Lux Eterna Awarded Inaugural 2022 March Dance Keir Foundation 'Start-upCommission'

At tonight's closing night of March Dance 2022 (Sydney's annual month-long independent dance festival), Lux Eterna was awarded the inaugural 2022 March Dance 'Start-Up Keir Commission,' supported by the Keir Foundation, a $3000 bursary to support the development of a her new work The 8th Day, to be included in March Dance 2023.

Lux Eterna is a Western Sydney based interdisciplinary artist who explores the embodied gaze, authoring post-human futures, decolonisation and awareness.

The 8th Day is a multichannel dance video work, exploring relational co-emergence, embodied dance experiences with camera for moving image and land-inspired sensitivity. The collective desert based experience is for seven performers, on Lake Mungo, NSW, and will officially premiere at the Australian Embassy in D.C, USA Nov 2023. The exhibition will tour virtually and/or in the presence of Harvard, Columbia, California (Berkeley) Universities and The Palestine Museum amongst several other art galleries and cultural institutions for most of the year.

"I am extremely grateful in receiving this funding, as I am deeply moved that the Keir Foundation deems this project a worthy endeavour for them to support," said Lux. "Investing in a work that speaks to the interdisciplinary crossovers between dance, lens media, and land-informed spiritual inquiry means a shift in our artistic and cultural focus that privileges the more-than-human, the moving body and moving images in ways which expand our shared collective vision for regenerative and inclusive futures."

Lux recently travelled to Chicago, with assistance from Create NSW, partaking in artist roundtable discussions and panel talks for the opening of an integrative art exhibition: Inherit the Earth at Northwestern University in Chicago. Lux will travel to the Venice Biennale (The Milk of Dreams) shortly where her photographic auto-portrait: Motherland: Here On In will feature in the Palestinian Pavilion.

Phillip Keir and Sarah Benjamin established the Keir Foundation as a Private Ancillary Fund to foster innovation and excellence in the arts. Their goal is to enable artists to do high order original work. The Keir Foundation has supported contemporary dance, competition, theatre, and visual art by partnering with festivals, producers, and gallery spaces.

"March Dance has already proved itself to be an important part of the annual program for dance in Sydney and a contributor to the creation of new work. The Keir Foundation is excited to support March Dance developing its bursary offer and now this new seeding commission." Phillip Keir.

March Dance brings together the diversity of ongoing independent dance practice in Sydney; we provide an annual festival focused on diverse forms of independent dance to reach the wider Sydney audiences. Led by Critical Path and DirtyFeet and supported by the City of Sydney, the 2022 festival is held over 31 days and includes 166 artists, 6 companies, 12 organisations and 17 venues across Sydney. The program included 19 residencies, 5 performances, 5 workshops, 55 dance classes, and 4 talks.