For my Moving Forward Residency, I’ll be developing my upcoming dance work (UP)HOLDING. It’ll be my first time revisiting the work since its initial research phase in October 2020 during a residency at Sydney Fringe (Art in Isolation). That first development culminated in a showing, the content of which will be revisited and used as a launch pad to expand the show during this residency. As I intend to premiere (UP)HOLDING in early 2023 in both Sydney and Melbourne, this development comes at a crucial point within the timeline of the work—offering time, space and support to build a strong framework for the next two developments prior to its season.
I will be choreographing as well as performing in the work alongside a new artist to the project, dancer Emma Riches. Eventually the work will have three performers, with Emma Harrison joining us on the next development later this year.
(UP)HOLDING is an exhilarating dance work that struggles to endure itself. A high-energy work for three, the dancers are stuck in a loop as they try to direct their energy onwards and upwards in a seemingly endless marathon of existence… and performance. Inspired by the gruelling ‘dance marathons’ of America’s Depression Era, this show toys with acts of endurance and performance. Set in a world of unstoppable motion performers execute a complex choreography of extravagant jumping and yearning, juggling ceaseless movements with an increasingly desperate sense of urgency. Looping over and over, the work exists in a flux of repetition and desperation as the performers surge towards clarity and resolution.
– Tra Mi Dinh
About Tra Mi Dinh
Tra Mi Dinh is a dance artist and emerging choreographer interested in movement that is surprising, absurd, rhythmic and presentational. As a dancer she’s worked with artists and companies including Lucy Guerin Inc., Chunky Move, Victoria Chiu and Michelle Heaven. Her choreography has been supported through residencies at Tasdance’s On the Island Program, Sydney Fringe’s Art in Isolation, Critical Path and March Dance. Her current choreographic curiosities lie at the “edge” of things – blurring the lines between random and deliberate, significance and insignificance. Dinh graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance).