dance

L’Optimisme.

This essay on the life of dancer Jane Avril touches on the history of the asylum and the treatment of neurological disorders in the late C19th.

Download article HERE: CSIRO-L’OPTIMISME

Summary:
Jane Avril was incarcerated in Saltpetriere asylum as a teenager because of a movement disorder that she later claimed was ‘cured by dancing’. She became one of the favoured dancers at the Moulin Rouge, and a good friend, supporter and muse to Toulouse-Lautrec. Her physical oddness was celebrated by poets and artists of the period. Toulouse-Lautrec’s depictions were of a woman whose dance was irregular and a little uncontrolled.  This essay touches on the way both art and science can understand and document—perhaps even heal—the human condition, but via very different means.

L’Optimisme was a performance-presentation for DANscienCE Week, CSIRO Discovery Lecture Theatre, August 10, 2013. Its first version was a cabaret-biography, created for the National Gallery of Australia ‘City of Lights’ Promenade, March 2013.

REAL TIME ARCHIVE

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DANCE

Sharing country. Quantum Leap, Hit the Floor Together
Canberra 100 – Online e-dition August 28, 2013
RT 116, online August 28 2013

Asleep but awake and dancing
QL2 dance theatre, noplace
RT 110 Aug-Sept 2012

Many abled bodies: QL2, Canberra: Select Options.
RT 93 Oct-Nov 2009

Art moves: Quantum Leap’s Exhibitionism. NGA, Canberra, Sept 26-28
RT 88 Dec-Jan 2008

Performance alchemies
Igneous, Mirage, Suzon Fuks, James Cunningham Australian Choreographic Centre, Canberra, Nov 16-18, 2006
RT 77 Feb-March 2007

Two for one: Excavate: A two-man dig. David Corbet, Jacob Lehrer, Australian Choreographic Centre, Canberra, May 16-20
RT 74 Aug-Sept 2006

Between violence and the inviolable: Wendy Morrow, Leigh Hobba, Blue (excerpt)
RT 62 Aug-Sept 2004

Recording ecstasy. Dances of Ecstasy [film] Michelle Mahrer, Nicole Ma, Dances of Ecstasy; 58 minutes.
RT 58 Dec-Jan 2003

Unsettling realities: Clare Dyson, Constructed Realities
RT 53 Feb-March 2003

Night moves. Wendy Morrow: Sleep. Canberra School of Art Gallery, Sept 19-21
RT 52 Dec-Jan 2002

Ada: Struggles at the dance-technology interface
Choreographic Centre Canberra September 25-28, October 2-5
RT 52 Dec-Jan 2002

Improvisation & the thickening of time
Precipice, Australian Choreographic Centre, Sept 2002
RT 51 Oct-Nov 2002

Trouble with destinations
Dance Works, North Melbourne Arts House, May 4-6, 9-13
RT 37 June-July 2000

Stored roots, stacked histories: travels from Monk to Dumas.
RT 30 April-May 1999

Shakespeare’s pillowslips
Heavy, Wendy Morrow, Athenaeum II, Melbourne, November 7 – 15
Dec-Jan 1998

Praise the lord, recent dance events in Melbourne.
Sandra Parker, Shelley Lasica, Rebecca Hilton, Phillip Adams, Lucy Guerin. Dance Lumiere, Bodyworks 97, Dancehouse; Lines of Flight, Deakin University; Theatreworks.
RT 23 Feb-March 1998

Physical diffusions, Exploring themes of the double.
Gary Rowe Company (UK). Dancehouse, Carlton, February 5.
April-May 1998

RealTime @ MAP
A question of visions: Mixed Metaphor Week One,
Dancehouse, North Carlton, June 25 – 28
RT 27 Oct-Nov 1998

RealTime @ MAP
Tests of the time: Mixed Metaphor Week Two,
Dancehouse, North Carlton, July 2 – 5
RT 27 Oct-Nov 1998

Another mapping
Thresholds, Dance Compass, Theatreworks, August 6 – 9
RT 27 Oct-Nov 1998