Performance Space is delighted to present the world premiere of ON VIEW: Live Portraits by esteemed Australian choreographer Sue Healey at Carriageworks for a limited season from 17 July 2015.
Fresh from an acclaimed season of On View: Quintet as part of Melbourne’s Dance Massive festival, Healey brings together the distinctive forms of dance, film and portraiture to create a work that exposes diverse ways of thinking through the body. As one of Australia’s foremost dance visionaries, Healey has had an illustrious career as a leading contemporary choreographer and creator of dance films that capture the majesty of movement on- and off-camera.
She has worked consistently in galleries, theatres, traditional and non-traditional venues around the world and her most recent offering, ON VIEW: Live Portraits continues to push the boundaries and preconceptions of dance as an art form in a stunning work that weaves deftly between live performance and recorded dance portraits.
“As a choreographer, I am immersed in the visual field – in both the acts of seeing and being seen. […] I am intrigued by the ways in which we observe and organise meaning within the visual field,” says Healey. “In our screen based culture we experience an overwhelming deluge of moving images on a daily basis. I am interested in how we articulate and shape this information to make sense of our reality.”
In PART 1 of ON VIEW: Live Portraits, Healey creates a series of video portraits of five Australian dance artists: Martin del Amo, Shona Erskine, Benjamin Hancock, Raghav Handa, and Nalina Wait who will perform live in the theatre with their screen counterparts.
In PART 2, video portraits of the legendary Dame Lucette Aldous and Professor Shirley McKechnie AO, icons of Australian dance, will feature as part of a complimentary exhibition that will be open daily throughout the season.
Audiences are encouraged to interact with the work through the free exhibition and ticketed evening performances featuring the five core performers – in which multiple narratives and intersections between the characters are choreographed in the space. Each dancer’s unique physical, psychological and kinetic qualities are teased out through multiple layers of film, performance and light.
The layering of different art forms enables Healey to explore the ways in which perceptions of dance can be deepened through multiple viewings and manipulations of the material she creates. ON VIEW: Live Portraits highlights the artists’ unique skills in shaping and transforming identity through meticulous attention to movement across mediums and generations of dance artists.
Choreographer: Sue Healey, in collaboration with the performers Performers: Martin del Amo, Shona Erskine, Benjamin Hancock, Raghav Handa, Nalina Wait Film: Sue Healey Director of Photography: Judd Overton Music: Darrin Verhagen, Justin Ashworth Lighting Designer: Karen Norris
ON VIEW: Live Portraits
Carriageworks
Dates: 17 – 25 July 2015
Bookings: 1300 723 038 or online at: www.ticketmaster.com.au
For more information, visit: www.performancespace.com.au for details.
Image: On View film stills – photo by Sue Healey