Expressions of Interest is a public talk series inviting artists, guest speakers and the broader community to explore critical and urgent dialogues about art, performance, the body, dancing and what it means to gather. The series dances with the way we talk and listen to each other, centring the knowledge and wisdom of those often unheard.
This Midsumma, we will gather to witness and participate in a conversation with a panel of legendary and fearless artists, featuring Carly Sheppard, Joel Bray, Kiki Dévine Oricci, Alexander Powers, Raina Peterson and Govind Pillai.
Curated and facilitated by Luke George (performance and visual artist, Temperance Hall Artistic Associate), the panel will extend discussions into queer embodiments, kinship and lineages shared between bodies and the queer spaces - or the queering of spaces - in which we dance.
"From the theatre to the club, the gallery to the street - queer embodiments continue to challenge and transform civic space, the institution, artforms, traditions and culture - activating and agitating normative expectations around how a body ought to be. Our queerness is inscribed on our bodies, influencing how we move and become situated in different spaces, how we express identity and how we navigate relationality. Degrees of visibility are constantly shifting depending on which spaces we are in and who we are relating to / moving with / performing for. Where is the queer body in dance, now?"
– Luke George
FEATURED PANELLISTS
Carly Sheppard (Wallangamma/Takalaka artist, dancer, choreographer)
Joel Bray (Wiradjuri artist, dancer, choreographer)
Kiki Dévine Oricci (performance artist and Mother of House of Dévine)
Raina Peterson (dancer, choreographer, Karma Dance)
Govind Pillai (dancer, choreographer, Karma Dance)
Alexander Powers (choreographer, electronic musician, DJ Female Wizard)
Facilitated by Luke George (artist, curator, Temperance Hall Artistic Associate).
EVENT DETAILS
Thursday 3 February, 7:00pm
LOCATION
Temperance Hall
199 Napier Street, South Melbourne
DURATION
120 mins
ACCESSIBILITY
Wheelchair accessible
Relaxed event 
TICKETS
Full $20
Conc. $15
Please book on the link below or call Midsumma Box Office (03) 9296 6600
Find out more about how Temperance Hall is staying COVIDSafe HERE.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
CARLY SHEPPARD
Carly Sheppard is an emerging cross-disciplinary performance artist. Her work negotiates dance and theatre making, sculpture, drawing, voice and installation. Carly investigates the experience of being a part of the Indigenous diaspora of Australia; intersecting identities and the navigation of trans-generational inheritances. Carly explores the mapping of these shifting spaces and their interaction with changing social and cultural environments.
JOEL BRAY
A Naarm-based dancer and performance-maker, Joel Bray is a proud Wiradjuri man making intimate encounters in unorthodox spaces, and use disarming humour to engage audiences in direct conversations about race relations, and the Blak Queer experiences in particular. Find out more about Joel's work HERE.
KIKI DÉVINE ORICCI Kiki is a choreographer, mentor, performer artist and Mother of House of Dévine based in Naarm. They primarily use Voguing as their medium. Find out more about Kiki's work HERE.
RAINA PETERSON
Raina Peterson draws on their training in mohiniyattam (classical dance of Kerala, India) to create experimental works exploring (trans)gender, sexuality, spirituality and time. With dance partner Govind Pillai, their full-length works include In Plain Sanskrit (2015), Bent Bollywood (2018), Third Nature (2019), Kāla (2019), Drishti (Winner of two Melbourne Fringe Awards, 2020). Find out more about Raina's work HERE.
GOVIND PILLAI
Govind Pillai is a dancer, choreographer and teacher who loves to create moving, evocative (and at times salacious) morsels of dance. He enjoys drawing on his training in the classical Indian arts, often subversively. Find out more about Govind's work HERE.
ALEXANDER POWERS
Alexander Powers is an artist residing on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia, whose work spans experimental performance, electronic music, DJing and event organising. Her choreographic work has been performed at Brunswick Mechanics Institute, The Immigration Museum and most recently in video form for Liquid Architectures online journal, Disclaimer. Find out more about Alexander's work HERE.
LUKE GEORGE
Artistic Associate, Curator, Artist: Luke George (lutruwita -Tasmania, 1978) creates new choreographic and visual work that takes daring and at times, unorthodox methods, to explore new intimacies and connections between artist and audience. Luke’s artistic practice is informed by queer politics, whereby people are neither singular nor isolated; bodies of difference can intersect, practice mutual listening, take responsibility for themselves and one another. Based in Narrm (Melbourne), Luke creates, performs and collaborates with artists and the public across Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. In 2019 Luke was recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship and premiered new works in Dance Massive and the Venice Biennale. In 2020 Luke was appointed Artistic Associate of Temperance Hall and to the Co-Design Consultation Group for a dedicated Melbourne dance festival. In 2021, Luke is presenting performance commissions for the National Galleries of both Victoria and Singapore, the Liveworks Festival of Experimental Arts (Sydney), and a permanent design installation commissioned for Melbourne’s newly built Victorian Pride Centre. Find out more about Luke work HERE.
Image credits:
From left to right, Kiki Dévine Oricci (photo supplied), Govind Pillai (photo by Hayden Golder), Carly Sheppard (photo supplied), Raina Peterson (photo by James Henry), Alexander Powers (photo by Atom Atem) and Joel Bray (Bryony Jackson).
Temperance Hall's Midumma Festival program has been generously supported by our wonderful patrons and The City of Port Philip, Arts Access Victoria, Besen Family Foundation, Creative Victoria, Working Heritage and The Australian Government RISE Fund.
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.