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Yesterday’s Skeleton—a biopic
On 27 December 2020 my biopic “Yesterday’s Skeleton” was launched live on the Dance Hub SA Facebook page. In these first few weeks of its release it has chalked up 2.6K views and lots of terrific feedback. My 60 minute film is a physical etching on dance as a life practice and life as a…
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Creative screendance exchange
Emma Wilson is an ex dance student of mine (Deakin University) and a dancer in one of my early screendance works “Neglect“ A few months ago she got back in touch asking if I would be interested in being part of a mentoring/creative exchange project with her. The result was two months of virtual exchange…
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Communal Bloom Strategy
Another great initiative from Dance Hub SA that I am pleased to be a recipient of is the Dance.Focus project, supporting the making of 4 new screendance works to be screened online from August 17. My proposal, Communal Bloom Strategy brings together a group of dancers with whom I danced or studied in the 1980’s…
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Writing a biography—Yesterday’s Skeleton
As I have mentioned in earlier posts (about my Mind The Gap and Dance Hub SA residencies), I’m working on the bio-pic “Yesterday’s Skeleton.” I’m trawling through my dance history to keep hold of it, to acknowledge the breadth and diversity of it and the community of bodies, my dance kin, that resonate within it.…
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Dance Hub SA Residency—May 2020
Tomorrow I begin a week’s residency at Dance Hub SA as part of their 2020 Artist Residencies program. What perfect timing, emerging from a couple of months of revisiting the archives and reflecting on possible new directions, to have a studio space all to oneself to dance, write and reflect, film and edit! And…
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Slowing in 3 dimensions
Slowing in 3 dimensions I designate the heading through movement rather than volume, an italic rather than a bold, a leaning, a giving in to gravity, an acknowledgement of my interconnection to the forces of nature. Earlier, I was reading a physical book—words printed onto paper, once a tree now held in…
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Fringe Festival Fever 2020
Whew! I’m six weeks in to 2 months of assorted Fringe performances! This is what’s been happening… The Smithergreens The Smithergreens had their inaugural (not inaudible, although I did have a dodgy throat the week before!) season at the intimate and funky Basem3nt Studios in Featherstone Place just off Rundle Mall in the Adelaide CBD. Johnnie…
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The price of independence
The last 2 years I have doggedly fulfilled a couple of my artistic aims: the documentary film (Nothing but bones in the way) and the new solo show (Cabin Fever). Great artistic results and accolades with 2 awards, 2 nominations, 4 outstanding reviews and much positive audience feedback. It has cost me around $10,000 and…
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Mind The Gap Residency
I am excited to announce that I am the recipient of The Mind The Gap Residency, which is a partnership between Dance Hub SA and Tasmania’s award winning dance company, Tasdance. In 2019 the Residency provides a SA-based artist the opportunity to create, research, build upon and stretch their creative parameters during a week of…
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Dance Documentary Screening and Artist Q & A at ReelHeART, Canada
Mel and I will be Skyping in to Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts (Canada) early on Saturday 22nd June after the screening of our documentary “Nothing But Bones in the Way” for a post screening discussion on “Dance, Disability and the Human Condition in the Arts.” This is part of the 15th Annual ReelHeART International…
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15th National Rural Health Conference
At the end of March I was invited by producer/dance artist extraordinaire, Kelly Drummond Cawthon, to be part of the ‘Arts and Health’ component of the National Rural Health Conference in Hobart. It was a huge event with over a thousand delegates who could watch a collection of my films running on loop on the…
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Cabin Fever
Adelaide Fringe 2019 I premiered a new site specific work a couple of weeks ago at the Adelaide Fringe to great responses from audiences and reviewers. Cabin Fever not only got 5 star reviews but also won the Adelaide Fringe Bank SA weekly award for Best Dance! Read the Adelaide Fringe 2019 Review by Theatre…
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Dancing Adelaide
A few months ago I returned once more to Adelaide—its beautiful beaches and more intimate scale is a welcome relief from the increasing mayhem of Melbourne. I have begun to introduce some dance classes and improvisation workshops at the centrally located Finsart studio, Level 4, 14 Grenfell Street, Adelaide https://finsart.com.au Contemporary Dance—Tuesdays 6–7.30 pm …
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“The Moves” —a festival to Move or be Moved
In just over a week I will be presenting an hour-long program of my screendance works, including my hot off the press documentary “Nothing but bones in the way” at the Moonah Arts Centre. The screening is called “Screenbodies—looking beyond the surface” and runs on Saturday 3pm (just before my workshop…see below). I’m also facilitating…
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Brolga Issue 41
I am particularly proud of the latest issue of Brolga—edited by my dance (and Deakin) colleagues Shaun McLeod and Olivia Millard—having close connections to a number of the projects written about in it (and have quite a few of my video and still images published within them). In addition to the paper I have co-authored…
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Guest poet at Poet’s Corner
I am honoured to have been invited to read as one of the local guests at Poets Corner this coming Sunday 25 March 6-8pm at the BBC Cafe, 665/667 Point Nepean Rd, McCrae. Rick Boland is the other local featuring with me between the open mike sets. Bookings essential: PH 59820295…
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Spasmotive
I have been directing rather than dancing with my collaborator Mel Smith over the past few months. “Spasmotive” is a creative development for a solo work for her utilising circus systems and rigging at the Women’s Circus to find new ways for her to move and express. The other collaborators involved are rigger/trainer Franca Stadler,…
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Dance Interrogations in Ten Days on the Island 2017
Dance Interrogations just keeps evolving thanks to the support of Salamanca Arts and Ten Days on the Island. The work began as my solo in an underground tunnel at the 2012 Adelaide Fringe, then a blacked out hotel room at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe, relocated into a train carriage at the 2013 Melbourne Fringe, and…
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Interrogating practice—12 November 2016
video witnessing After watching Mel standing against the wall, I stood still and saw myself “watching” (or hearing, or feeling) at different stages in my life—from a child, past the present, to eventually laying face down. Mel reflecting on Dianne’s solo descending to the floor: An envelope arrives Stopping to hear someone’s…
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A reflection on “Dance Interrogations 2016” —by Tamara Searle
Dance Interrogations 2016: In Contemplation of Fragility and Strength What is our relationship to the inevitable fallibility of our body? What kind of support will we accept from technologies and from others? Through the lens of a stark and tender portrait of partnership, Dance interrogations 2016 examines our vulnerabilities and resilience. It is…
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