Temperance Hall Artistic Associate

The Artistic Associate role represents a recent addition to Temperance Hall's artistic team, an established independent artist to become engaged on a deep level with our organisation. The position supports the independent artist as a cultural agent, and is intended to create new pathways for artistic creation, production and exchange. 

Aimed at achieving rich longer term artist engagement beyond the offer of free studio space, the role is an invitation for an artist to create and curate in line with the desires and needs of their own practice and the dance community. Appointed in 2020, our inaugural Artistic Associate is performance and visual artist, Luke George. 

Statement from Luke George, February 2021:

In these totally weird and destabilizing times for art, I want to rethink how we’re doing all of this... how we’re making and doing art - how it nourishes and sustains us - how our art reaches people - how it is happening before, between and past the moment of “the show”. Through my work with Temperance Hall, I wish to choreograph and curate an interconnected map of encounters and intersections between people of different experiences, backgrounds and places. With a focus on the act of gathering and social connectivity here at the Hall, on Boon Wurrung country. This is a program of coming together to experiment, create, dance, talk, watch, listen and share. Providing opportunities for artistic development, artistic challenge and exchange - prioritising the voice of the artist and people who need to be heard and seen. In all of this, I am focused on care as a radical strategy (yes, radical), to build social capital, to survive, sustain and transform.

2021 program

CARE TACTICS
Workshops

A workshop series led by guest artists who will each consider the act of care and what it means for them. Caring for the body, caring for practice, for the art form, for self and others, caring for the spaces and places we live and dance in. A one day workshop for people to encounter each other and the practice and ideas of some outstanding local artists

En Route: The Care Edition by Joel Bray
Saturday 13 March, 10am - 6pm
Temperance Hall
Find out more information here

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Screenings

A screenings series of significant dance works from both the recent or distant past by local, national and international 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 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. Each screening will be followed by a Q&A with the featured artist.

Grey Area by Phillip Adams
Friday 5 March, 7pm - 9pm
Temperance Hall
Find out more information here

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
Talks

Public talk series: critical and urgent dialogues between artists and guest speakers from the broader community. Talking about art, performance, the body, dancing and what it means to gather. Experimenting with form, the series will dance with the way we talk and listen to each other, centering the knowledges and wisdoms of those often unheard.

Stay tuned for updates on upcoming talks.

EXQUISITE CORPS
Artist Cohort

An artist cohort-in-residence with Temperance Hall. Supported with space and time as well as individual stipends, each Corps is self-organising and determines their own activity, process and outcomes —collectively and individually. It may involve cooperative models, individual ideas and desires, growing and sharing artistic practice, artist network and collaboration building, creating work, experiments, performances, talks, workshops, documenting, archiving, and more. Luke George's role in the Corps is a kind of ecologist and calibrator—supporting and caring for artists and for practice— interfacing with Temperance Hall as their Artistic Associate.

Exquisite Corps 2020 members:
Amrita Hepi, Andrew Treloar, Benjamin Hurley, Harrison Hall, Luke Fryer, Emma Riches, Rachael Wisby and Luke George.

October 2020 to March 2021.

See more information on Exquisite Corps here.

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. Based in Narrm (Melbourne), Luke creates and performs work locally and internationally/culturally, through experimental processes with collaborating artists and the public across Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. A highly awarded and commissioned artist, Luke is a current recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship and in 2020 appointed Artistic Associate of Temperance Hall and to the Co-Design Consultation Group for a dedicated Melbourne dance festival. In 2021, Luke is premiering commissioned works at the National Galleries of Victoria and Singapore.

Find out more: lukegeorge.net/