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WELCOME Critical Path’s Annual Report 2019 sets out the activities of the organisation over the twelve-month reporting period. To be honest, 2019 seems like a world away – a pre-Covid-19 world where we communicated and collaborated face to face, sharing and testing ideas, planning programs and generally being creative in every way possible. As we ride out this pandemic, we can’t predict how the world will come out of this, however we can be very assured that it will be art that will tell the real stories. Looking back to 2019, it was a year of both consolidation and expansion. Existing programs continued to demonstrate the integral importance of Critical Path in supporting and facilitating research and development for the dance sector. Partnerships were strengthened to deliver more opportunities for artists in NSW and across Australia to expand the boundaries of their creative frontiers, and our extension into the digital realm showed that the ‘virtual’, is inhabited by artists just as richly and innovatively as the studio. In 2019, Critical Path’s programs continued to reflect the ever growing diversity of artists - practice, location and socio-cultural settings that exist in our sector. New partnerships and continued
collaborations supported more artists and enabled more activities than ever before, strengthening connections and enriching the depth of artistic endeavour. Research projects that focus on questioning and challenging the ‘big’ issues that the world faces today, galvanised a number of our artists to bring dance into the frame of these issues. The Anthropocene Research Project, including the Choreo Hack lab, and Out of the Lab saw artists examine vital aspects of our existence on this fragile planet. Critical Path also began work on developing its own Creative Response to Climate Emergency, which will be further developed in 2020. Digital projects expanded in 2019 with Critical Path’s new initiative – Digital Drill – tackling the reality of the digital space as a ‘critical’ place for dance making, as well as philosophical and intellectual dialogue. We entered into this with new partnerships and programs including Delving into Dance which produces podcast interviews with artists that go beyond the biographical, in our collaboration we invited artists to create text/sound/image responding to the question of ‘Why Dance Matters Now’ for online distribution. Digital projects are a
