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Dancehouse is on Wurundjeri Country. We offer our respects to the Wurundjeri woi-wurrung people — and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people — who continue to dance on Country, and have done, for thousands of generations. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

1/1
27 July 2019
5:30—6:30pm

Sylvia Staehli Theatre, Dancehouse

Free

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Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible

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This is the first in a series of ‘Now Pieces‘ events featuring performance artists whose work is dance/movement based. Peter Fraser, Janette Hoe, Bronwen Kamasz, Catherine Magill, Andrew Morrish and Peter Trotman each present a 10 minute improvised piece.

Performance improvisation has a long linage of committed practitioners and requires a well developed sense of presence, attention to detail and an ability to craft an overall piece on the go. This is an opportunity to be in the midst of finely tuned responsive, energised performance.

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Peter Fraser works in site-specific dance, improvisation and installations. He is currently engaged with Sounds Like Movement, a duo with instrument-maker/musician Dale Gorfinkel investigating movement, bodies and materials (MORE INFO); Environmental Performance Authority site-specific ecological performance group (co-founder and performer); DIRt: dance in regional disaster zones (Rosalind Crisp) and About Now authentic movement/improvisation (dir. Shaun McLeod). He also plays with Prophets ‘stylefree’ masked music group.  Recent projects include Great Attractor #3, solo in a veterinary anatomy theatre (DeQuinceyCo, University of Sydney), and Pink Lakes, a dance video dir. Vanessa White. Peter recently completed an MA on Strategies for truthful performance.

Janette Hoe is a Melbourne-based contemporary dance artist, performance maker and collaborator. Her practice is informed by somatic, movement-based improvisation practices with a focus evolving from the tradition of Butoh. Born in Kuala Lumpur, she migrated to Australia at age 19. Drawing from her hybrid background of Malaysian-Chinese-Indonesian and Australian cultures, her projects often explore ideas relating to ‘home,’ identity’ and ‘belonging’. She is interested in how and what memories within the body are kindled in improvisation and enjoys creating site-specific works where the narrative of a place and embodied memories intersect. Janette has performed across Australia and South East Asia. Her evocative works invite audiences into these landscapes where fragments of memory, lived experiences and imagination meet. Dance Australia Critics Survey nominated Janette ‘Dancer to Watch’ for her works No Candles Please (2006) and moths are calling (2014). Janette completed her Master of Fine Arts (Dance) by research in 2016 at the Victorian College of the Arts. Read more.

Bronwen Kamasz is a Melbourne based improvisational performer. A member of Environmental Performance Authority (EPA) who create site specific participatory social practice – works that engage audience with site AND a member of The Contingent an improvisational performance ensemble. Kamasz also performs solo improvisational works and created Taking the Turtle for a Walk which is a slow drift through Melbourne CBD for one participant. When not dance performing Bronwen works in the social sector. Kamasz loves the city, there’s people everywhere, she lives a life that is rich with people.

Andrew Morrish was one of Al Wunder’s first students in Melbourne in 1982, and then became a long term member of  Al’s Theatre of the Ordinary. He and Peter Trotman formed Trotman and Morrish in 1989, and they trained and performed together until 1999 when Andrew moved his work to Sydney and focussed on solo performing. Since 2001 he has divided his time between Europe and Australia, teaching and performing. In the last 10 years he has taught nearly 4000 students, in over 300 workshops in 19 countries and performed 276 times. He’s getting tired now.

Peter Trotman has been described as the black prince of improvisational performers because the tales he weaves are often darkly gothic and embedded in powerful imaginative landscapes. He is known for his unique physicality, heightened by graphic verbal abilities and a wry wit. Based in Melbourne, Australia, he was one of Al Wunder’s first students in Australia and was also a member of Theatre of the Ordinary. 1982 saw the beginning of a very fruitful collaboration with Andrew Morrish as ‘Trotman and Morrish’ which continued for around 13 years. Together they performed in Australia and the US to considerable acclaim and this period strongly shaped a lot of his ideas about improvisation, dance, language, and performance. He has an ongoing interest in the potential for both movement and text to emerge and richly take form in the present moment of performance.

Catherine Magill (BA Dance) has been performing for over thirty years. Most recently her solo practice has focused on Poetry and Improvised Performance. Along with Debra Batton, Catherine is the impro duo Such n Such, who will be performing at this years Melbourne Fringe Festival. In 2018 Catherine was the artistic director of All for One – a performance series experimenting with durational performance creation. Catherine was guest performer and tutor at the Varia Improvisation festival Sweden 2016. Throughout 2014 she participated in the Solo Residency program at Victoria University, which included performing at Impro-Xchange Berlin. She was co curator and regular performer in “Whip It” (Sydney) and performed frequently at the “Little Con”(Melbourne). Catherine is a certified Pilates Practitioner and a teacher of performance and Contact Improvisation. 

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