A Paid* Choreographic Mentorship with Renowned Australian Artists, Meryl Tankard (Choreographer), Elena Kats-Chernin (Composer), and Régis Lansac (Visual Artist).
Calling independent dance artists, residing in NSW**, with experience, both in choreography and performance, actively exploring their own dance practice.
Meryl Tankard is keen to collaborate with artists who are curious, have unique voices and dance vocabularies, and are passionate about exploring their dance practice. In this collaborative process, six dance artists will have agency in their choreographic creation of a solo or duet in relation to a given concept, and the ability to develop their individual dance practice.
If selected, participants will need to be available for a full-time group residency from 7 – 15 December 2020 followed by an additional three-week creative development period within the January-April 2021 timeframe.***
To register your interest please email Naomi Hibberd at admin_form@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au by Wednesday, 28th October 2020 5:00pm with the subject line ‘EOI Masked Meryl Tankard’ including the following:
Two video links using Vimeo or YouTube:
* This project is subject to successful grant funding. FORM is an equal opportunity employer.
** Non Sydney-based artists will have to cover their own accommodation and transport costs for any Parramatta, Western Sydney aspect of the creative development.
*** This project has been designed to be CovidSafe for all participants and can be realised, with varying contingencies, to account for whichever Covid-19 circumstances are in place in NSW, where all artists will reside.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS AND FORM DANCE PROJECTS
FORM Dance Projects in Parramatta, Western Sydney, is the place independent artists come to premiere new dance work and realise their artistic vision. FORM values experimentation, risk-taking, collaboration and cross-generational exchange.
Meryl Tankard AO, undoubtedly one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, is internationally acclaimed for the “emotional punch packed into her inventive choreography.” Having leapt to fame in Europe with Pina Bausch, as well as the radical German Wuppertaler Tanztheater, as one of Bausch’s leading performers, Tankard returned to Australia to create a dance aesthetic all of her own. As a director and choreographer, Tankard is revered for her dynamic intuitive movement, challenging, encouraging and drawing out each performer’s own set of movements through improvisation and experimental techniques. Tankard’s practice explores a vast lexicon of human experience and human movement from the dark and challenging, ugly and beautiful, to the humorous and joyful. Tankard has had a prolific career as a performer, choreographer and director, with an inspiring canon of work that has been a seminal influence in the development of Australian contemporary dance and dance theatre.
Australian composer, Elena Kats-Chernin AO, is a celebrated orchestral, operatic and chamber music composer. Elena has created works in nearly every genre. Among her many commissions are pieces for Ensemble Modern, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian World Orchestra, the Adelaide, Tasmanian, Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, and City of London Sinfonia. Her colourful, energetic, and often propulsive music has been choreographed by dance-makers around the world including Meryl Tankard on Deep Sea Dreaming for the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and composing the score for the ballet, Wild Swans, by Meryl Tankard commissioned by the Australian Ballet and Sydney Opera House which premiered at the Sydney Opera House in 2003. In Masked, Elena Kats-Chernin is equally curious to explore the boundaries of classical-contemporary music, taking inspiration from various sources including the movement generated by each dance artist in the creation of their work.
Régis Lansac OAM is a visual artist, photographer, video maker who has been working in collaboration with choreographer/director Meryl Tankard since 1984. His work is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Library and private collections in Australia and overseas. From 1993-1999 Régis was Associate Artist at Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre. Since 1999 Régis has been a freelance photographer and visual designer in Sydney and overseas, creating video designs for Meryl Tankard‘s commissions from Lyon Opera Ballet, Nederland Dans theatre, the Australian Ballet, Berlin Komische Oper Berlin, Leipzig Ballet, to name a few.
