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 or distant past by some of our community's most celebrated senior artists. 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. Grab your popcorn and get cozy to watch a 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. Find out more about Luke's 2021 program of workshops, screenings, talks and artistic development HERE.
Descansos...Resting places
Descansos...resting places by Helen Herbertson, in collaboration with Jenny Kemp, Trevor Patrick, Ben Cobham and Simon Barley, was choreographed during Herbertson's Artistic Directorship of Danceworks (89 - 97) and performed in the company’s home base, The Wesleyan Hall (Albert Park). It's premiere was at the 1996 Green Mill Dance Project and received 1996 Green Room Awards for Best Direction, Best Design (Cobham, lighting) and Award for Original Choreography, as well as nominations for Best Performances by a Male Dancer (Patrick) and a Female Dancer (Herbertson).
"In two weeks of non-stop dance the vote seemed to be unanimously awarded to Descansos...resting places. Herbertson achieved a small miracle in a work that is pared back to essentials...Cobham’s lighting is of such artistry that mysterious passages seem to beckon, secret places revealed, shadows watch from the walls... A sense of the suspension of time is achieved by stillness and a phrasing of dance passages that leave images resonating in the memory."
- Shirley McKechnie (The Bulletin July 96)
Film screening date:
Thursday 9 September, 7:30pm - 8:30pm AEST
Event details:
Online screening
Accessibility:
Online Q&A event will be Auslan interpreted
The screening will be audio described 
Price:
Pay what you can
Missed the event?
You you can watch the original performance of descansos...resting places by Helen Herbertson below, and listen to the Q&A Helen and Luke recorded at the online Zoom event on Thursday 9 September 2021.
Please access the discussion and Q&A (audio recording) HERE.
About the artist:
A seminal figure in Australian dance, Helen Herbertson was honoured with the Kenneth Myer Medallion for Distinguished Contribution to the Performing Arts in 2007 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2017 Australian Dance Awards. As a performer, choreographer and creative collaborator, Helen has been crafting performance for more than four decades, regularly presenting in Australian and international festivals (Glasgow, Dublin, Paris, Singapore, Portland, Tokyo, New York, Zurich). Her own choreographic interests focus on the dynamic flow between people and place, the interaction of body and landscape or situation, interior life with light, form and place. Fusing the development of an expressive, physical language with a detailed exploration of the performance site, the work emphasizes the integration of lighting and design while working collaboratively, from inception with performers and creative teams.
Images of Descansos...resting places – by Daniel Zika
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.