About CONJAH’s residency
CONJAH are at a time in our creative evolution where we are determining for ourselves ‘what is our spine?’ in preparation for developing our performance. What are the philosophies and physicalities that we look to uplift and magnify within our practice. The residency at WXYZ Studios provided by LGI, offered us with the space and time to further dig into how we translate our values through how we hold each other inside and outside the dance. This residency was timed directly after we had moved to Naarm. So it enabled us to properly settle into our creative bodies and connect with the artistic landscape here in Naarm.
We, CONJAH (ooshcon and Jahra) appreciate LGI for the generosity of offering the WXYZ Studios space through residencies to assist in the development of dance makers. We encourage the continuation of this program to support local and international dance makers, both independent and collectives.
Fa’afetai and Vinaka,
CONJAH
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About CONJAH
Jahra Wasasala and ooshcon, under the collaborative world-bending entity of CONJAH, are Fijian and Samoan artists, world-builders, and entity-benders.
Together, CONJAH draw from the future-mythos of their collective genealogies of terror and transformation, presenting works that are immersive, character-driven, other-worldly and emotionally rigorous. If a creative practice is a map, then CONJAH are geographically based at the collision of multiple visions.
CONJAH’S evolving creative practice lives within Indigenous Future-Mythos; the physicality of the beyond-physical-body, the twisting of story and the unravelling of visions as memory.
CONJAH train and present work within and beyond the mediums of Dance, predominately Street-born Dance, Physical Theatre, Poetry, Voice work and Digital Work, affectionately nick-naming their approach to their collective practice as ‘Oceanic Terror-fi’.
Through CONJAH, Jahra and ooshcon bring forth the depths of their extensive solo body work, their blood lines and their imaginations to build into each other’s worlds, enabling them to do the same with the collaborators and friends they work with. CONJAH have a strong ethos of working collaboratively and each artist brought into this project has creative agency within the process.
CONJAH are award-winning artists, receiving the Arts Foundation Springboard Award in 2022, including mentor-ship from internationally acclaimed artist, Lisa Reihana MNZM. Jahra and ooshcon are also XIII WRLD Faculty members; an elite team of highly-skilled Street Dancers and a development training programme.
Within their developments and performances through the Tagata Moana lens, CONJAH focuses on collective connection, world-building, transmutation and excavation.