Shared Practice
ReadyMade Works is very happy to announce two new events in our program that take the place of the Shared Practice sessions.
What Are You Doing? is a studio-based shared practice session where artists share processes and ways of working in the studio. It is not quite a class, not quite a choreographic workshop, a session where ways of making dance and practising dance are opened up as a community resource. It will take place the first Wednesday of every month.
Wednesday 17th May 2023 - Miranda Wheen
When: Wednesday, 10am - 12pm
Cost: Free!
Session description:
Miranda will share a little bit of the choregraphic processes developed by Dance Makers Collective, and currently being honed in its work in development of 'All In'. Over time we have come up with methods of collective making, where the same piece of creative material gets passed between many hands. It's a process of continuing someone else's thinking/ideas/body responses, building upon, redeveloping, reimagining the creative beginnings of another person. It asks each person to make contributions, small or large, and in turn submit to being 'worked on' by another.
Bio:
Miranda Wheen is an independent dancer and choreographer based in Sydney. Her practice, whilst rooted in contemporary dance, spans areas of intercultural collaboration, improvisation, teaching, advocacy and dramaturgy for dance. She is an Associate Artist with Marrugeku and a founding member of Dance Makers Collective, for whom she directed their last two shows Dads and The Rivoli. She regularly collaborates with a range of artists and companies including; Martin Del Amo, Stalker Theatre, Shaun Parker and Company, Ghenoa Gela, Mirramu Dance Company, Julie-Anne Long and the Tsai Jui-Yueh Dance Foundation in Taiwan.
Past Sessions 2023:
Wednesday 17th May - Miranda Wheen
Session description:
Miranda will share a little bit of the choregraphic processes developed by Dance Makers Collective, and currently being honed in its work in development of 'All In'. Over time we have come up with methods of collective making, where the same piece of creative material gets passed between many hands. It's a process of continuing someone else's thinking/ideas/body responses, building upon, redeveloping, reimagining the creative beginnings of another person. It asks each person to make contributions, small or large, and in turn submit to being 'worked on' by another.
Wednesday 3rd May - Rhiannon Newton
Session description: For What Are You Doing, Rhiannon will lead a warm-up that gets awareness of different systems of the body circulating. She will then share some of the embodied scores and movement practices that underlie her recent/current projects such as Explicit Contents, The Gift of a Warning and Long Sentences. These are scores that in one way or another aim to sensitise one to different material and energetic connections between the body and its more-than-human surroundings. There is the possibility to do some writing in relation to these practices so participants are welcome to bring a notebook.
Bio: Rhiannon is an Australian dancer and choreographer who grew up on Dunghutti land on the Mid-North Coast of NSW. Working from Gadigal land (Sydney), Rhiannon makes contributions to community and culture through choreography, performance, collaboration, teaching, research and curation. Her creative work aims to draw attention to the interconnection of the body and the more-than-human world. She has developed her choreographic practice through residency, research, commission and presentation opportunities throughout Australia, South-East Asia, Europe and North America. Rhiannon's recent projects include Explicit Contents (Dancehouse, Melbourne; INDance, Sydney Dance Company; QL2 Dance, Canberra 2022; Sydney Festival, 2021); A Strange Place (Dance Nucleus, Singapore 2022); The Gift of Warning (New Breed, Carriageworks 2021); Long Sentences (Baltic Circle Festival, Helsinki 2019; Live Dreams, Performance Space, Sydney 2020); and We Make Each Other Up (Dancehouse, Melbourne 2018).
Wednesday 19th April - Matthew Day
Session description:Sequencing Sensation, or The Rules of Transformation.We land the space through the back surfaces of our bodies, waves, tides: nothing doing transitional moments. Surrender to no-thing, becoming-corps.Collecting unconscious, against the ground we individuate, push away from, resist. Compression potentiates agential pathways.Negative transference zones activate. We insert the other into ourselves, everything matters, movement remembers. Desire deterritorializes space and time, we move into the void not to overcome but to dissolve and return as rhythm: the Dance.Matthew Day (1979) who was a teenage ballroom dancing champion, studied Dance, Performance Studies and Art History at University of Western Sydney and Victorian College of Arts. In 2016 he completed a masters at DAS Choreography, Amsterdam. Day’s work is characterized by it’s migration across artistic disciplines, cultural contexts and performance formats, and his solo works have been presented in Australia and around Europe. He is interested in the potential of dance and choreography to generate unorthodox relations, and perform new modes of existence. Day often works with duration and repetition approaching the body as a site of infinite potential and choreography as a field of energetic intensity and exchange. Day currently resides and works on Bundjalung Country (Northern Rivers) and is of Irish and Scottish descent.
Wednesday 12th April - Patricia Wood
Trish will share some aspects of her ongoing project Trish + Trisha. This project is loosely based on her fictitious friendship with choreographer, Trisha Brown. Trish will share some of the material and processes she has been developing, in, around, and in response, to some of Trisha Brown's seminal works. In this session we will dance, write and chat about imaginary friends, intellectual property greyness, and speculate about how to dance in the aether.
Patricia Wood is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and performer. Her choreographic research focuses on the embodied practice of transmission, ephemerality and memory, and encompasses radio, text and IRL performances. She grew up in Cairns, Far North Queensland on Yidinji land, and spent a lot of her childhood swimming in various bodies of water, devouring mangoes, and not wearing shoes. She now lives and works on Gadigal land, Sydney, and wears shoes much more often. Patricia has developed a number of works including, So far sonar (2022), Transmission Solo (2019), Dance Pirate Radio – Telepathic Democracy (2018), Trish & Trisha (2016), A Re-Enactment (2015), and 11 Steps (2012). She received a Master of Research from Macquarie University (2016), was a board member for Critical Path (2018-2020), a teaching artist with Sydney Dance Company (2016-current) and managed artist-run space, ReadyMade Works (2017-2019). Her writing has been published in Un Magazine and Critical Dialogues and she is currently working with Dr Amanda Card at Sydney University as a research assistant.
Wednesday 30th November - Matt Cornell
Q: What are you doing?
A: SciFi!! - more specifically, imagineering SciFi contexts as scores for dancing.
M@ builds world class choreographic contexts through Sci-Fi constructs - and works as a composer - across UTC +7 through +10.
He also operates as curator-for-digital at Critical Path choreographic research centre, hosts Wombat Radio, is a founding member of Style Impressions Krew, Dance Makers Collective and The Pump, as well as associate artist at Legs On The Wall and a friend of The Farm.
M@ is chronically busy with the question “What is what we’re doing, doing?”.
He collaborates with inspiring artists, in diverse contexts, to interrogate form.
These projects play with how we embody systems – social, cultural, political, or technological – and in turn how these systems embody us by forming communities and informing identities.
That we may get better at living together.
Wednesday 16th November - Ko Yamada
Ko Yamada's session will be a very open jam session where." I will share many concepts and ideas of free movement inspired from many dance styles including jazz, contemporary, popping and breaking. The goal is for everyone to feel comfortable moving in their own way to any type of music. I will also teach many pathways of floor work and the use of space, and how to flow your movements together with simple transitions. I would also love to have an open discussion on dance and a Q&A session to answer any questions."
This session will be open to beginners through to professionals.
Ko Yamada has 17 years of dance experience and has trained in Classical Ballet, Contemporary, Jazz, Tap, Hip Hop and many street dance styles throughout the years. He has graduated from prestigious schools and programs such as The Next Step Performing Arts Professional, Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and The Australian Ballet School ITP program. Over the years Ko has travelled to many countries including the US, UK, France, Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan to teach, compete, perform, audition and learn from the best in the world.
Some of Ko’s career highlights include his work as a commercial dancer for artists such as The Black Eyed Peas, Jessica Mauboy and Kylie Minogue. He has also had roles in advertisements for companies such as Sony, Red Bull, Converse and Deloitte. Ko has been a representative on the Australian team at the KOD Street Dance World Cup in 2018.
Ko is also lucky enough to have partnerships with brands such as Red Bull and Converse.
Some of Ko’s recent achievements include,
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Finalist for The Australian Ballet’s Telstra Emerging Choreographer 2022
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OzAsia Festival “The Long Walk” directed by Sue Healey 2022
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Winner of Red Bull Dance Your Style National Finals 2022
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Drop The Beat vol.6 1v1 Popping Battle 2022
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Stale Biskitz performance at ReadyMade Works ‘Happy Hour’ 2021
Ko is excited to continue to train and work hard as an independent dancer/choreographer to further grow his career in Australia and worldwide.
Wednesday 6 July - Tra Mi Dinh
Tra Mi will be sharing recent processes and approaches to making performance work. She’ll also share and invite discussion on our collective intention towards embodiment of both our own and others movement languages.
Tra Mi Dinh is a dance artist working across Melbourne and Sydney. As a dancer, she’s worked for companies and artists including Lucy Guerin Inc, Chunky Move, Victoria Chiu, Lee Serle, Michelle Heaven, Stephanie Lake Company, Isabelle Beauvard, and Monica Bill Barnes & Company in works presented at Rising Festival (2021), Dance Massive (2019, 2020), Melbourne Fringe Festival (2019), AsiaTopa (2017), MEL&NYC (2018), and Melbourne International Arts Festival (2017).
Her choreographic practice has been supported through residencies with Tasdance’s On the Island program, Sydney Fringe Festival’s Art in Isolation, Critical Path, and Readymade Works Constant Relay. She presented her debut solo Holding at March Dance (2021) and has been commissioned to choreograph The _ for the 2022 Keir Choreographic Award, as well as Dirty Feet's Out of the Studio program. Tra Mi graduated from Victorian College of the Arts in 2014 with a BFA (Dance) and was awarded the Orloff Family Charitable Trust Scholarship for Most Outstanding Dancer.
June 1 - Lizzie Thomson
Lizzie will share some aspects of her ongoing project CLOSET DRAMA. This project quietly celebrates the joys of diving into rabbit holes, making work that’s only partially visible, and dwelling in breathing-spaces found inside words, in between words, inside dance and inside closets. First, Lizzie will present some of the strange material created through this project and then we’ll experiment with some processes of dancing, writing and closeting that relate to the closet dramas.
Lizzie Thomson is a choreographer, performer and researcher living and working on Gadigal and Wangal lands of the Eora Nation. Her practice is currently informed by a range of interests including experiments in connections between dancing and writing; research into seventeenth century closets; and practices focusing on attention and imagination. Lizzie is undertaking a PhD in dance studies at the University of NSW. Her writing on dance has been published in books, journals and exhibition catalogues. Over the past 20 years, Lizzie has performed throughout Australia and Europe with many artists including Rosalind Crisp, Mette Edvardsen, Agatha Gothe-Snape and Jane McKernan.
May 18 -Feras Shaheen
The session will begin with a coffee/tea (possibly some manoosh as well) and will move into practicing and discussing:
- The importance of stress and challenge in a process.
- Finding the humour in your process.
- Vulnerability in dance.
- How my OCD shifts my creative process.
- Postmodernism in dance.
- Refunctioning an object.
- Creating for your next door neighbour, Jim and Sally.
- Cypher.
- Fun
.
We could possibly end up doing 1 of the above… but 100% guarantee there will be fun dance time.
Feras Shaheen’s art practice spans across performance, semiotics, street dance, readymade art and digital media. Shaheen was born in Dubai, to Palestinian parents, and moved to Sydney at the age of 11. Shaheen traverses different roles within the arts, working as a director, performer, teacher, choreographer and digital artist. He holds a Bachelor of Design from Western Sydney University (2014) and in addition to his artistic practice works as a freelance designer, photographer and filmmaker.
Feras is currently working with Marrugeku presenting Jurrungu Ngan-ga, a collaborative production that addresses both local and global issues regarding the fear of cultural difference. In an ongoing capacity, Feras works on a duet titled ‘Klapping’ with Ahilan Ratnamohan, a contemporary project that consists of choreographic research into football, initially commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre (2017). Feras has exhibited a body of work titled ‘Cross Cultures’ at Pari Gallery, Parramatta (2020) and then at Carriageworks (early 2021). ‘Cross Cultures’ explores the fluid contemporary identities of ‘Generation Y’ and how street culture is heavily impacted by media culture, specifically where commercial and urban industries intersect and reconcile. Feras has also recently conceptualized and designed ‘Forum Q’ - a hybrid art form between public art installation and recreation space for the community in collaboration with CAC and Campbelltown Council. Feras has been awarded The Australian Ballet’s Telstra Emerging Choreographer (TEC) in 2021.
SOCIALS: @fezshaheen
WEB: www.feras.com.au
https://ferasshaheen.com.au/
April 6 - Alice Tauv
Alice Tauv, also known as Arisse, has over 14 years of street dance experience and 8 years of teaching. She has continuously worked on her craft by learning from both local and international dancers in a variety of different Street Dance styles, mainly focusing on Hip Hop Freestyle. She has represented Australia in competitions in Melbourne, Brisbane, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore as well as organises her own competitions.
She continues to support and build the next generation of dancers through teaching classes and workshops at local schools and universities and teaching street classes for everyone to join. She is also Vice-President of DSDA Inc. which is a non-profit organisation that runs programs and workshops for the youth and young adults, and works closely with councils and organisations to curate events.
Alice’s session is open and accessible for anyone and everyone. The sessions will begin through an open discussion about the importance of dance work and how it influences others. We will then open up our bodies through isolation work and connection points, using street dance techniques and groove, understanding the mechanics of the body. We will conclude the class in an open cypher where each dancer will be able to incorporate movements developed within the session and showcase their own personal style.
March 2 - Omer Backley-Astrachan
Omer's session is open and accessible for anyone and everyone. We will begin the session with a brief discussion on sensorial-based improvisation work and together find access points to dialogues with the body-in-movement. Together we will look at dismantling codification in somatic work in order to include the diversity in the room. We will leverage this opportunity to work as a team, in a safe and non-judgemental environment and individually make long-lasting discoveries.
Omer Backley-Astrachan is a choreographer and educator based in Sydney. His artistic practice spans across choreography, installations, film, multimedia and movement research. Omer has worked extensively with an array of choreographers and dance companies locally and overseas such as Kamea Dance Company, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Idan Cohen Dance Company, Jerusalem Dance Theatre, Jerusalem Ballet, Maya Levi, and Rotem Tashach, Kay Armstrong, Dean Walsh, Vivienne Linsley, Mel O'Callaghan, Sue Healey and Josh Thomson. In 2018 Omer was appointed Course Coordinator for Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year where he mentors and guides the next generation of dance creatives in Australia. As an artist in residence Omer’s choreographic works have materialised through the support of Bundanon Trust, BrandX, FORM Dance Projects, Catapult Dance, PACT and more. His works have performed in venues and festivals both in Australia and overseas such as Carriageworks, PACT, Sydney Fringe Festival, Fringe World Festival, Suzanne Dellal Centre, Tel Aviv, Newcastle Art Gallery, and State Theatre Centre (Perth).
What Were You Thinking? is a new shared practice session at ReadyMade Works where artists can share the thinking and process behind their work. It is an informal discussion led by an artist around the ideas that inform their work. Artists can show work, bring questions, discuss philosophy or whatever feels imperative to them at this time. ReadyMade Works will bring the drinks and nibblies.
Past Sessions:
Sunday 4th December - Nick Power
Nick Power will share his practice which expands on the vocabulary of street dance to create full-length contemporary works and foster intercultural dialogues and collaborations. The interactive talk will highlight the lineage in his practice from self taught battle b-boy to curator and choreographer, giving an insight into the different stages of his practice as it has unfolded over the past 2 decades.
Nick Power is an Australian B-boy and Choreographer whose work draws on the rituals and culture of hip hop. His practice spans from remote Aboriginal communities to the stages of the most prestigious contemporary dance festivals in Europe and Asia. Crossing complex divides of place, culture, language and form is Nick’s forté. Nick has created 4 full length Independent works: Deejay x Dancer (2022), Two Crews (2020), Between Tiny Cities (2017) and Cypher (2013). Nick was Associate Artist with Stalker Theatre from 2006 - 2013 creating 3 touring works with the company, he was Artistic Director of Platform Hip Hop Festival 2008 - 2012 and Curator of Contemporary Dance at Campbelltown Arts Centre 2016 - 2018
Saturday 12th November - Charemaine Seet
Charemaine Seet will share elements of Sixth Daughter, her ongoing project exploring Teochew opera. She will show videos, do demonstrations and teach movement to participants. Charemaine will discuss her recent research trip to Singapore which was supported by Critical Path.
“Sixth Daughter is a project to delve into the movement vocabulary of the first live performance I had experienced as a child in Malaysia and Singapore.” Charemaine Seet
Charemaine Seet is a dance artist and educator straddling post-modern dance and street dance practice. She has been a principal dancer in companies in London and New York and has collaborated with a range of dance and performance artists including La Ribot, Gilles Jobin and Doug Elkins. She continues to collaborate with Doug Elkins on a variety of film and performance projects.
She was a full time scholarship student with Merce Cunningham in New York. Her own dance school, Seet Dance, teaches a range of styles but is primarily concerned in decentering contemporary dance away from Western aesthetics. She also is currently leading a variety of dance workshops at the Sydney Opera House. Her practice explores intersections of dance as movement, learnings, writings and research that remain true to their original contexts.
Wednesday 27 July - Martin del Amo
Martin says "I’ve always been fascinated with how, traditionally, choreography and improvisation are thought of as being on opposite sides of the spectrum, as far as dance composition is concerned. In my own work, I try to collapse the perceived difference between the two. The aim is to develop pieces that are highly structured and repeatable on one hand, yet elastic enough to never be exactly the sam on the other. For Shared Practice, I will discuss some of the strategies I employ to try and achieve this. The focus will be on my most recent solo work Mirage (shared with Miranda Wheen) and ensemble piece Champions (2017)."
Martin del Amo is a Sydney-based choreographer and dancer with more than 25 years of professional experience. He started out as solo artist, acclaimed for his full-length solos fusing idiosyncratic movement and intimate storytelling. Over the last decade, Martin has also built a strong reputation as creator of group works and solos for others. He regularly teaches and has extensively worked as mentor, dramaturg, movement consultant and dance writer. Martin’s contributions to the Australian arts sector have been recognised with the prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship (2015) and the Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance (2018).
Wednesday 15 June - Emma Saunders
Emma says of her session... " Well, if i'm really honest, i would love a chance just to say hello to Sydney again. Hello!! It's been so long!! and maybe to talk about some of the processes behind making dance work in general, and to share a little of the different kinds of work i've made across scale, site, collaborators, community and function. How i've been influenced by my work with The Fondue Set and how that will never die, leaving Sydney and the effect that has, taking stock once you hit motherhood, broadening my practice so i learn and am relevant and survive and earn enough money to raise a family, how artistic priorities and starting points can shift around from time to time, considering who am i making work for and why, and how dance can be a container for communication, also how difficult it is to keep things simple when confronted with chaos, and how i'm not dead yet - i think i may be just getting started!!"
Emma Saunders is an award winning “formidable” (Realtime, 2010) Australian dance artist who works as a director, choreographer, dancer, educator, dance curator and producer. Over the past 25 years she has honed her practice to develop an interest in the simplicity of dance and the complexity of choreography. Utilising a visceral, instinctive attack, her work is immediate, often working with humour, everyday movement, text, repetition, deconstruction, duration and abstraction. Emma is the founder and director of the WE ARE HERE company, and is one of The Fondue Set. Her very recent work includes: ENCOUNTER SYDNEY at the Sydney Opera House, RADICAL TRANSPARENCY at Parramatta Riverside with Form Dance Projects.
April 20 - Ivey Wawn
Ivey will share some video works and talk through the processes and outcomes so far developed under the banner of an ongoing project titled In Perpetuity.
Ivey Wawn (1990) is a dancer working and living primarily on Gadigal Land (Sydney). She makes performances mainly for live audiences and contributes regularly to the work of other artists from a range of disciplines as a performer and collaborator. She is committed to dance as a potential form of resistance; to social abstraction and commodification, making work about labour, being together, sensation and magic among other things. Such works have taken different forms; from lecture, through video, to live performance and are presented in art galleries, virtual spaces and theatres. She is supported to continue working as an artist by a secondary income in hospitality and continues to study a Bachelor of Political Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney since 2016. Ivey’s work has been supported by Arts House, the Australia Council for the Arts, Critical Path, DirtyFeet, First Draft Gallery, Kaldor Public Art Projects, Liquid Architecture, Next Wave Festival, Performance Space, and Underbelly Arts Festival among other institutions.
March 18 - Lee Serle
Lee will be discussing his solo studio practice and research he undertook during his Sustaining Practice residency. He will show his recent work-in-progress that he presented as part of Lucy Guerin's PIECES season late last year, as well as earlier work that informs his current practice and the work he is creating now. Lee will then facilitate an open discussion around choreographic process.
Lee Serle is a Sydney based choreographer and performer. He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Dance in 2003. His work has been presented in France, USA, Colombia, Lebanon and Australia, and he has been commissioned to create new works for the Lyon Opera Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Lucy Guerin Inc, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Dancenorth, Victorian College of the Arts, and Colombian visual artist Mateo López. Lee has performed in the works of many notable choreographers including; Trisha Brown, Lucy Guerin, Tere O’Connor, Gideon Obarzanek, Shelley Lasica, among many others, and has received Fellowships from Rolex Arts Institute, Australia Council for the Arts (Creative Australia Fellowship) and City of Sydney.
Past Shared Practice Facilitators
2021
Ivey Wawn, Lee Serle, Martin del Amo, Victoria Hunt, Lizzie Thomson
2020
Ivey Wawn, Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal, Rhiannon Newton, Matt Cornell, Nikki Heywood
2019
Bhenji Ra, Brooke Stamp, Thomas Bradley, Victoria Hunt, Jane McKernan, Andrew Morrish, Cass Mortimer-Eipper, Jill Crovisier, Adelina Larsson, Omer Backley-Astrachan, Rhiannon Newton.