Part of our mission at Temperance Hall is to provide space for the most diverse of choreographic explorations. This tailored model provides valuable $7000 seed funds, 4 weeks in-kind rehearsal space, artistic mentoring and producing support for initial creative development stages. Through the program we aim to seed a longer-term ambition to support choreographers to realise full-length works for presentation at Temperance Hall.
We are thrilled to commission Benjamin Hancock in 2018. Benjamin Hancock has featured in the works of some of Australia's leading choreographers and we recognise a prime opportunity to foster Ben's choreographic development through this valuable initiative at Temperance Hall.
“My practice is concerned with expanding modes of performance, carving a path to redefine how we look and label the body in its ability, strength, sexuality, virtuosity, masculinity and femininity. In turn, my body of work represents various forms including contemporary dance, cabaret, drag, roving and roaming presentations."
"Within the work I am developing at Temperance Hall, I am interested in pushing my practice to repurpose contemporary drag within performance culture and the larger social context. The “disguise” is a way to metamorphose gender and sexuality and surrounding imaginary worlds. The work will evolve as critical and choreographed exhibitionism, reworking tropes from the French avant-garde movement, behaviours and gesticulations to the link real and physical artifices of drag. For me, Temperance Hall is a home to the queer at heart, a place to try, fail and succeed, a place to push one’s practice without the pressure of immediate presentation, giving space to be nurtured in the crucial development stages, the teething of one’s own practice"
-Benjamin Hancock
All images courtesy Benjamin Hancock
