Image: Rakini Devi: Inhabiting Erasures by Heidrun Lohr
Image: Matthew Syres
Kristina Chan Image: Clare Britton
Image: Rakini Devi: Inhabiting Erasures by Heidrun Lohr
Sustaining Practice
Moving Ideas
The aim of the Sustaining Practice Residency is to support NSW-based dance artists to deepen their creative practice and develop their work in a funded capacity. Artists can apply to develop a creative project or explore their creative practice. The residency is open to professional mid-career and established NSW-based artists working with dance, choreography and movement-based practices.
The Sustaining Practice Residency is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
2022 Sustaining Practice Resident
Rakini Devi
We are excited to announce that Rakini Devi will be undertaking our Sustaining Practice Residency for 2022 and will be in the studio across July/August.
By employing the body as the receptacle of memory, and her love of satire, choreographer and performance artist Rakini Devi will explore her concept of a long-brewing work titled I Used To Be A Dancer, experimenting with text, choreography and film, integrating her own visual art practice of drawing and painting. Known for her satirical parodies on contemporary western dance, New Age fads, and other themes, Rakini will target several aspects of her past and current practice, including the ageing dancing body, stereotypes, transitions and transgressions.
The title is a satirical response to many who ask if she “still” performs. Her performance language is an ongoing work in progress, an unbroken journey of three decades of practice- led research of hybrid and intercultural performance and visual art.
Rakini’s 2019 Critical Path residency titled " The body as archive" included a collaborative process with Karl Ockelford (Melb) who will continue to contribute video and sound design to this sustaining practice residency, expanding on their 19-year collaboration.
Sharing - Saturday 27th August at 6pm a
Where: The Rex Cramphorn Studio, University of Sydney
Rakini's sharing will be held at The Rex Cramphorn studio in order to support her tech requirements in sharing this work. The residency was undertaken in the studio at ReadyMade Works.
There will be drinks, nibbles and an opportunity to provide feedback on Rakini's work. Please join us!
RSVP to creativeproducer@readymadeworks.com.au
The Sustaining Practice Residency is supported by the City of Sydney.
Image: Rakini Devi: Inhabiting Erasures by Heidrun Lohr
2021 Sustaining Practice Resident
Lee Serle
Lee 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.
Lee will use the Sustaining Practice residency to continue his solo choreography and improvisation practice, specifically focusing on the concept of originality:
"Considering my career dancing for others, some for over a decade, choreographies and movement practices are embedded in my body and are difficult to undo. I am the product of my choreographic ‘parents’ and I have learned to dance a certain way, to value certain structures and aesthetics over others, yet over time I’ve consciously worked to create my own value systems, to incorporate certain aspects and reject others. From here I will tangle these choreographies and movement practices, rendering a third person that is not them, but not entirely me"
Lee will be collaborating with sound artist Gail Priest, and will share his work during the residency through improvisation workshops and open showings.
2020 Sustaining Practice Resident
Martin del Amo
Martin del Amo is a Sydney-based choreographer and dancer. He started out as a solo artist, acclaimed for his full-length solos fusing idiosyncratic movement and intimate storytelling. In recent years, Martin has also built a strong reputation as creator of group works and solos for others. His work has toured nationally in Australia and internationally to the UK, Japan and Brazil. Martin’s contributions to the Australian dance sector have been recognised with the 2018 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance and a 2015 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.
Martin intends to use the Sustaining Practice Residency to re-establish his solo practice by reconnecting with the methodological strategies he has developed over the last 20 years, both as solo artist and choreographer of works for other dancers. The focus will be on the interplay between movement, stillness, text and silence; the fragmentation and reconfiguration of separately choreographed body zones; and the contrasting of slowed down movement with accelerating spoken text.
Martin will be collaborating with dance artists Sara Black (practice partner) and Julie-Anne Long (outside eye).
ReadyMade Works will be working with Martin to support his solo practice from May-July in accordance with restrictions relating to Covid-19.
The Sustaining Practice Residency is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
ANNOUNCING THE MOVING IDEAS RESIDENCIES 2022/23
We are delighted to announce the Moving Ideas residents for 2022/23:
Feras Shaheen
Gabriela Green Olea
Anton & Timothy Ohl
Renata Commisso
Eliza Cooper
Phaedra Brown
Gabriela Quinscara
Martin del Amo
We awarded 8 week-long residencies for our Moving Ideas program this year (double the residencies from previous years) as it feels like time in the studio to develop and research work is what the independent dance community needs right now after two years of closures. The residencies will be happening in the studio from November - April. We look forward to sharing the resident artists' work with you over the coming months.
There were a large number of applications and we want to thank all artists who put in proposals for this opportunity, and to thank Sue Healey and Azzam Mohamed who, alongside our Creative Producer, Jane McKernan, made up the panel making decisions.
The Moving Ideas Residency is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Image Credit: Gabriela Green Olea, Happy Hour #14: Nat Cartney
The aim of the Moving Ideas residency program is to support NSW-based dance artists to do their creative work in a funded capacity. Artists can apply to work on a creative project, explore a new idea, or develop their practice. The residency is open to professional, emerging and established NSW-based artists working with dance, choreography and movement based practices.
Support:
• An artist fee of $1200 for 40-hours of studio time
• A collaborator or production budget of $300
• An allowance of $1000 for travel and accommodation is available for one regionally based NSW artist
Timing:
• Six 40-hour residencies are available to be undertaken in November 2022 or January/February 2023
• Residencies will be scheduled in consultation with ReadyMade Works staff
• ReadyMade Works will facilitate a closed showing event for invited peers and community at the culmination of residency period
*NSW-based indicates an artist who considers the NSW to be the primary base for their creative practice and residence. This should be the case for the duration of the residency and reflected in the artist biography provided.
Please do not hesitate to contact Jane McKernan with any questions: creativeproducer@readymadeworks.com.au
The Moving Ideas Residency is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Since 2014, our Moving Ideas program has been supporting dance artists through funded residencies, giving them space and time to explore new ideas.
2022 Moving Ideas Residents
Azzam Mohammed
Azzam is a dancer, teacher, choreographer and events coordinator. From Sudan, Azzam has trained in traditional and cultural dance as well as HipHop, Popping and House street dance styles. He has taught, competed in and judged dance events around the world including: Malaysia Got HipHop (Kuala Lumpur, 2017); The HipHop Deal St. One (Singapore, 2018), Soul Sessions (Oslo, Norway 2019); and in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and regional NSW. He is a member of Riddim Nation (Est.2015) dance crew, based in Sydney. In addition to competitions and showcase events, Riddim Nation is sought after for its distinctively cheeky style that blends the Pacifica, African and Asian dance backgrounds of its members. In 2019 Riddim Nation were invited by acclaimed choreographer, Nick Power, to develop and perform Two Crews, in collaboration with Paris-based hip hop crew, Lady Rocks. Two Crews was commissioned by Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane Festivals. In 2020, Azzam choreographed and performed solo work ‘’Me, Myself, I’’ for Out of Iso, a series of short dance works presented by Intimate Spectacle. He has recently worked as Currently, he is working as a choreographer, performer, and co-creator on a new project “The Risk of Hyperbole” a collaborative project across sound, visual arts and performance, with Australian composer Jack Prest, and installation artists Joe Wilson and Chanelle Collier. Azzam will present work for Monumental, a program of performance at AGNSW, curated by Latai Taumoepeau and Brian Fuata.
Azzam will work on his project Katma. “Katma” – is a slang term used back home in Sudan to describe our parties, meaning “suffocation/no room for breathing”. It aims to explore party and club culture, drawing inspiration from parties back home, parties in Sydney (Soul of Sydney, Freedom Session), and parties from back in the day (The Loft parties in New York, Warehouse Parties in Chicago, and the rave parties in UK). Katma explores elements from those parties, translating the essences of this cultural movement elevating it into a dance theatre context.
Sue Healey
Sue Healey is is the Australia Council Award winner for 2021. She is a Sydney-based choreographer, filmmaker and installation artist. Her work investigates the potential that lies at the shifting boundaries between disciplines, and the revelations that are sparked at those intersections. Critically, movement is at the heart of each of the works. Her work is witnessed in a diversity of contexts and spaces; galleries, public spaces, television, cinema screen and theatres. She has created large scale public art projects and regularly works in the Asia Pacific region, most recently with her portrait series On View, produced by West Kowloon Cultural Precinct, Hong Kong, Aichi Arts Centre and Red Brick Warehouse, Yokohama, Japan and the Performance Space, Sydney 2016-2020. On View: Panorama was created and performed in Japan just as the pandemic began. Recently her work On View: In Translation, a 5 channel installation was shown in OZASIA Festival 2021 and On View: Panoramic Suite was installed in Bay 20 Carriageworks but had to be created as a film (due to the lockdown) and shown as part of Liveworks Festival 2021. The live installation tours to Hong Kong in December 2021. Her work A Delicate Haunting was a finalist in the 2021 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award. Various films have won 2021 awards including; Best Live Capture Inspired Dance Film Festival Australia (Live Action Relay), Best Film EATSA Portugal (Lady of the Horizon), Best Cinematography Roma Short Film Festival Italy and Best Original Music, Seoul Short Film Festival Korea (Circumstance 2020).
Patricia Wood
Patricia is a dancer, choreographer and teacher living and working on Gadigal Land. Her choreographic research focuses on the embodied practice of transmission, ephemerality and memory. Her work takes multiple forms, including performance, film, radio transmission and text. She has received support from Omeo Dance, Bundanon Trust, Critical Path, Wysing Art Centre, Tasdance, Frontyard, DirtyFeet, ReadyMade Works, PACT, Sydney University, Ausdance NSW and Brand X. Patricia has developed a number of short works ‘11 Steps’ (2012), ‘A Re-Enactment’ (2015), ‘Trish & Trisha’ (2016), ‘Economy of a Gesture’ (2017) ‘Dance Pirate Radio - Telepathic Democracy’ (2018), ‘Transmission Solo’ (2019) and ‘Float On’ (2020), ‘Dream Waves and other such matter’ (2021) with Sydney Dance Company’s pre-professional dancers. Patricia received a Masters of Research from Macquarie University (2016), is a board member for Critical Path (2018-2020), a teaching artist with Sydney Dance Company (2016-2021) and managed artist run space, ReadyMade Works (2017-2019). Patricia’s writing has been published in Un Magazine and Critical Dialogues.
Patricia will be using her Moving Ideas residency to continue work on her project Trish+Trisha
Amy Flannery
Amy Flannery’s journey as a young First Nations artist has taken in a great deal in a short time. A Wiradjuri woman based on the NSW Central Coast, Amy has studied dance and music simultaneously during high schools and at NAISDA Dance College. After graduating from NAISDA in 2018, she choreographed and composed for a number of independent productions, building skills and delving in to a range of technologies to craft a personal creative voice.
Amy will use her Moving Ideas residency to research the belly button.
2021 Moving Ideas Residents
Isabel Estrella and Tiana Lung
Originally from Sydney, Isabel and Tiana both graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance in 2016. Isabel has worked with Stephanie Lake, Legs on the Wall, Discotheque and Okareka Dance Company (NZ). She was accepted into the Leg Up Emerging artist program at Legs on the Wall in 2019. Tiana has worked with Okareka Dance Company, Ross McCormack's Muscle Mouth, Kristina Chan, Chunky Move and Footnote Dance Company.
Isabel and Tiana intend to use this residency to embark on a second development of a new work with the working title of “roach.” They will further delve into a highly physical exploration of the concept of a solo for two - one embodiment split and shared amongst two bodies, experienced and viewed in complete synchronicity. Imagine a work that highlights the visceral and intoxicating experience of two bodies constantly moving as one - completely and without hesitation.
Matt Cornell
Matt Cornell is an Asia-Pacific based choreographer working to ask better questions. His career interrogates how we embody systems – social, cultural, political, or technological – and in turn how these systems embody us by forming communities and informing identities. His work takes multiple forms including dancing, performance, sound composition, writing, podcasting, and curation, in varying contexts including in theatres, galleries, public spaces, and online. Across these radically different contexts is the core effort of creating spaces, events, and experiences through which we can gather, to share something which might give rise to new ways to know ourselves and each other and the stories we tell ourselves. That we may get better at living together.
He will work in collaboration with Merinda Davies on their project Fully Automated Human Touch. Merinda and Matt are focused on the fallout of a fully automated (human-touch-less) food manufacturing future. And how it might deprive us of embodiment, appreciation, sensuality and generosity. In 2083, when automation delivers on its promise to provide all of our “basic needs”, what will the world look like? Maybe there will be no labour left for us to do but dance…
Emily Flannery
Emily is a proud Wiradjuri woman from Forbes in the Central West of NSW and a NAISDA graduate. Since graduating, she has Emily has worked with companies such as Opera Australia, Karul Projects, Phunktional Arts, Catapult Choreographic Hub and DirtyFeet. Emily is one of the recipients of Out Of The Studio 2020, enabling her to continue development of her Xrst work Bulnuruwanha, which has been supported by LGI New Work Residencies, AusDance Dair Residency and Central Coast Council through Creative Arts Central Funding. Emily is the recipient of the Joanne Harris Graduate Scholarship 2020, which provides her with the opportunity to travel to Kent, England to spend time with Jasmin Vardimon Company in 2021. Emily is a founding member of Lost All Sorts Collective (LASC), an emerging First Nations multi - disciplinary ensemble. LASC are artists in residence at PACT Theatre 2020 and are continuing their work in development 'Fraid.
Emily will use her Moving Ideas residency to develop Bulnuruwanha, a work inspired by the Wiradjuri Dreamtime stories about the creation of the land. The work specifically focuses on the stories relating to the Willy Wag Tail, Cockatoo, kookaburra, Magpie and Platypus. The movement is inspired by the personalities of the birds and how this influenced the way the land was created. The defining personalities, characteristics and lessons learned from these stories help us to better understand the land we’re living on.
Lisa Maris McDonell
Lisa has been creating and presenting performance works in various contexts in Australia and internationally for professional performers, students and community groups since 1996. A passionate advocate for regional arts, Lisa recently established Proper Motion in an effort to give visibility and opportunity to Illawarra / Shoalhaven based professional performers, projects and collaborators. She received the regional artist travel allowance for Moving Ideas.
Lisa will continue work on The $20 Commissions Project, which asks: What is a choreographer worth? What does $20 worth of a choreographer's time look like? How does $20 worth of a choreographer's time translate into choreographic material? She has invited choreographers from Australia and beyond to consider these questions by commissioning them to create a dance work worth $20 on her. This residency will be spent sorting through the commissions and weaving them together to begin the creation of a full length performance work.
Past Residents
Justin Shoulder, Jane McKernan, David Huggins, Kristina Chan, Angela Goh, Bhenji Ra, Kay Armstrong, Miranda Wheen, Lizzie Thomson, Ivey Wawn, Matt Cornell, Kathryn Puie, Sara Black, Thomas Bradley, Lucy Watson, Raghav Handa, Rob McCredie, Katina Olsen, Rakini Devi, Rhiannon Newton and Adelina Larsson, Joel Bray.