A SCREENING AND CONVERSATION SERIES FOCUSING ON SIGNIFICANT DANCE WORKS FROM OUR COLLECTIVE PERFORMANCE-PASTS.
Courtesy of the Artist is a screening and conversation series focusing on significant dance works from both the recent and not so recent past by living masters in our community. Caring for the ephemeral artefacts of our dance histories and herstories, to revisit a moment in time and ask what was happening for the artist and the world at that time - perhaps as a way to look at where we are now. Join us to witness and reflect on this significant moment from our collective performance-pasts and join in a conversation with the featured artist.
Courtesy of the Artist is curated by Temperance Hall's Artistic Associate, Luke George, as part of the Care Tactics 2021-23 program of workshops, screenings, talks and artistic development. Find out more HERE.
ACTION SITUATION
ACTION SITUATION premiered in the East Wing Gallery of Melbourne’s Immigration Museum in February 1999 and was presented at Performance Space (Sydney) in August 1999, presented as part of Australian Perspecta 99: Living Here Now - Art and Politics.
Curator Luke George reflects upon ACTION SITUATION in relation to Lasica's vast body of choreographic work, using the significance of this work as a vehicle to delve further into the particularities of her various modes of working, including: working in spaces other than theatres; working in series; working with artists over a long period of time; how one work often triggers other ideas resulting in new work; choreography in relation to text, light, sound and context; and points of view as subject matter.
Film screening date:
Tuesday 31st January 2023, 7pm-8:30pm
Venue:
Temperance Hall
199 Napier Street, South Melbourne, Victoria
Price:
Pay what you can (Temperance Hall values this event at $15)
Contact: program[at]temperancehall.com.au for more information. Click the button to book or call Temperance Hall (03) 9645 9937
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING...
"Lasica talks about her unusual dance background, the influence of her mother and other artists, her experience of performance and the importance of standing her ground as a young female practitioner, taking authority and reversing the gaze."
–Tamsen Hopkinson. un Projects. 2018
"While Lasica dances, we are at liberty to do as we wish but always with an awareness that we are part of the situation also, and that our agency, attention and experience are not a pre-determined quantity that the work will drive through regardless. There is a palpable experience of being a part of a choreography in the here and now, an unrepeatable composition that occurs between whoever and whatever is in the space."
–Erin Branningan. Performance Paradigm Vol 13. 2017
“Lasica has left a lot unsaid and in doing so, given space to the observer to meet action.”
–Philipa Rothfield. Real time Feb-Mar Issue. 2010
“Lasica explores themes of order, randomness and control in our lives.”
–Jordan Beth Vincent. The Age. December 12 2009
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
For more than 30 years, Shelley Lasica has pushed the confines of dance, choreography and performance. Her practice is defined by an enduring interest in the context and situations of presenting choreography.
Throughout her career, she has been making solo performances that function as a mechanism and a commentary on making work. This practice provides the basis for generating ensemble works with a network of artists working in dance and other media, that question the collaborative and interdisciplinary possibilities of choreography.
She regularly collaborates with visual artists, including Tony Clark, Helen Grogan, Anne Marie May, Callum Morton, and Kathy Temin, in order to create dialogues between different modes and means of presentation. She has also contributed to the work of artists including Bridie Lunney, Fayen D’Evie and Fiona Macdonald.
Lasica’s choreographic works have been shown nationally and internationally within both visual art and theatre contexts, including: Melbourne Festival; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Chunky Move, Melbourne; Artspace, Sydney; Centre Nationale de la Danse, Paris; Siobhan Davies Studios, London; Dance Massive, Melbourne; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Murray White Room, Melbourne; Neon Parc, Melbourne and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.
Her most recent work, WHEN I AM NOT THERE, is an exhibition-performance commissioned by Monash University Museum of Art (presented in 2022) and Art Gallery of New South Wales (presented in 2023). She is also a lead research associate with the Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, a research initiative based at University of New South Wales.
Find out more about Shelley HERE
Images: Shelley Lasica, ACTION SITUATION, 1999, Immigration Museum, performers: Deanne Butterworth, Jo Lloyd, Kylie Walters. Photographer: Rohan Young
Temperance Hall acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land in which we dance and create, the Bunurong Boon Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation, and pay our respect to Elders both past and present and, through them, to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.