Resident Director
We’re delighted to announce Benjamin Hancock as LGI’s Resident Director for 2020.
Benjamin will join LGI for this year-long position, which focuses on supporting a choreographer approaching mid-career with the opportunity to work creatively more consistently than their current project funding may allow.
He will be supported by the Company to explore his specific goals and interests, and encouraged to explore topics including the development of a sustainable artistic practice as a choreographer, potential company models that suit his work, and develop the skills required to become an Artistic Director.
Find our more about Benjamin here.
LGI Artists in Residence
2020’s LGI Residency program saw 64 applications – a 50% increase on applications for 2019’s program – including a diverse range of projects proposed by artists based in Melbourne, across Australia and internationally.
Two types of residency were available for residencies to take place during the year, each designed to offer tailored opportunities for projects at various stages of development.
Make a Start residencies are 1 to 2 week residencies for projects in the early stages that are challenging choreographic thinking and exploring new experimental approaches to dance practice. These included the option to work full-time or Out of Time (part-time, evenings and weekends).
Moving Forward residencies offer up to 3 weeks of full-time studio space for projects that are ready to refine and consolidate existing ideas into a public presentation.
Congratulations to all our 2020 LGI Residents:
Moving Forward residents
Ngioka Bunda-Heath: Portraying colonial photography from a First Nations’ perspective, Birrpai draws parallels between the colonial gaze and today’s selfie culture. By combining photography, movement and storytelling, Birrpai reclaims these stories and switches the gaze and refocuses the lenses that have until now publicly framed Ngioka’s ancestors.
Siobhan McKenna: During this moving forward residency I will be further developing my piece Drama 2,3,4 into a full length work (premiered at PIECES 2019).
Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith: Fertile Ground interrogates the multiplicities of ‘paradise’ through the lens of current environmental and humanitarian crises. Using architecture, literature and philosophy this work unpacks themes of human impact, our compulsive need to leave a footprint on nature and our persistence to conquer, outlive and survive in the face of crisis.
Andrew Treloar and Harrison Hall: As in Kurosawa’s 1950 film, Rashomon, this project pursues the contradictory (but plausible) interpretations of the same incident by different witnesses.
Make a Start residents (including Out of Time):
Isabelle Beauverd: Through the manipulation of known and unknown variables, Isabelle is interested in developing frameworks that can govern the moving body as well as influence connections between performers.
Joel Bray: Development of Burbang, a new large-scale work of immersive dance-theatre exploring the ceremonial practice of the Wiradjuri people. As a contemporary ceremony, the work invites the audience to consider the profound beauty and sophistication of our cermonial practices.
Deanne Butterworth: First development for new work, How To Act. The work will be a movement based light installation work with accompanying live performance for a moving audience.
Lz Dunn and Casey Rice: Development of Hymnal, a response to the Catholic church, voiced through hymns remembered–as they are internally and externally processed and queered via this body and the apparatus around it.
Emily Flannery: Bulnuruwanha (Taking Flight) is a First Nations Wiradjuri story about the way the birds created the land. This project is in its early stages of development and will explore the personality traits and stories of the Willy Wagtail, Magpie and Cockatoo.
Michelle Heaven and Caroline Meaden: Michelle and Caroline are interested in the recent, growing phenomenon of so called ‘experts’ and amateur instructors on the internet, the shifts between ‘authority’ persona, awkwardness and genuine enthusiasm. They aim to explore the comedic essence of such demonstrations.
Helen Herbertson: DIG, a period of dedicated space and time to progress threads of current projects, including development of a new piece for premiere in 2021/22 and consideration of the notion of retrospective.
Benjamin Hurley, Luke Fryer and Emma Riches: First development of Sometimes You Just Gotta Let Yourself Slip.
Rebecca Jensen: Development of Nowhere, a new work in progress.
Piaera Lauritz: The development of Smooth Pursuits, a series of site-specific dance films interrogating the ‘known’ ways of watching - and consuming - objects, people, and places.
Shian Law: Development of The MIRACLE Cycle, the third cycle of a body of choreographic inquiry following SHAME (2015) and TRAUMA (2017), which stems from my desire to draw the Queer bloodlines to connect to histories and figures that were unwritten and unknown- for such rituals are the giver of life force, and an affirmation of my humanity.
Jo Lloyd: Drawing on the physical and performative histories permeating through the Lloyd family, I will research and develop a new work, Another name.
Gregory Lorenzutti: First development of Apoteose, a new solo work merging dance and live music by Brazilian-Australian choreographer Gregory Lorenzutti in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Neda Rahmani. It will explore manifestations of Brazilian Carnival and its interconnectedness to Australian queer aesthetics engaging audiences in a multifaceted experience of carnival, Modernism and wearable art.
Sandra Parker: Continued development of two new works in live performance and installation. Sandra began this new body of work during a residency at the Cité internationale des arts, Paris, in 2019, focusing on notions of resistance. Her residency will involve investigating themes and concepts with collaborators.
Polito: Live electronic composition and bodily practice conspire to create a mesmerising audio-visual landscape. This is a residency to devise new improvisational techniques to shape a new work and use throughout our more regular performances.
Georgia Rudd: Continue initial investigations into the possibilities of an improvisation practice involving kinetic forgetting and reimaginings of the body.
Rhys Ryan: Bodylex is a choreographic inquiry into the physical impact of legal systems on human bodies.
Anna Seymour: Development of Put it into Writing, a new dance solo work. Examining the intimate act of written conversations and how that can be translated into movement and performance.
Applications for Make a Start residencies (September - December 2020) will open in July 2020, while applications for 2021’s program will open in October/November 2020.
Other LGI Residencies
Lee Serle: This LGI Residency continue the development of new work Time Portrait. In 2019, Lee was awarded a Moving Forward residency to develop the first aspect of this work, known as Time Portrait: Part 1 - read about this part of the project here. 2020’s residency sees Lee develop the other aspect, Time Portrait: Part 2.
Nithya Nagarajan: Sacred Grooves for Secular Spaces is a participatory dance project working in abstractions with movements, gestures and symbols drawn from the religious practice(s) of the many people who now call Australia home.