Dancehouse to Host 2016 Keir Choreographic Award Semi-Finals This Spring

This April, Dancehouse, Carriageworks and the Keir Foundation present the premieres of eight works by outstanding commissioned artists for the 2016 Keir Choreographic Award (KCA), Australia's first major choreographic award. Performing in two programs over five days (April 26-30) at Melbourne's Dancehouse, the eight choreographers compete for the prestigious award and a $30,000 first-place cash prize, with four finalists to be announced on the final evening.

The Semi-Finals Season is complemented by the Dancehouse Public Program, a celebration and interrogation of contemporary choreography, welcoming the vanguard of dance thinkers and practitioners, such as legendary American critic Deborah Jowitt, for a series of discussions.

Launched in 2014 and now in its second edition, KCA is a national biennial award dedicated to commissioning original Australian choreographic short works and promoting innovative, experimental and cross-art form practices across Australia and internationally. KCA celebrates the cream of Australian choreography and expands the debate around contemporary choreographic practice.

The eight commissioned artists hail from across Australia, and include 2014 KCA finalist Sarah Aiken; Canberra-born, award-winning choreographer and performer James Batchelor; emerging choreographer and recent DanceWEB scholarship recipient Chloe Chignell; Sydney-based choreographer and performer from the Torres Strait Islands, Ghenoa Gela; Berlin-based Australian choreographer and performer Martin Hansen; Alice Heyward, seen recently in Maria Hassabi's Intermission (ACCA) and Xavier Le Roy's Temporary Title (Carriageworks); New Zealander Rebecca Jensen, who presented at Next Wave 2014 and Dance Massive 2015; and Paea Leach who has performed and collaborated across Australia and Europe and was commissioned by Chunky Move's Next Move 2014 season.

Angela Conquet, Dancehouse Artistic Director/CEO, said, "Dancehouse is delighted to present the second iteration of the Keir Choreographic Award. Choreography is about framing the relationship our bodies have to politics, ethics, space and time and this award opens up a site for that interesting inter-connectedness. We're excited to see how this diverse line-up of young talents will interrogate and challenge choreographic territories. We're also very proud to announce the rich public program, which brings to Melbourne some of the finest minds of dance thinking and making and aims to expand our understanding of choreography today."

Special guest Deborah Jowitt(US), arguably the most world-renowned dance critic and author, joins the Dancehouse Public Program for two events: speaking In Conversation with esteemed Australian critic Alison Croggon on 'Writing Critically on Dance', and leading a critical writing workshop, offering insights from her incredible six-decade career as a dance critic, choreographer and teacher. Prolific and revered, Jowitt has been the voice of NY dance criticism with regular columns in Village Voice (since 1967), New York Times and Arts Journal. Her writing has garnered numerous honours including a Bessie Award, an "Ernie" - an honour reserved for dance's "unsung heroes" - a Guggenheim Fellowship, and honours from the American Dance Guild and the Congress of Research in Dance.

The 2016 KCA Jury consists of Brussels-based performance theorist and performance-maker Bojana Cveji?, Documenta 14 curator and independent art critic Pierre Bal-Blanc, US-based choreographer Sarah Michelson, Perth International Arts Festival Artistic Director Wendy Martin, Keir Foundation founder Phillip Keir, all of whom will also participate in the Dancehouse Public Program. During the Closing Ceremony, the judges will announce four finalists.

Their works will be presented by Carriageworks as part of the Sydney season from 5-7 May 2016.

The eight commissioned artists will compete for the accolade of the award including a cash prize of $30,000 for first prize and $10,000 for an audience choice prize that will be voted by Sydney audiences.

2016 KEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARD FINALISTS:

SARAH AIKEN is a Melbourne-based performer, choreographer and teacher originally from Bellingen, NSW. Aiken pursues an ongoing interest in how and what we value, utilising dichotomies and clashes, aiming to create poignancy through absurdity. Through solo and collaborative practice, Aitken's work investigates the roles of audience, performer, subject and object. Her work explores relationships with space, size and scale; extending or contracting physical size, personal expression or influence.

JAMES BATCHELOR is an award-winning Melbourne-based choreographer with a performance practice in dance and visual arts. His projects examine the interactions between humans and the environment via a rigorous process of documentation and physical translation. In preparation for this performance, Batchelor will become homeless for one week, taking an anthropological process to study homelessness and the relationship of body and object. He will collect text, images, photographs and sound recordings. The aim is for audiences to develop a greater understanding and contextualisation of homelessness.

CHLOE CHIGNELLis a dance artist based in Melbourne. She has recently undertaken the DanceWEB scholarship program at Impulz Tanz in Vienna. As a performer, Chloe has worked for Marten Spangberg's 'The Planet' performed at Impulz Tanz, Indigo Dance Festival at PAF, and in Aphids'Forever Now at MONA. She is currently working with Atlanta Eke on Miss Universal presented by Chunky Move and Gertrude Contemporary. Chignell's work explores 'shine' as a surface effect, superficial yet powerful. By looking at how shine functions in contemporary culture; consumer culture, technology, seduction and intimacy, Chignell locates the choreography on the surface of the body, where shine resides.

GHENOA GELA is an independent Sydney performing artist and a proud Torres Strait Islander woman from Rockhampton. She has worked across several mediums such as dance, circus, television and stage. With her work, Malungoka, Gela wishes to give audience members the opportunity to play on space, seek presence and question aesthetics through cross-cultural fusion, combining traditional Torres Strait Islander dance technique with contemporary dance and non-Torres Strait Islander performers, who wear Go Pros throughout the performance.Their videos can be downloaded directly to a Livestreaming app so audience members can see exactly what the performers see (individually) while also watching them on stage.

PAEA LEACH has developed a choreographic practice and voice with a hybrid collection of makers and thinkers; the body as a site of research, the integration/interrogation of language in process, and encountering the 'real' in performance are strong motivators. Recently, Leach undertook a residency with Rhiannon Newton TRIP in Tasmania, co-created Beast #3 for Move Me improvisation festival (Perth 2014) and was commissioned by Chunky Move's Next Move season - making 'the lines of birds' with experimental musicians Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, her first site-specific dance work. The potential poetic force of the body and the physicality of language motivate Leach's practice. Her work is a performance experiment for two dancers and one spoken-word poet, illuminated by a large 'blanket' light. Interested in ideas of resilience, demand and the modern body under pressure, it collides language with movement, allowing the body to reveal the text beneath.

MARTIN HANSEN is a 2014 graduate of the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin. In collaboration with Ania Nowak he was artist in residence at Dancehouse Melbourne 2014 and premiered A Queer Kind of Evidence at Tanztage 2015. Hansen presented Monumental at Tanznacht 2014, PACT Zollverein, Semper Oper Dresden and BallhausOst. With Kareth Schaffer, Martin developed and performed in Other Dreams, an artistic tour of Gropiustadt, B- Tours Berlin 2015. Working with dancers from radically different age groups, Hansen's new work interrogates the construction of time: theatre time, biological time and linear time. "The 'Accelerationist Manifesto' critiques capitalism by suggesting we speed it up toward its inevitable demise. I ask myself 'what kind of bodies does capitalism produce?' and 'How can this relate to the theatre spectacle?'"

ALICE HEYWARD's choreographic investigations lie in the nexus between language and movement, posing questions of perception and sensation. Her choreographies have been presented at Murray White Room Gallery, NAH DRAN and PORCH Extended' in Berlin, Sketch Gallery, First Run at Lucy Guerin Inc., 'ORGI' at Conduit Arts, 'PAVE' festival, and Melbourne Recital Centre. Heyward has performed at The Venice Biennale '15, Carriageworks, Berlin Art Week '15, Index Gallery (Stockholm), 'Think Big' festival (Munich), 'DANCE 2015' festival (Munich), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 'Le Mouvement - Performing the City' (Biel), Next Wave Festival '16, and more. Heyward's work arises 'from page to stage', preceded by its choreographic notation. Collaborating with illustrator Ilya Milstein and sound designer Gregor Kompar, Heyward marries Kompar's nine-track album The Basic Body Form (9 Movements) with nine series ofMilstein'sillustrations, documenting the live performance.

REBECCA JENSEN is a Melbourne-based choreographer and dancer. Her choreography has been presented at Next Wave Festival and Dance Massive with Sarah Aiken (OVERWORLD); Melbourne Fringe Festival (POSE BAND) Lucy Guerin's Pieces for Small Spaces (Within An Inner); Ian Potter Cultural Trust (AH); Conduit Arts Gallery (Still Life); MONAFOMA Festival club, Ponderosa Tanzland and more. She is a founding member of Deep Soulful Sweats Fantasy Light Yoga (Festival Of Live Art, Dark MOFO, Tiny Stadiums, Chunky Move, Next Wave). Jensen's work EXPLORER highlights the ever-expanding possibilities offered by the shifting digital world in relation to the natural world. Using her body to traverse an indoor landscape created from synthetic and raw organic matter, Jensen is assisted by a camouflaged performer, appearing to defy human limitations and traverse three dimensions, walking on walls.

2016 KEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARD JURY:

BOJANA CVEJIC is a performance theorist and performance maker based in Brussels. She studied musicology and holds a PhD in philosophy. Her latest books are Choreographing Problems: Expressive Concepts in Contemporary Dance and Performance, A Choreographer's Score: Drumming and Rain with A.T. De Keersmaeker, and Public Sphere by Performance, co-authored with A. Vujanovi?. Cveji? teaches at various dance and performance schools and is co-founding member of TkH editorial collective. She has been the jury member of European Cultural Foundation Princess Margriet Award and Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart.

PIERRE BAL-BLANC is a curator and art critic based in Athens and Paris. He is currently curator for the Documenta 14. He was director of Contemporary Art Centre of Brétigny, France from 2003 to 2014. His exhibition sequences La monnaie vivante/Living Currency adapted from the Pierre Klossowski essay (CAC Brétigny/Micadanses; Stuk Leuven; Tate Modern; MoMA Warsaw and Berlin Biennale) and Draft Score for an Exhibition (Le Plateau Paris, Artissima Torino, Secession Vienna; Index Stockholm) negotiate the current and historical analysis of the body and the strategies related to performance in visual arts.

Choreographer SARAH MICHELSON's work has been presented by The Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, BAM, PS 122, The Kitchen, The Walker Art Center, Chapter Arts (Cardiff, UK), On the Boards, Venice Biennale, Sommer Szene Salzburg, Tanzim August (Berlin) and more. She has received three Bessies, 2012 Bucksbaum Award, 2012 Doris Duke Artist Award, 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2008 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award, 2006 Alpert Award in Dance and Der Foerder prize. Recent works include tournamento (2015) for the Walker Arts Center, 4 for The Whitney Museum of American Art (2014); Devotion Study #3, MoMA for the Some sweet day series curated by Ralph Lemon (2012); Devotion Study #1, The American Dancer, The Whitney Museum of American Art (2012) and Devotion, which premiered at The Kitchen, New York (2011).

WENDY MARTIN's career embraces programming and production for theatre and dance, television and events, and a contribution to the arts through board membership. She has a track record as a commissioner of innovative theatre and dance projects, and of developing major programming initiatives at a number of the world's leading performing arts centres. Previously, Martin was Head of Performance and Dance at Southbank Centre, London. In 2001, Martin joined Sydney Opera House as a producer and in 2006, was appointed Head of Theatre and Dance. She is the Artistic Director of the Perth International Arts Festival.

PHILLIP KEIR worked in theatre and performance in New York, London and Cologne before returning to Australia to join Sydney Theatre Company as Associate Director. In 1987 he developed Next Media, publishing popular culture titles including Australian Rolling Stone Magazine. In 2005 he established the Keir Foundation to provide grant support in the arts and human rights. The Foundation has been active in the areas of Visual Arts and Dance, particularly with projects that have involved the commissioning of new work with an international dimension. Keir has served on the boards of the London International Festival of Theatre, Aerowaves and the Biennale of Sydney and speaks regularly on contemporary collecting; most recently at Art Basel HK.

2016 Keir Choreographic Award:

Public Programs:

Practice
• 23 March - 1 May
• Adam Linder
• Philipp Gehmacher
• Chrysa Parkinson
• Sarah Michelson

Writing Workshop - Writing Critically on Dance
• 25 - 29 April, 1-5pm
• Led by Deborah Jowitt
• Limited Capacity

Lectures/Dialogue
• 2-5 April, 7pm
• Chrysa Parkinson
• Adrian Heathfield

Lectures/Performances
• 6 April, 7pm
• Philipp Gehmacher
• walk + talk no. 19

Conversations
• 26-30 April The Body. Now

Writing Critically on Dance - Deborah Jowitt with Alison Croggon

Social Choreography and self-performance - Bojana Cvejic in conversation with Jana Perkovic

Exhibiting Choreography - Sarah Michelson with Becky Hilton

Choreographing Exhibitions - Pierre Bal Blanc and Stephanie Rosenthal with Phillip Keir

Semi-Finals Performance Season
At Dancehouse, 150 Princes St. North Carlton, Melbourne

Program One
• 4 Works x 20 mins Tuesday 26, Thursday 28 April, 7pm
• Saturday 30 April, 2pm

Program Two
• 4 Works x 20 mins Wednesday 27, Friday 29 April, 7pm
• Saturday 30 April + Closing Ceremony, 7pm

More information and tickets on sale now via www.dancehouse.com.au.

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