Precarious Movements: Choreography & the Museum

Precarious Movement: Choreography and the Museum is a research project involving University New South Wales (UNSW), National Gallery Victoria (NGV), TATE, Art Gallery New South Wales (AGNSW) and Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and connects and consults with a broader network of artists, curators, archivists, museum educators, theorists and writers via an email google-group and events.

The initial event was the 2016 Sydney Biennale salon, Choreography and the Gallery, at the AGNSW (27th April, 2016) in partnership with UNSW. This was followed by a series of research workshops:

• Choreography-Gallery-Practice: Workshop (Sydney, UNSW School of Arts and Media and Art & Design, 28 February - 1 March 2019) where the research problem was identified and the core first partners team connected.
• Choreography and the Gallery Workshop (Melbourne, NGV and VCA Studio, 15-17 October 2019) where AGNSW and TATE participated joined the team and the research project was articulated.
• Manuscript Workshop:  Choreography, Art and Experimental Composition 1950s -1970s  (Sydney, School of Arts and Media UNSW, 13 December 2019) to finalise our Linkage application 2020 and undertake a manuscript workshop of Brannigan’s forthcoming monograph.
• Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum (Sydney, UNSW Art & Design and AGNSW, 10 - 11 March 2020) with public sharings and a sold-out keynote by Louise Lawson, ‘Keeping it Live: Conserving Performance at Tate.’

https://www.precariousmovements.com/

This freely available, online resource focuses on choreographic work in the context of the museum and addresses how we can better serve and represent the artist in this context. Drawn directly from our research into the field of practice through interviews, consultations and practical case studies, all information is designed specifically to improve conditions for artists working in this field and to assist museums and arts workers with this task. Equally, it is intended as a reference for artists working with museums to provide knowledge and to support their agency and autonomy in such situations.

This resource provides a foundation from which to build stronger relationships and working practices that support the successful development, production presentation and preservation of choreographic works in the museum. While not intended to be prescriptive or exhaustive, the intention is to support performing artists' safe and sustainable work within the museum context. Each choreographic practice or work is unique, requiring a tailored approach to ensure all the individuals involved in its creation and presentation are respected, supported, fairly compensated, and safe. 

It is a guide to assist institutions of all types, regardless of size, staffing, resourcing etc., including state and national museums, commercial galleries and small-to-medium public galleries encompassing metropolitan, regional and remote museums and galleries, contemporary art spaces, contemporary craft and design spaces, and artist-run-initiatives (ARIs). Not all suggestions provided in this resource will be suitable for all museums, nor will all elements be relevant to the staging of every work. We recognise the need to work with the scope, possibilities, as well as limitations, of each specific museum for the well-being of all.

How to cite this resource: Brannigan, Erin, Lisa Catt, Rochelle Haley, Juanita Kelly-Mundine, Amita Kirpalani, Shelley Lasica, Louise Lawson, Hannah Mathews, Carolyn Murphy, Zoe Theodore and Pip Wallis. Precarious Movements Sector Resource (2024). Online: precariousmovements.com.

Atlanta Eke 
INNOCENCE 
Dates: 15 - 16 March 2024 
Location: National Gallery of Victora, Melbourne 

‍Atlanta Eke, INNOCENCE, supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW, the Neilson Foundation and the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council as part of the research project Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum © National Gallery of Victoria. Photographer: Michael Pham. 

Dancer and choreographer, Atlanta Eke’s new work, INNOCENCE is a collaboration with Romantic poet, William Blake and his key work Songs of Innocence. A key work in the NGV collection, Eke’s response through dance seeks mirror and to reflect further on Blake’s fundamental questions, such as how the passage from childhood to adulthood is fraught with loss and Eke questions not only how we might preserve our innocence but also how museums might and could preserve and tend to an artwork.

Eke’s choreography examines the tension between a question of the internal systems a dancer develops over time and the processes of breaking or reforming new movement. Drawing on a historical analysis of how culture has been marketed in Victoria, Eke has set her work to reclaim and reach towards a choreography that denies a fixed image of dance. In terms of this history Eke asks, ‘how might a dancer adopt a radical position?’ Through a somatic practice that connects thinking, feeling and movement in a dancer’s body, Eke seeks to simultaneously create a choreography of interiority and institutional questioning.

Like Blake sought to do, Eke’s work engages with social critique, questions of adulthood morality and institutional structures. Eke’s choreography is often described, like Blake’s work, as subversive, critical and radical and in this new work she delves into how choreography might examine the ways that Songs of Innocence retains its radicality in the context of a museum collection.

Eke’s performance is in association with TINA (There Is No Algorithm). TINA is an IRL platform accessible to institutions via IRL client services. TINA is interested to ask, where digital platforms fail to provide sensitivity to context, can TINA provide Affect and Emotion-based Communication?

Choreographer and dancer: Atlanta Eke 
Executive producer: Hana Miller 
Sound composition and performance: Daniel Jenatsch 
Scenography: Tim Birnie/Dawn Architecture 
Video: Hana Miller and Jacob Perkins / RDYSTDY 
Dancer: Angela Goh and Ivey Wawn

Amrita Hepi 
Liable 
Dates: 15 - 16 March 2024 
Location: National Gallery of Victora, Melbourne 

Amrita Hepi, Liable, supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW, the Neilson Foundation and the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council as part of the research project Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum © National Gallery of Victoria. Photographer: Michael Pham.

In this new work titled Liable, Amrita Hepi suggests we don’t trust the dancer, nor the screen, and adopts the position of the unreliable narrator. Drawing on research into the gaps between text and meaning Hepi seeks to explore the impossible spaces between action, witness, memory and recollection. Working with composer Daniel Jenatsch and performers Sarah Aiken and Jonnine Standish, dance and song will be in concert with a moving image landscape designed by visual artist Rel Pham.

Using NGV’s Great Hall as both performance space and score, Hepi charges the performers, soundscape and the screen-based text to move in and out of sync, to toy with instances of how the moving body might fill in the gaps that music, speech and text create. Reflecting on how we receive not only information but conversation, Hepi pulls us into playful polyphony, exploring both how we might listen with our bodies but also how we might speak with them.

Liable was commissioned by NGV as part of the NGV Triennial 2023. With support from the Australian Research Council through research and commissioning partner Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, a research project hosted by University of New South Wales, with Art Gallery of New South Wales, Monash University Museum of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Tate.

PROJECT CREDITS

Choreographer/Performer: Amrita Hepi
Creative Producer: Zoe Theodore
Music Composition: Daniel Jenatsch
Rehearsal Director/Performer: Sarah Aiken
Moving image: Rel Pham
Performer: Jonnine Standish
Dramaturg: Mish Grigor
Wardrobe, costume and dressing: D&K – Ricarda Bigolin & Chantal Kirby

Rochelle Hayley 
A Sun Dance 
Dates: 24 February 2024 
Location: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 

Rochelle Haley, A Sun Dance, 2024. Commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra 2023. Assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body. With additional support from the Australian Research Council through research and commissioning partner Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum. Dancers pictured: David Huggins, Ivey Wawn, Angela Goh, Lizzie Thomson, Niki Verrall. Costumes by Leah Giblin. National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra. Photographer: Kerrie Brewer.

A Sun Dance is a new performance commission by artist Rochelle Haley.

At the core of the work is a relationship between dancer, sunlight and architecture. Conceived in relation to the architecture of the original National Gallery building, shafts of sunlight streaming through architectural forms provide changing sets for dance over the course of a day. Durational in nature, audiences are invited to enter and exit the work at will. Three cycles marked by morning, midday and afternoon sun provide opportunities for audiences to orientate themselves within the structure of the work.

The performance, developed over different seasons, draws influence from the feel of sun on skin; the temporal passage of sun to earth; the geometries of the architecture; the hum of the building; and architect Col Madigan’s observation of light ‘dancing’ through the gallery.

The performance, like light itself, expands, intensifies, and recedes through time and space. Together the dancers realise a poetic choreography in harmony with the ‘moving graphic backdrop’ of the sun within the gallery.

PROJECT CREDITS

Artist: Rochelle Haley
Choreographers: Angela Goh, Ivey Wawn
Dancers: Angela Goh, David Huggins, Lizzie Thomson, Niki Verrall, Ivey Wawn
Composer & Musician: Megan Alice Clune
Costume: Leah Giblin
Curators: Elspeth Pitt and Deirdre Cannon. Produced by Saskia Scott.

Victoria Hunt
KŌIWI
Dates: 22 - 26 July 2023
Location: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Victoria Hunt, KŌIWI, supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW, the Neilson Foundation and the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council as part of the research project Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum. © Victoria Hunt, photo: Mim Stirling, Art Gallery of NSW.

KŌIWI is a durational performance by Māori-Australian dancer and choreographer Victoria Hunt which, through dance, sound, song, lighting and body adornment, continues the artist’s investigation into the story of her ancestral meeting house, Hinemihi.

Centring key Māori concepts of whakapapa (kinship), hau kāinga (the home-calling breath) and kawa mate (memories carried as you make your way home), the work welcomes visitors into a contemplative environment where, in the play of shadows, they encounter an unveiling of sublime dreams and cosmological connections.

Presented as part of the Dreamhome: Stories of Art and Shelter exhibition, the work was performed by Hunt alongside two esteemed First Nations artists: Moe Clark, Métis multidisciplinary artist, vocalist and drum carrier (Turtle Island/Canada); and Rosie Te Rauawhea Belvie, Māori vocalist, haka custodian and performer (Aotearoa/New Zealand). It was co-created with Boris Bagattini (objects and lighting design) and James Brown (sound design and composer).

The commissioning of KŌIWI was also supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW and the Neilson Foundation, with further support provided through residency programs at the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Sydney and at Marrugeku.

On the 28^th and 29^th of June 2023, the Precarious Movement event, Transmission & Understanding, was hosted by Tate Modern in London, UK. The Symposium on the 28^th, a series of four panel discussions, sought to facilitate conversations on the topic of how choreographic artworks are transmitted and understood by artist-performers and museums alike and crucially, what the implications of a museum site are for such works. The Workshop on the 29^th elaborated on the themes of the Symposium through sessions involving movement, writing and an opportunity for participants to review some draft content of the project’s main output, the Toolkit. Overall, the event aimed at engaging a local audience of artists, curators, producers, archivists and conservators with some of the key research questions of the project through two days of exchange, discussion and – of course – movement.

Lifecycles and Legacies

On the second panel of the day, Noémie Solomon brought together Tate curator Catherine Wood and choreographer Lenio Kaklea for a conversation around the possibilities and challenges of acquiring choreographic work. The friction between the museum world and choreographic/dance world was presented as something positive which challenges museum acquisition protocols and pushes for mutual learning and change. Wood used Trisha Brown’s Set and Reset (1983) acquisition, as an example of this process. By holding archival objects and the set designed by Robert Rauschenberg, the music by Laurie Anderson and the lighting design by Beverly Emmons, Tate became a facilitator of the choreography, inviting it into the museum. The acquisition of sculptural elements functions as a shelter to the choreography: its license can be bought temporarily and shown in the museum depending on the ecologies of the dance world and the companies that have learnt it in London (Rambert and Candoco dance companies). This linked with Lenio’s ideas around acquisition being a way to sustain work – rather than succumbing to the market pressure to constantly create new work – and that visual arts institutions can still support choreographic work, for example, as co-producers even if the work is not conceived to be shown in a gallery space. Noémie encouraged attendees to look at acquisition beyond the notion of ownership and think instead about it as the learning of a skill or quality that takes place gradually. However, Catherine brought the museum perspective that while there are always production funds available at the point of an acquisition the long-term maintenance is the challenge that is normally felt in preserving these artworks in the long-term

Understanding Activation and Preservation

The third panel of the day turned to questions of documentation, archiving and preservation. Lead by Hannah Mathews, the panellists – Ana Ribeiro, Cori Olinghouse and Michelangelo Miccolis – each drew on their varied experiences of conservation, archiving and performance. The key question, ‘How do we care for the work?’ was initially approached through the lens of conservation and archival practices and disciplines. However, the overarching discussion soon became centred around questions of care, relationships and how to engage with and support the situated knowledge of choreographic works. Each panellist touched upon the necessity to make space and time for adaptations in practice when caring for choreographic works and of collaborating with the networks than sustain and maintain them. Specifically, panellists called attention to the generative and mutable capacity of such works – as well as that of their documentation and archiving – and their tangible link to the body and choreographic modes of practice. The need for museums to gain an understanding of and thus, be able to provide, the conditions that are needed for the successful activation of choreographic works was also highlighted. The question of time reappeared in the context of process: the need for understanding to develop over time and alongside choreographic works as they evolve and mutate in different art institutional contexts. A key theme was the need for museums to accommodate the improvisational through a trial-and-error approach that allows choreographic works to move and breathe whilst supporting the networks of people that create and maintain their necessary conditions.

Passed Along, Passed Down

Thomas F. DeFrantz and Juanita Kelly-Mundine began the final panel of the day by reflecting on how certain bodies have been prevented from existing in the museum. While the previous sessions focused largely on the possibilities of the museum, DeFrantz started by observing the lack of Black symposium attendees and the discussion that followed addressed two important questions: what does it mean for the global majority to not take part in conversations such as these? What can museums do to become more welcoming to the global majority? The panel’s initial question ‘How do we share the work?’ transformed into a debate around institutional space and its barriers to sharing and conversation. From there, questions of time once again emerged. For example, DeFrantz drew attention to the temporal state of ‘now’ as always precarious for the global majority. The future of choreographic work was also discussed in the context of Black aesthetics: such work foregrounds relational possibilities and imagines what is needed in the ‘now’ as well as where and to whom work will be presented. Kelly-Mundine and DeFrantz discussed the numerous ways that choreographic works challenge core institutional values and disrupt the performativity the artist-museum relationship. Throughout the conversation, Kelly-Mundine suggested potential pathways to change within the museum. She focused on her own experience as a West Bundjalung woman and custodian within an institution. Shifting attention from objects to relationships, ritual and warmth was put forward as a clear imperative for the museum. Overall, both panellists agreed a lot of institutional work is yet to be done in relation to generosity and vulnerability; to making a space that can be daunting for so many feel safe and welcoming for all.

The symposium ended with a summary from Erin Brannigan and Zoe Theodore who invited attendees to join them in reflecting on the day’s resounding themes and questions. They touched upon the various topics brought forward by the panellists, highlighting the multiple areas of cross-over between discussions. The particularities of choreographic practice and the inherent ability of the dancing body to unsettle the formal concepts of the art museum and art historical canons – whilst repurposing the tools of these rejected paradigms – was particularly resonant over the course of the day. Meanwhile, there was an acknowledgment of the depth and breadth of choreographic practice – and the social imaginaries it posits – as it exists beyond the boundaries of the museum. The need for museums to value spaces, knowledges and learning outside the institution was also reflected upon. Questions were raised about who gets invited into the space of the museum, and the possibilities of extending those invitations to dance experts and others, of creating space for a multiplicity of voices to collaborate around choreographic works. In relation to transmission and understanding, three main areas were identified. First, the restrictive perils of understanding and productive possibilities of non-understanding, particularly for those creating choreographic works from Black and global majority subjectivities. Second, the generativity of dance archival practices and the notion of transmission as a dispersal of understanding. And finally, the instability of dance and the challenge that translating precarity within the terms of conservation presents to the museum.

Workshop

The second day of the Transmission & Understanding event consisted of a workshop with contributions from Shelley Lasica, Cori Olinghouse and the Precarious Movements project team. Erin Brannigan and Zoe Theodore opened the workshop by reflecting on some of the provocations put forward by the panellists on the previous day. Soon after, the workshop group was invited to take part in a movement session led by Lasica. The session gave an insight into Lasica’s embodied artistic practice and an opportunity to engage with the various topics being discussed over the two days, beyond traditional written and oral methods. This session flowed into the next, a Haptic Writing workshop dedicated to living archives and language lead by Cori Olinghouse. Over the course of the ninety-minute session, Olinghouse used methods from oral history, visual mapping and thick description to facilitate language in the context of embodied movement practice. In one exercise, participants were invited to work in pairs: moving, describing movement in writing, and then interpreting those descriptions with movement. Then participants were invited to handle different objects and observe their textures and then, to come up with diverse possible descriptions for one specific object. Throughout the session, the possibilities that language offers in describing not only objects but also embodied movement provided a rich ground for thinking about the themes of transmission and understanding.

In the afternoon, project team members Lisa Catt and Rochelle Haley introduced participants to the Precarious Movements draft Toolkit, a suite of resources being developed to support artists and museum professionals working with choreographic work. Catt and Haley presented the progress of these draft resources, their intended design and final purpose; the session then moved into a discussion focused on their accessibility and usefulness. Different groups – each comprised of artists, archivists, curators, theorists, and conservators – were invited to look at working documents prepared by different specialist teams within the project (e.g., archives and conservation) and encouraged to discuss them in relation to their own practices. In particular, participants were asked to reflect on the documents in terms of their ability to support different custodians of choreographic work whilst navigating relationships within the museum world. The day ended with the different groups sharing their feedback on the documents. One of the crucial takeaways was about the language used and how important this is in inviting artists and their ways of doing into the museum without being too prescriptive.

Summary written by Caitrin Barrett-Donlon and Ana Ribeiro

Shelley Lasica 
WHEN I AM NOT THERE 
Dates: 16–27 August 2022 
Location: Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne

Shelley Lasica, WHEN I AM NOT THERE 2022, MUMA, Melbourne, with performers Luke Fryer, Shelley Lasica and Lana Šprajcer. Photography: Jacqui Shelton

WHEN I AM NOT THERE takes the form of a performance–exhibition. It embeds a major new choreographic work within an exhibition of artworks, objects, texts and sounds, all distilled from Lasica’s archive. This approach questions what it means ‘to perform’ and ‘to exhibit’, purposefully ensuring that one mode cannot exist without the other.

Lasica’s body of work is uniquely characterised by the conversations it holds with the traditions and practices of theatre, fashion, installation, painting, sound, sculpture, literature, architecture and choreography itself. These conversations create both a physical and relational infrastructure within her practice as she has moved between solo performance and ensemble works for many people. For WHEN I AM NOT THERE, Lasica has worked with a cross-generational mix of creatives, including dancers LJ Connolly-Hiatt, Luke Fryer, Timothy Harvey, Rebecca Jensen, Megan Payne, Lana Šprajcer and Oliver Savariego; sound artist François Tétaz; consultants Lisa Radford and Colby Vexler; creative producer Zoe Theodore and curator Hannah Mathews.

WHEN I AM NOT THERE was originally commissioned for Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne where it was presented from 16-27 August 2022. It will be presented at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in May 2023.

WHEN I AM NOT THERE was accompanied by a substantial monograph designed by Stuart Geddes and Ziga Testen featuring new writing from Erin Brannigan, Justin Clemens, Claudia La Rocco, Robyn McKenzie and Zoe Theodore. Positioning Lasica’s oeuvre within Australian contemporary practice as well as international contexts, it will be the first monograph published on an Australian choreographer. A comprehensive account of Lasica’s performance and exhibition history and extensive documentation drawn from her archive will be presented alongside the commissioned texts. Purchase here.

Riana Head-Toussaint 
Animate Loading 
Dates: 4–9 December 2022 
Location: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Riana Head-Toussiant, Animate loading 2022, with performer Natalie Tso, supported by The Keir Foundation and the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council as part of the research project Precarious movements: choreography and the museum. © Riana Head-Toussiant, photo: Felicity Jenkins, Art Gallery of NSW.

Animate Loading is a choreographic work that is in direct dialogue with the space it inhabits. Every performance is informed by the architectural, social and historical contexts of the unceded land it is on. First created on a rooftop carpark in Parramatta in early 2022, and evolving among post-industrial stone ruins and graffitied water tanks at Casula Powerhouse, this iteration of Animate Loading took shape within and around the construction of the Art Gallery’s new building. A disability-led project with access-centred principles at its core, the work was performed on four nights during the building’s opening week. The performers drew on their diverse movement languages and embodied experiences to activate the architecture, bringing its seen and unseen dimensions into focus, and reconfiguring the audience’s interactions with the gallery spaces and each other. 
 
The Animate Loading creative team was comprised of lead artist, choreographer and sound designer Riana Head-Toussaint, with performers and collaborators Leo Tsao, Tom Kentta, Natalie Tso, Jeremy Lowrenčev, Savannah Stimson and Bedelia Lowrenčev, as well as Imogen Yang (access producer and outside eye), Cynthia Florek (writing and documentation associate), Benaiah Brophey (wardrobe and stage associate), Stephen Dobson (sound engineer), Katrina Douglas (stage manager) and Tamara Dodd (costumier). 
 
The AGNSW presentation of Animate Loading was also supported by The Keir Foundation.

Precarity and Practices of Care for Dance and the Museum was the first  in a series of three workshops. As the first occasion for the current network of Associate Researchers to meet in person, this workshop will address the project's premise of precariousness: Is dance an inherently precarious art form? How might choreographers and dancers creatively respond to and harness precarity? Do these artists experience precarity within the context of the museum? How can museums respond to this? And what change might our recent experiences of instability and uncertainty provoke for both artist and museum? 

With these questions in mind, the event explored new models of knowing and caretaking that can best support choreographic and dance practices — their artists, social networks, histories, futures and audiences — when these types of works are commissioned, presented, collected and conserved by museums. 

Hosted by the Art Gallery of New South Wales on the 30th and 31st of March 2022 as an industry-oriented event attended in-person by an intimate group of Associate Researchers of the project who work across creative practice, conservation, curation, production and archives. It is focused on promoting critical inquiry, movement-based knowledges and transparent dialogue between artist and institution.  

'Precarity and Practices of Care for Dance and the Museum' will include artist presentations by Brian Fuata, Angela Goh, Jo Lloyd, Sarah Rodigari, Brooke Stamp and Latai Taumoepeau; a keynote response by Walker Art Centre’s Senior Curator of Performing Arts Philip Bither in conversation with Pip Wallis; a recap and response by Australian art historian Susan Best; a presentation by Juanita Kelly-Mundine, Conservator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Art Gallery of NSW; and a book launch of Choreography, Visual Art and Experimental Composition 1950 – 1970s by Erin Brannigan. 

DAY 1

Precarious Movements Address: The Community of the Project hosted by: Erin Brannigan, Associate Professor, University of New South Wales; Shelley Lasica; Hannah Mathews, Senior Curator, Monash University Museum of Art

Artist Presentation: Jo Lloyd hosted by: Shelley Lasica

Keynote In Conversation: Philip Bither, Senior Curator Performing Arts, Walker Art Centre in conversation with Pip Wallis Curator, Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Victoria

Artist Presentation: Brooke Stamp hosted by: Erin Brannigan, Associate Professor, University of New South Wales

Artist Presentation: Angela Goh hosted by: Rochelle Hayley, Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales

Day 1 Facilitated Discussion hosted by: Lisa Catt, Curator, International Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales and Hannah Mathews, Senior Curator, Monash University Museum of Art

DAY 2

Day 1 Recap & Response by Professor Susan Best, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University

AGNSW Conservation Presentation by Juanita Kelly-Mundine, Conservator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales; hosted by: Carolyn Murphy, Head of Conservation, Art Gallery of New South Wales and Lisa Mansfield, Conservator, Time-based Media, Art Gallery of New South Wales

Artist Presentation: Sarah Rodigari hosted by: Hannah Mathews, Senior Curator, Monash University Museum of Art

Artists in Conversation: Latai Taumoepeau with Paschal Daantos Berry, Head of Learning and Participation, Art Gallery of New South Wales and Lisa Catt, Curator, International Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales

Day 2 Facilitated Discussion hosted by: Erin Brannigan, Associate Professor, University of New South Wales; Shelley Lasica; and Zoe Theodore, Precarious Movements Project Coordinator

Precarious Movements: Conversations

Tuesdays 20, 27 October and 3 November 2020

Catherine Damman, ‘Presence at the Creation’, Artforum International, vol. 57, September 2018. The issue was never whether dance belongs in the museum or gallery, but rather what we do with dance—and how we treat dancers—once it’s there … (Catherine Damman, ‘Presence at the Creation’, Artforum International, vol. 57, September 2018.)

Precarious Movements: Conversations wais a three-part program of talks with artists, curators and conservators that reflects on what happens when works of a choreographic nature enter the museum. Each session focuseds on a particular phase of a work’s museum life cycle: how its presentation challenges existing display systems and program infrastructure; how its ephemerality and mutability confront current collection and acquisition frameworks; and how a choreographic work’s particular relationship to body, memory and social networks might shift institutional practices of archiving and preservation.

Co-presented by MUMA and the Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum research group, this program reflecteds on the various types of knowledge transmission that occur at each stage of interaction between artist and museum, and how choreographic practices themselves might change the structural and material form of the museum. It advocateds for the centrality of the artist’s voice and the capability of the museum to listen. Links to recordings are in each section.

Tuesday, 20 October 2020

Agatha Gothe-Snape (artist), Amrita Hepi (artist) and Latai Taumoepeau (artist)

Moderator: Hannah Mathews (Senior Curator, MUMA)

Three artists—each working with choreography in distinct ways and regularly invited to work within the space of the gallery—share their experiences of presenting work of a choreographic nature within the white cube. Whether programmed as a commission, intervention, exhibition, performance or event, the works of these artists have challenged how museums produce and present art. In what way can institutions be more adaptable to artists whose work falls outside the modes of artmaking traditionally held in such institutions? How can artists learn to better navigate the institution and advocate for their practice? These case studies identify the points of tension between artist and museum, and suggest how they might be overcome.

Precarious Movements: Conversations - Session 1 from MUMAmonash on Vimeo.

Tuesday, 27 October 2020

Lisa Catt (Assistant Curator, International Art, AGNSW), Victoria Hunt (artist), Shelley Lasica (artist) and Tania Doropoulos (Director, Anna Schwartz Gallery)

Moderator: Pip Wallis (Curator, Contemporary Art, NGV)

There is a notable absence of choreographic works in museum collections. Obstacles seem to exist at the most fundamental level—the very way museums understand the art object and structure the process of collecting. This session looks at how artists and institutions are confronting the limitations of current acquisition frameworks and are considering ways in which collections might make space for living practice and immaterial context. Shelley Lasica and Tania Doropoulos look to Lasica’s work Dress: A Costumed Performance with Designer Martin Grant, 1998–2019, as a model for how artists might approach the acquisition of their work. Artist Victoria Hunt discusses her experiences within institutional contexts, reflecting on how museum ontologies and temporalities might be challenged and changed. And curator Lisa Catt discusses how the archive might circumvent institutional hierarchies and dependencies on objecthood to represent a wider range of artforms within a museum collection. 

Precarious Movements: Conversations - Session 2 from MUMAmonash on Vimeo.

Tuesday, 3 November 2020

Louise Lawson (Conservation Manager, Tate) and Robert Lazarus (Associate Lecturer, Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, University of Melbourne)

Moderator: Stephen Gilchrist (Lecturer, University of Sydney)

The preservation of choreographic work lays challenge to the core principles of traditional museum model—perpetuity and permanence. What processes might better serve the preservation of choreographic works? And how might knowledge transmission occur within and without the institution? The speakers in this session discuss case studies and experiences of archiving and conserving works that engage with body, memory and social networks. Louise Lawson discusses  the conservation practice and processes that are being developed at Tate to preserve performance art. Robert Lazarus will reflect on the importance of stretching our understanding of conservation practices through the nature of the artworks themselves, and how this responsive approach can shape the teaching and learning of new generations of conservators.

Precarious Movements: Conversations - Session 3 from MUMAmonash on Vimeo.

Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum Research Forum 2020 brought artists, researchers and institutions into dialogue about best practice to support both the choreographer and the museum, and to sustain momentum in theory and practice around dance and the visual arts. This workshop and series of public panels involved research team members Hannah Mathews (MUMA), Pip Wallis (NGV), Louise Lawson (Tate UK), Shelley Lasica (Independent artist), Carolyn Murphy & Lisa Catt (AGNSW), Erin Brannigan & Rochelle Haley (UNSW), and a network of local artists, curators, theorists and writers. The program culminated in a sold-out keynote by Louise Lawson Keeping it Live: Conserving Performance at Tate.

Schedule:

Choreography and the Gallery Workshop (Melbourne, NGV and VCA Studio, 15-17 October 2019)

Schedule:

Tuesday, 15 October 2019

NGV Australia: Ian Potter Centre

·        10am - 11am Erin Brannigan orientation session – what we have achieved and what we need to do

·       11am - 12pm Pip Wallis

·       12pm - 1pm Rochelle Haley

·       1pm - 2pm Lunch

·       2pm - 4pm AGNSW (Carolyn Murphy) and Tate (Louise Lawson) on conservation, collection and acquisition

·       4pm - 5pm Erin Brannigan facilitates debrief

Wednesday, 16 October 2019

Black Box 221, VCA, 234 St. Kilda Rd 9am-12pm

Guests:  Zoe Theodore, choreographers Deanne Butterworth and Jo Lloyd, artist Helen Crogan and artist-academic Carol Brown – Head of Dance VCA to join us 9am-12pm

·       9am - 11am Shelley Lasica – major themes of the project and choreographic practices

·       11am - 12pm Hannah Matthews

·       12pm - 1pm Lunch

·       Ian Potter Centre Theatre, Federation Square 1pm - 3pm

·       1pm - 3pm Pip Wallis leads group presentation to NGV contemporary art and publications teams

·       3pm - 5pm Erin Brannigan facilitates debrief with team at a local venue

Thursday, 17 October 2019

NGV Australia: Ian Potter Centre

·       10am - 12pm Advice from UNSW on the Linkage program

·       12pm - 1pm Discussion of any changes to Linkage

·       1pm - 2pm Lunch

·       2pm - 4pm General debrief and forward planning. Plan B regarding unsuccessful grant

Choreography-Gallery-Practice: Workshop (Sydney, UNSW School of Arts and Media and Art & Design, February 2018)

Choreography-Gallery-Practice: Workshop 2019 brought 20 artists, academics and curators together at UNSW Art and Design to sustain momentum in theory and practice at the nexus between dance and the visual arts. The focus was on sharing current research and generating new possibilities, both individual and collective. Workshop leaders were Lizzie Thomson, Shelley Lasica, Sarah Rodigari, Zoe Theodore and Jess Olivieri. The focus was on practice and participation; transferring methods in practical experiments to ‘try-on’ different approaches to shared problems/ideas.

The project included a public event (a sharing of findings) on Friday March 1, 5-6pm in the Nick Waterlow Gallery, Paddington.

This event was a follow-up to a salon on Choreography and the Gallery, an event that was part of the 2016 Biennale of Sydney and held at AGNSW. It is supported by The School of the Arts and Media, UNSW and Art & Design, UNSW.

Organising Committee

Erin Brannigan (academic SAM)

Rochelle Haley (artist, academic A&D)

Hannah Mathews (senior curator MUMA)

Shelley Lasica (artist)

Lizzie Thomson (UNSW/SAM PhD and artist)

Schedule:

Thursday February 28

10am Introductions (Erin)

11-1pm session Shelley Lasica (see below)

2-3pm session Sarah Rodigari (see below)

3-4.30pm session Jessica Olivieri (see below)

4.30-5.30pm wrap-up (Erin)

Friday March 1

10-11am Re-orientation (Erin)

11-1pm session Zoe Theodore (see below)

2-4pm session Lizzie Thomson (see below)

4-5pm discussion and forward planning (Erin)

5-6pm sharing with visitors

Sarah Rodigari

Walking and Falling

Since 2011, I have been working with social modalities such as conversation and walking as a way to document relational knowledge about the intersection between art, life and labour. I use this process to inform  the creation of poetic, text-based ephemera and performances.

In this workshop, I will share research methodologies about support systems and reproductive labour in artistic production that I have recently been developing while on residency in Paris. Over the past months, I have undertaken a series of walking conversations with choreographers, architects, philosophers and writers, focusing on ideas of strike and withdrawal through subjective, non-linear or minor forms of attention and expression. I am interested in how this is situated within a critique of art.

Workshop outline: I will begin by briefly introducing my research and present an excerpt of the performance text I have been developing. This will go for about 10-15 minutes. Following this, I will share my methodology by inviting people to go for a walk in pairs for approximately 20 minutes, the walk will be led by an enquiry topic. We will spend the remaining 20 minutes collectively discussing and reflecting on the process.

It would be ideal to do this towards the beginning of the two days as the walks are best experienced when people don’t know each other very well / at all. It’s also  a nice way for participants to get to know each other’s practice.

I have proposed a one-hour structure, but it could extend for two hours if preferred.

Shelley Lasica

The session will comprise two parts and address, in different ways, notions around the development of ideas individually and collectively and the relationship and implications embedded between these modes. The transmission of ideas in making work and its distribution through choreography as a subject for discussion and a mode of production that encounters the areas of originality, the body, truth and context; accumulation of and releasing from knowledge.

Zoe Theodore

Considering the possibilities and limitations of space, duration, labour and spectatorship, I will share my research and curatorial findings from exhibiting choreography in gallery contexts. This research will draw upon my experiences working within various types of visual arts settings (museums, commercial galleries and kunsthalles), and explore ideas related to embodiment, intersubjectivity, documentation and participation.

Lizzie Thomson

This practice-based session will explore a process for generating text alongside embodied sensations. We will work together in pairs or trios. We will sit on chairs. We will touch things and be touched by things. We will speak and quietly celebrate this speaking. We will write. We will be attentive to things both possible and impossible, both alive and dead, both expressed and repressed. This research is loosely inspired by the genre of Closet Dramas written by women in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. It reflects my ongoing interest in interdisciplinary research, blurring the boundaries between dance, performance, visual art and writing. It questions the performance-maker’s trajectory towards the theatre and the gallery. It gives space for the artist to say no to self-promotion, at least for a short moment. It embraces the possibilities of an introverted performance with no audience other than the chairs that support our weight, the four walls that listen in to our conversations and the occasional cockroach that avoids our feet to stay alive.

Jess Olivieri

It might have been otherwise: Feminist methodologies for reconsidering dance in the gallery

“How do I then act the bricoleur that we've all learned to be in various ways, without being a colonizer ... How do you keep foregrounded the ironic and iffy things you're doing and still do them seriously. Folks get mad because you can't be pinned down, folks get mad at me for not finally saying what the bottom line is on these things.”1

We will take this characteristically slippery assertion from Donna Haraway to propose methods that destabilise disciplinary hierarchy. This workshop will build on my PhD and curatorial research that address the live/document binary. Specifically focusing on Real Real, a performance program I have created as Curator of Contemporary Performance at Campbelltown Arts Centre. This workshop will involve theory and practice. http://c-a-c.com.au/real-real-performances/

1. Donna Haraway quoted by Susan Leigh Star, “Power, Technology and the Phenomenology of Conventions: on Being Allergic to Onions”, The Sociological Review VL 38, New Jersey: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1990) p. 49

Participants

Erin Brannigan, Lizzie Thomson, Shelley Lasica, Rochelle Haley, Sarah Rodigari, Zoe Theodore, Jess Olivieri, Deanne Butterworth, Alice Heywood, Helen Grogan, Rhiannon Newton, Ivey Wawn, Nikki Heywood, Julie-Anne Long, Brooke Stamp, Anny Motokow, Pip Wallis, Brian Fuata.

_{^{Rochelle Haley, The Invention of Depth, 2019, installation and performance commission for ‘Flat Earth Society’ at Cement Fondu. Choreographer and performer: Ivey Wawn. Photo: Yaya Stempler.}}

Choreography and the Gallery Salon (AGNSW, 27th April, 2016) in partnership with 2016 Sydney Biennale and UNSW.                                                                          

Choreography and the Gallery was a one-day ‘salon’ exploring the creative and discursive territory between ‘the choreographic’ and the institutions and practices of art: the gallery or museum as a destination and organisation; the circumstances, conditions and objects one is surrounded by in these places; and the work of artists. Inspired by ideas of the ‘in- between’ and the blurring of art forms that are central to the 20th Biennale, this event brought together artists and thinkers working across practices and concepts now shared by both art and dance.                                       

Presenters responded to the frameworks for thinking about the dance-gallery relationship based on their current research/practice, in short presentations in a lecture format or a performed intervention. Each participant was invited to give a 20-minute presentation on what is uppermost in their mind in relation to choreography, dance and the gallery. Participants had the choice of presenting in the Centenary Auditorium or the Central Court of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The event was facilitated by Erin Brannigan with the support of Melissa Ratliffe and presenters were; Phillip Adams, Deanne Butterworth, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Helen Grogan with Geoff Robinson, Anneke Jaspers, Shelley Lasica, Jo Lloyd, Hannah Mathews, Bree Richards, Stephanie Rosenthal, Emma Saunders, Brooke Stamp, Tang Fu Kuen, Lizzie Thomson, Justene Williams.   

FINAL STATEMENTS – closing of Salon (Erin Brannigan and Melissa Ratliffe)

1. Choreography as a tool in exhibition making (Stephanie Rosenthal)
2. The curator as choreographer (Hannah Matthews)
3. The choreographer as curator (Phillip Adams)
4. An exhibition as a dance score (Stephanie Rosenthal)
5. The dancer choreographing the artist (Agatha Gothe-Snape)
6. Performance as re-vivifying the gallery (Tang Fu Kuen)
7. The tendency for museums to fossilize material culture (Anneke Jaspers)
8. Bodies as objects and bodies in relation to objects (Tang Fu Kuen)
9. Bringing performance into dialogue with art works as ‘conservative’ (Stephanie Rosenthal)
10. Giving agency to performers (Anneke Jaspers)
11. Entering and exiting the gallery space as a performer (Agatha Gothe-Snape
12. The specificity of dance and the specificity of art (Hannah Matthews)
13. The difference between performance time and gallery time (Agatha Gothe-Snape)
14. Museum time as a privilege (Tang Fu Kuen)
15. The erasure of the visibility of art (Erin Brannigan/Jacques Ranciere)
16. Curiosity as the currency of the curator (Hannah Matthews)
17. Painting the walls of the white cube black (Phillip Adams)
18. The floor, not the walls (Matthew Day)
19. Dance as space and space as possibility (Lizzie Thomson)
20. Turning viewers into dancers (Stephanie Rosentha)

Program

Brannigan, Erin. The Persistence of Dance: Choreography as Concept and Material in Contemporary Art NYP.

Brannigan. Erin. Choreography, Visual Art and Experimental Composition 1950s–1970s. London: Routledge, 2022). Publication due March 2022.

Brannigan, Erin, Hannah Matthews and Caroline Wake, Eds. Special Issue Performance Paradigm: Performance, Choreography and the Gallery 13 (2017).

Brannigan, Erin. ‘Choreography as Concept, Dancing as Material,’ Performance Research Vol. 26, No. 2: ‘ON (UN)KNOWNS,’ editors Hetty Blades, Scott deLahunta and Lucía Piquero (In production September 2021) 

Brannigan, Erin. ‘Context, Discipline and Understanding: the Poetics of Shelley Lasica’s Gallery-based Work,’ Performance Paradigm 13 (2017), pp. 97-117. 

Brannigan, Erin. ‘Choreography and the Gallery: Curation as Revision.’ Dance Research Journal 47:1 (2015): pp. 5-25. 

Brannigan, Erin & Theodore, Zoe. ‘Review: Ange Goh Body Loss,’ Performance Review #2 (2021). Online: https://performancereview.online/reviews/body-loss-angela-goh.

Brannigan, Erin. and Hannah Mathews, ‘Performance, Choreography, and the Gallery: Materiality, Attention, Agency, Sensation, and Instability,’ Performance Paradigm 13 (2017), pp. 1-6.

Brannigan, Erin. ‘Positively Unassertive: Dancing in the Art Gallery of NSW,’ Broadsheet 45.2 (2016): pp.26-30.

Brannigan, E. ‘Dance in the Gallery: Process and Memory,’ pp. 8-17. In Invisible Histories. Limerick: Limerick City Art Gallery, 2018.

Brannigan, E. ‘Dancing as materiality: accumulation, texture, adornment and movement in Justene Williams’ The Curtain Breathed Deeply,’ pp. 45-48. In Justene Williams The Curtain Breathed Deeply. Artspace, Sydney 2015.   

Catt, Lisa. & Sherring, Asti, Murphy, Carolyn. ‘What is the Object? Identifying and describing time-based artworks’, AICCM Bulletin, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 86-95, 2018.

Haley, R. ‘Elastic Perspective: The diagonal line and the production of deep space’, Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 63–80, 2017,doi:10.1386/drtp.2.1.63_1 

Haley, R. ‘Constructions of the moving body: drawing and dancing’, Studies in Theatre and Performance, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 289–301, 2018, doi:10.1080/14682761.2018.1506966 

Haley, R. ‘The Aesthetics of Change: Dancing the Line’, The International Journal of the Image, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 112, 2015, doi:10.18848/2154-8560/cgp/50301

Haley, R. ‘Drawing the Immaterial Object of Dance’, Studio Research Journal, pp. 28-39, 2016.

Lasica, S. ‘Context, Do you do this often?’, Performance Paradigm, issue #13, November, 2017.

 Lawson, Louise, Finbow, Acatia & Marçal, Hélia. ‘Developing a strategy for the conservation of performance-based artworks at Tate’, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, vol. 2, no. 42, pp. 114-134, 2019. doi:10.1080/19455224.2019.1604396

Lawson, Louise & Potter, Deborah. ‘Contemporary art, contemporary issues-conservation at Tate’, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, vol. 2, no. 40, pp. 121-132, 2017.  doi:10.1080/19455224.2017.1318079

Lawson, Louise, Flack, Carla, McConchie, Jack & Tsai, Ming. ‘Cybernetic Umbrella, a Case Study of Collaboration. Keep it Moving Publication’, Keep It Moving? Conserving Kinetic Art. Getty Conservation Institute Proceedings. 2016.

Mathews, H. ‘Framed Movements’ [Exhibition catalogue], Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2014

 Mathews, H (ed.) ‘To note: Notation across disciplines’, Perimeter Books, Melbourne, 2016.

Murphy, Carolyn & Treacy, Analiese 2017, ‘Drawings you can walk on -Mike Parr and the 20th Biennale of Sydney’, Light Colour Structure. Contributions to the 9th AICCM Book, Paper and Photographic Materials Symposium, vol. 9, pp. 7-17

Mathews, Hannah & Ratliff, Melissa (eds.)  ‘Agatha Gothe-Snape: The Outcome is Certain’, Monash University Museum of Art amp; Perimeter Editions, Melbourne, 2020

Theodore, Z. ‘Introduction’, in Lascia, Shelley (ed.), Shelley Lasica: The Design Plot, Perimeter Books, Melbourne, 2020.

Theodore, Z. ‘Lessons From Dancing’, [Exhibition catalogue], Bus Projects, 2018.

Wallis, P.  ‘It’s capricious, capricious everyday’ in Lascia, Shelley (ed.), Shelley Lasica: The Design Plot, Perimeter Books, Melbourne, 2020.

Wallis, Pip & Martine Syms, ‘Sitting with difference –Queer and Feminist Publishing: a conversation between Pip Wallis and Martine Syms’’ in Blamey, David & Haylock, Brad (eds.), Distributed, Open Editions, London, 2018.

Wallis, P. ‘Let’s stay together: The politics of collaboration’ in Goodwin, Channon (ed.), Permanent Recession: A Handbook on Art, Labour and Circumstance , Onomatopee, The Netherlands, 2019, doi:9789493148079

Wallis, P. ‘Atlanta Eke & Ghenoa Gela: Post-colonial choreography’, The National, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2017.

Wallis, P. ‘Laure Prouvost, Desiring Machine’, X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 3 , 2016.

Wallis, P. ‘At the Zoo with Simone Forti’, Runway, Issue 28, 2015
.

Haley, R. 2018, Constructions of the Moving Body (after Trisha Brown’s Accumulation) #6-8, Documents, Alternative #2, Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, 18 January 2018 -25 February 2018, medium: 3 works of watercolour on paper 40 x 30 cm

Haley, R. 2018, Reach, Documents, Alternatives #3, Bath School of Art and Design (BSAD), United Kingdom, 20 April 2018 12 May 2018

 Haley, R. 2017, Constructions of the Moving Body (After Trisha Brown’s Accumulation) #2-5, DOCUMENTS, ALTERNATIVES(#1), Airspace Gallery, Stoke on Trent, UK, 17 November 2017 -16 December 2017, medium: Body of work, watercolour and pastel on translucent paper 31 x 23cm 

Haley, R. 2017, Vicarious Movement: human-machine painting (Blue Red & Green), Re/pair, The Big Anxiety Festival, UNSW Art & Design Black Box, Sydney, 08 November 2017 -10 November 2017, medium: drone assisted spray painting on canvas

Haley, R. 2016, Constructions of the Moving Body (after Trisha Brown’s Accumulation), The Alternative Document, Project Space Plus, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, University of Lincoln, 12 February 2016 -11 March 2016, medium: Watercolour and pastel on translucent paper

Haley, Rochelle & Angela Goh, Ivey Wawn, 2014, Spatial Forms Live Drawing, Quo Vadis: the last drawing show, UNSW GALLERIES, Sydney, 20 September 2014 -11 October 2014, medium: Live drawing and dance improvisation performance

Haley, R. 2010, Gesture and Trace, Gesture and Trace, Drawing Spaces, Lisbon, Portugal, 16 June 2010 26 June 2010, medium: Drawing, Dance, Performance

Haley, R. 2010, Pass, Pass, Performing Arts Forum, St Erme, France, 01 July 2010 -30 July 2010, medium: Drawing, Performance.

Lasica, Shelley & Zoe Theodore, 2019, TO DO / TO MAKE 2, 215 Albion, Brunswick, co-curators.

Lasica, S. 2019, If I Don’t Understand You, Neon Parc, Brunswick, ensemble performance.

Lasica, S. 2019, Dress, as part Never the same river, Anna Schwartz Gallery x Melbourne Festival, solo performance.

Lasica, Shelley & Zoe Theodore, 2018, TO DO / TO MAKE 1, 215 Albion, Brunswick, co-curators.

Lasica, S. 2018, Greater Union, as part of TO DO / TO MAKE 2’, 215 Albion, Brunswick, duet performance.

Lasica, S. 2018, Behaviour Part 7, ensemble performance, as part of ‘TO DO / TO MAKE’, 215 Albion, Brunswick, duet performance.

Lasica, S. 2016-2020, The Design Plot, ensemble performance, The Substation, Melbourne, Sutton Projects, Melbourne, MPavillion, Melbourne, Gertrude Glasshouse, Melbourne, RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne, ensemble performance.

Lasica, S. 2017, Behaviour Part 7, Union House, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, ensemble performance.

Lasica, S. 2017, The Shape of Things to Come, solo performance, as part of ‘Superposition of three types’, Artspace, Sydney and ‘I Love Pat Larter’, Neon Parc, Brunswick, ensemble performance.

Lasica, S. 2016, How Choreography Works, with Deanne Butterworth and Jo Lloyd for the 20th Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and West Space, Melbourne.

Lasica, S. 2016, Solos for Other People, as part of Dance Massive 2015, Basketball Gymnasium Carlton baths, ensemble performance.

Lasica, Shelley & Helen Grogan and Anne Marie May, 2014, Inside Vianne Again, as part of ‘Melbourne Now,’ National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, installation.

Lasica, S. 2012, Vianne Again, School of Art, Monash University, Iwaki Auditorium, ABC Centre, Southbank, Melbourne, RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne, ensemble performance.

Lasica, S. 2006, The Idea of It, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1998, Dress, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1996, Behaviour Part 6, Square Dance, solo performance, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1995, Behaviour Part 4, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne; IMA, Brisbane; Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1994, Behaviour Part 3, solo performance, as part of Rhythm Method, South Bank Centre, London, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1994, Behaviour Part 1 & 2, solo performance, Athenaeum Theatre and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, Performance Space and Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney and Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1993, Triplex, solo performance, PICA, Perth, IMA, Brisbane, The Hacienda, Manchester, England, The Green Room, The Corner House, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1993, Behaviour Part 1, Store 5, Melbourne, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1992, Happening, Store 5, Melbourne, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1991, Happening Simultaneously, City Gallery, Melbourne, solo performance.

Lasica, S. 1989, Physical Culture, lecture and seminar series on contemporary dance, exhibition, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, curator.

Mathews, H. 2020, ‘Agatha Gothe-Snape: The Outcome is Certain’, Monash University Museum of Art,  curator.

Mathews, H. 2016, ‘To Note: Notation across disciplines, RMIT Design Hub, curator.

Mathews, H 2015, ‘To Write: Writing on Dance workshop, Dance Massive Festival’, curator. http://dancemassive.com.au/

Mathews, H. 2014, ‘Framed Movements, Melbourne Arts Festival, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art , curator.

Mathews, H. 2014, ‘Trisha Brown Dance Company, Early Works workshop’, curator.

Mathews, H. 2013, ‘Action/Response’, Dance Massive 2013, curator.

Mathews, H. 2013, ‘Yvonne Rainer’s Trio A workshop’, PICA, Perth, curator.

Theodore, Z. 2018, ‘Lessons From Dancing’, Bus Projects, curator.

Wallis, P. 2018, Simone Forti, Huddle, in MoMA at NGV ‘130 years of Modern and Contemporary Art’, National Gallery of Victoria, 2018, assistant curator.

Wallis, P. 2016, ‘Ahmet Ögût, Happy Together’, Chisenhale Gallery, London, assistant curator.

 Wallis, P. 2015, ‘Atlanta Eke, Miss Universal’, Gertrude Contemporary, curator.

Wallis, P. 2015, ‘Brian Fuata, Ghost’, Chisenhale Gallery, London, curator

• Rebecca Barnott-Clement, Conservator, Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Paschal Daantos Berry, Head of Learning and Participation; Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Claire, Eggleston, Senior Librarian, Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Katy Green Loughrey, Senior Programs Producer; Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Alexandra Gregg, Public Programs Producer; Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Lisa Mansfield, Time-Based Media Conservator; Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Juanita Kelly-Mundine, Conservator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art; Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Kate Barber, Audience Development and Public Programs; Monash University Museum of Art
• Melissa Bedford, Education; Monash University Museum of Art
• Charlotte Day, Director, Monash University Museum of Art
• Francis Parker, Curator, exhibitions; Monash University Museum of Art
• Alicia Renew, Gallery Manager; Monash University Museum of Art
• Warisa Somsuphangsri, Communications Officer; Monash University Museum of Art
• Kathleen Burke, Publishing Coordinator, National Gallery of Victoria
• Elisha Buttler, Head of Audience Engagement; National Gallery of Victoria
• Tori Dinardo, Programming Coordinator; National Gallery of Victoria
• Georgia Jones, Senior Exhibition Coordinator; National Gallery of Victoria
• MaryJo Lelyveld, Coordinating Conservator; National Gallery of Victoria
• Ewan McEoin, Senior Curator, National Gallery of Victoria
• Megan Patty, Head of Publishing, National Gallery of Victoria
• Katharina Prugger, Curator, Contemporary Art; National Gallery of Victoria
• Maria Quirk, Assistant Curator, Collections; National Gallery of Victoria
• Catrin Barrett-Donlon, Conservation Projects Coordinator: Precarious Movements; Tate UK
• Ana Ribeiro, Time-Based Media Conservator; TATE UK
• Catherine Wood, Director of Programme; TATE UK

Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge

Unravelling the complexities involved in the conservation of performance-based forms, Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge aims to expose the theoretical and practical apparatuses of conservation, its attachment to traditional paradigms, and the resultant shortcomings in the sphere of the intangible

 Dancing Museums

The Democracy of Beings is the second of two programmes, following an initial research phase (DM1) that ran from June 2015 to March 2017. You can find details of DM1 here. In this period of accelerated change, there is an urgent need for professionalism, shared vocabulary and a coherent conceptual framework that makes sense of the many different approaches to audience engagement.

How many people have been consulted in your research?

A total of 46 individuals have been interviewed for our toolkit, including curators, producers, conservators and archivists, and 18 artists (a number determined by budget). 47 associate researcher artists have been invited to PM online forums and reading groups. And numerous undocumented one-on-one conversations have taken place between artists and PM team members since 2021.

How much of your budget has been paid to artists?

Around 55%.

How many artists have been paid by your project?

A total of 74 artists have been paid by PM as of September 2023. We have co-commissioned 7 works of art involving around 30 artists. 5 artists were paid to contribute to the AGNSW workshop in 2022. 15 artists were paid to be part of the Tate workshop, including international artists. 13 artists have been commissioned to write for the Precarious Movements anthology. 11 artists were paid to undertake research interviews.

Why is the project lead by a university?

Precarious Movements has grown out of genuine sector engagement beginning informally in 2016 and involving multiple workshops documented on our website. Following the Choreography-Gallery-Practice workshop held at UNSW in December 2019, a group of individuals, most with the requisite institutional affiliations, formed in order to apply for an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, including our resident artist researcher, Shelley Lasica. The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the national body for funding scholarly research of major significance and their Linkage Grants are designed to facilitate partnerships between academic researchers and business, community or industry bodies, including organisations in the creative and cultural industries. They can only be accessed through a University partner working with institutions (not individuals). They are rarely secured for arts projects and very rarely provide funds to artists (in this case Lasica is on a part-time wage for the life of the project and there are 7 X $15 000 artist commissions). The application process began in January 2020 and was submitted in April 2020. In December the successful bid was announced with a $393,181 grant. There are 2 academics on the project – Associate Professor Erin Brannigan and Dr. Rochelle Haley. The rest of the team are artists and arts workers and we share equal responsibility for delivering its outcomes.

What is the scope of the research?

ARC's projects needs to address an existing issue and be focused to be focused to be considered a relevant research topic. We have concentrated our attention on this intersection of disciplines and focused in on practice (choreography, dance, visual) and place (museum). The scope of the research was determined collectively by the team and is ultimately about choreography or dance that intersects with the museum or the visual arts. We designed a project in relation to our east coast Australian institutional partners but with international reach as demonstrated by the reception of the work at the Tate workshop and symposium in 2023 which attracted artists and art workers from across the globe, representing diverse cultural and generic backgrounds. There is no doubt much more that the sector at large can do to diversify its relevance to and inclusion of communities outside the Western lineages of contemporary art. 

Is there a particular style of dance and choreography that you are researching?

The types of choreography supported through partner organisation commissions is at the discretion of the partner curators. There is nothing in our project scope that limits the dance forms or styles that we would support through funding or research support. Beyond the case studies themselves a range of practices are represented by 80 ARs and broader community who have participated in our various activities.

What is the scope of your inclusion or First Nations artists and leadership?

Two of our seven case studies are First Nations artists, including Victoria Hunt (AGNSW). We have also addressed the lack of a First Nations core team member by recruiting West Bundjalung and Yuin woman Juanita Kelly-Mundine, Conservator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, this year through the support of Carolyn Murphy, AGNSW Head of Conservation, who sent Juanita to the Tate workshop in her stead. We have also established a First Nations support network for Juanita (including Myles Russell-Cook [NGV], Fabri Blacklock (UNSW) and Tammi Gissell [MAAS]). We commissioned 7 First Nations led contributions to the Precarious Movement publication with NGV; Hunt, Taumoepeau, Brian Fuata, Tamara Cubas, Daina Ashbee, Amrita Hepi and Tammi Gissell.