke

Void was made as a part of a folio of works for Claire Marshall’s Master of Fine Arts (Dance) at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. 

Australian Premiere

Countervail (2017) — Lux Eterna & Kathryn Puie

A choreographic conversation between flesh and metal, the sensual and intimate relationship between the organic and the built: the prosthetic and the body. An integration of choreography, scale and poetry, Countervail redefines the choreographic structures of contemporary dance and the stilt form. In a space where sky and earth meet in a dilation of the body, this visceral work is danced not only by its prosthetics, but also light, prisms and fractals. The body is both historic dense matter and an ephemeral visitor.

Choreographer & dancer: Kathryn Puie
Camera/Editor/Producer: Lux Eterna

Yinarr (2020) — Amelia Jean O’Leary

Yinarr is a glimpse into the discovery and exploration of Gamilaroi Woman, Amelia Jean O’Leary’s, journey with identity. Yinarr means ‘Aboriginal Woman’ in Gamillaray Langauge. With music, editing, filming and dance by O’Leary, she shares a raw physical depiction of the internal vortex of identity, sisterhood and culture. In this iteration of Yinarr, O’Leary reflects on how sisterhood and the Blak Matriarchy have strengthened her as Yinarr.

Director & Producer: Amelia Jean O’Leary
Dancers: Amelia Jean O’Leary featuring Tallara O’Leary

Made with the support of YIRRAMBOI’s Resilience in Isolation program.

Australian Premiere

Stuttgart Corner — Thalia Livingstone

This film documents a week in time and a corner in space within a long, isolated lockdown. A desire to play with others and travel to other places.
The toys; rhythm, scale, perspective and texture are played with by objects and the body to expand the Stuttgart Corner.
The game demonstrates the possibility to travel on a journey whilst remaining within the bounds of a particular physical space. An opportunity to escape whilst trapped.

Filmmaker: Thalia Livingstone
Composer: Noah Riseley

This film was supported by the Tanja Liedtke Foundation.

Strategic Choreographies (2021) — Leo Tsao

Inspired by global protests and uprising, Strategic Choreographies explores the dynamics of power in movements through basketball. We witness bodies in friction with one another, shifting power between the corporeal and the public body. The basketball court is a field, a stage, a frame — where the assembled players compete not on teams, but between themselves and the collective. Directed and choreographed by Leo Tsao, Strategic Choreographies features a hybrid of hip-hop, contact improvisation and basketball performed by practitioners across these disciplines.

Director & Choreographer: Leo Tsao
Dancers: Isaac Bradley, Michael Francisco, Taiga Kita-Leong, Feras Shaheen, Maria Wang, Wendy Yu
Producer: Firstdraft

This project is supported by Firstdraft and Create NSW and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body