Midsumma Festival 2023

Like a Knife, the Horizon

Performance: Sat 11 Feb, 1-6pm
Location: Temperance Hall's Main Hall
Tickets: Free! Registration essential

Set upon white linoleum and cast in cruciform by halogen light, Like a Knife, the Horizon is a new work by Hamish McIntosh which explores queer time through self-destruction. A durational performance-installation for four dancers, the cast attempt a five-hour marathon in Temperance Hall’s Main Hall. They run towards each other yet never meet, trying in vain to arrive at a point between them and exhausting themselves in the process.

With queer communities haunted by historic and ongoing mortalities, a future can be denied to queer people just as they ‘deny’ the future of society through non-normative embodiments and social organisations. Time both rushes forward and freezes itself in place: violent and urgent, poised and hollow.

Like a Knife, the Horizon seeks to connect fatigue and obliteration to questions around queer experiences and embodiments. In other words, to invite reflection on the links between the ‘threat’ of queerness, death, and whether we can depend on what comes next. With friendly mascot costumes and overt metaphors, this is a spectacle in sweat the whole family can enjoy. Stay for a minute or an hour and ask if the future is ours to reach.

Performers: Hamish McIntosh, Isabel Estrella, Valentina, Zorp

Like a Knife, the Horizon is proudly supported by Fitness to You—a fitness equipment hire company that values creativity, health, and wellbeing for everyone.

For any accessibility or program queries please contact program@temperancehall.com.au 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Hamish McIntosh is an artist, teacher, and researcher living and working on Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung Country. Born in Aotearoa New Zealand, Hamish trained as a contemporary dancer at the New Zealand School of Dance before pursuing postgraduate education in dance studies. Hamish is currently a PhD candidate in dance at the University of Melbourne, researching queer theory, ontology, and death. His dance practise focuses on acts of duration and endurance. Drawing heavily on visual and performance art traditions, he is curious about the limits of dance as a form. Broadly interested in dance as a site for identity and politics, Hamish has published on queerness, pedagogy, and dancing masculinities, and exhibited his work at galleries including the Gus Fisher (Auckland), play_station (Wellington), and the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne).

gemma+molly (Gemma Sattler and Molly McKenzie) are a collaborative duo working within the broad scope of contemporary performance art, while anchored by their individual and shared experiences of dance. gemma+molly’s dual practice consists of a necessary reliance on their two bodies at work, to conduct physical, durational, and live installation research. Utilising queer approaches to making, gemma+molly work from the body outwards. Rather than regarding the body as the focal point, the duo work to equalise collaborative elements (objects, environment, audience, sound, imagery, choreography). Their work revolves around ideas of queerness, femininity and intimacy. gemma+molly are working through Dancehouse’s 2022 Emerging Choreographer’s Program, recently received a space grant at Critical Path, and are a recipient of the 2022 Lucy Guerin Inc. Make A Start Residency.

Gemma and Molly are 2021 graduates of the Victorian College of the Arts – Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance). Gemma graduated with the Orloff Prize in Dance, while Molly was the recipient of the Dr Phillip Law Travel Scholarship. Recently Gemma and Molly have worked with artists such as: Angela Goh, Amrita Hepi, Sandra Parker and Antony Hamilton (through Chunky Move internship).