Media Report
Faits d’ Hiver
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Paris February 2013 ra d nDay a Sandra Parker & Matthew S 3 / 1 y 0 Da at er 2 w iv e H h T ’ t t R d O ts Ma P i RE Fa A I D E M
dancehouse.com.au
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16 février 2013
dancehouse.com.au
16 février 2013
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16 février 2013
16 février 2013
FAITS D’HIVER is surfing on Australia
The new waves of the Down Under choreographic scene are sweeping the Paris festival. Exceptional What we get to see is so scarce and so rare that when their names pop up, one cannot miss them. Two Melbourne-based Australian choreographers, Matthew Day and Sandra Parker are presented by Faits d’Hiver festival. (…) These ambassadors from the Antipodes are indeed a rare encounter. It is usually flagship companies- a dozen out for the approx. fifty existing – which are featured by the Paris theatres. The highly popular Garry Stewart, from Australian Dance Theatre, was introduced to the audiences by the Theatre de la Ville in 2007. The classical Australian Ballet was presented by the Theatre de Cahaillot in 2008 after 43 years of absence from the French scene. (…) Sandra Parker and Matthew Day belong to this tiny off-mainstream experimental scene now counting some 20 choreographers out of the 200 professional dance makers. Supported by Dancehouse, these economically fragile independent artists present a scarce, almost minimalist conceptual aesthetic, very far from the physical, almost gymnasticky ‘space eater’ style which makes the Australian label. “A new wave is up and coming, comments Angela Conquet. It is a very surprising and enormously vibrant sector, which is partly thanks to the enormous support young makers receive from the funding bodies.’ (…) From an aesthetical point of view, their trajectories tell a lot about the evolution of Australian dance from the mid-80s. Sandra started with the classical barre at 5, before discovering contemporary at Uni and later, in New York, with post-modernist choreographers like Trisha Brown. “A most decisive influence for many of the established artists such as Lucy Guerin, comments Sandra Parker. This influence is now being replaced by the European one”. Matthew Day who officially started dance at 22 spent his teens in ballroom competitions before going to University and later to Victoria College of the Arts in Melbourne. He left for Amsterdam in 2006, auditioned for New School for Dance and ended up on the waiting list. “ I came second and then first on this list, but I never made it into the school. I spent three years in Amsterdam before going back to Melbourne. The Australian context wasn’t very inspiring. I started to haunt the school studios eager for encounters and for work. My references are Xavier le Roy and Benoit Lachambre.” Matthew Day and Sandra Parker cannot make a living with their work. While Australian Ballet presents over 200 shows per year, Day and Parker, hardly tour, if ever. A season here and there, in the capital cities or in festivals like Dance Massive, the only contemporary dance festival exclusively dedicated to Australian choreographers. The Paris season was supported by the Keir Foundation, mostly known for its support to visual arts and now supporting contemporary dance. Artists sometimes have to hire the venues for presenting their work.’ There are not many dance curators or presenters so it is really for exposing the work to the audience’ says Sandra Parker. Surprisingly enough, none of them expect a miracle out of their Paris trip. ‘ We are used to this harsh system’ she says. What’s important is to keep making work.” (…)
dancehouse.com.au
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24 janvier 2013 24 janvier 2013 24 janvier 2013 24 janvier 2013
A bit of Australia
Subtle shifting flavours from the first dance festival of the year A handsome young man is the face of the 15th edition of Faits d’Hiver – not one single hair not dyed. (…) This young man is Matthew Day, young Australian dance maker partly trained at the Amsterdam New Dance Development School, sharing the evening with fellow compatriot Sandra Parker. One could hardly claim artists coming from this side of the world are flooding the radars of our dance seasons. Micadanses studios have found a like-minded partner in Melbourne, sharing the same vibe and scale. A partnership is budding. Let’s keep our eyes open.
dancehouse.com.au
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29 janvier 2013
29 janvier 2013
Faits d’Hiver – Australia in Paris A new partnership between Dancehouse in Melbourne is bringing established and emerging artists to Faits d’Hiver Sandra Parker and Matthew Day are sharing an evening with two solos, one exploring in-between zones, the other extreme durational movement. Restlessness versus relentlessness, two very different avenues guiding our eyes into the recent dance landscape in Australia. Sandra Parker is highly established back home, with multiple accolades from funding bodies and panels for her contribution to dance and society. She choreographed Transit for Phoebe Robinson following an injury, a solo investigating transition times and in-betweeness. The young Matthew Day sees himself like a machine gun or a forever spinning record. The way movement is explored in Cannibal is very much like Matthew – obsessions and repetitions irreparably lead him into a trance state close to exhaustion.
dancehouse.com.au
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Thanks to a partnership starting with Dancehouse in Melbourne, this year, micadanses has conceived a focus on Australian dance. Two choreographers and one performer, Phoebe Robinson. In spite of having radically different aesthetics, the two choreographers chosen for this editions have many things in common. They are both independent and very far from the big-scale companies world, often classical or neo-classical. They both inhabit intermediary spaces, dance spaces which often belong more to the dance maker rather than the public. Both are now taking the time, over a coffee to discuss their work after the two evenings dedicated to them.
dancehouse.com.au
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Transit is a surprising piece which blurs the regular references of contemporary dance. Everything is disarmingly simple. A video running, a scenery unfolding like a static dance and very discreet light effects compose the set. The vocabulary seems to be known by us, already in us. Phoebe Robinson has an exceptional sharp precision. In this exercise based on sketching trajectories, never quite completing them, she is capable of a punctuated dance, more tense than physical. A dance of unfulfilled sensations.Her explanation: Transit is the memory of what we do not do. Sandra Parker conceived the piece in the solitude of an injury recovery. (…) She is saying Transit deals with archives of automated, mechanical, deeply-embedded gestures. There is a huge curiosity to see where this study of the unreachable ‘elsewhere’ will take her, this focus on the very moment that we only abandon while yet embarking on another one. (…) When he speaks about Cannibal, he mentions Steve Paxton and observing what stirs the body. He therefore allows the shaking to amplify in order to trigger movement. Even though James Brown’s soundtrack is very beautiful, all in low frequency sounds, he refuses to be seduced by it and slides into a subtle state by which he is neither controlled, nor submerged. Cannibal is a piece which only starts when one is ready to see, a piece which could go on for an hour, which will go on for an hour when he will have found a way not to show exhaustion. Mind you, we are not talking exhaustion or physical virtuosity. The choreography, rhizomatic, is made of a series of possible choices. (…) One great opportunity to take a plunge into the waves of our subconscious, and trouble the deep black of our own depths. Two pieces, two chorographers, two very subtle reflections on some dance basics: this Australian focus suppresses the distances between the specificity of the body knowledge and the subtle circulations of thought, of space, of time. The Antipodes are pointing to us an untainted mirror which prompts our eye to what is essential.
dancehouse.com.au
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24 janvier 2013
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11 février 2013
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Février 2013
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Mars 2013
dancehouse.com.au
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26 janvier 2013
dancehouse.com.au
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23 janvier 2013
dancehouse.com.au
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13 février 2013
dancehouse.com.au
16.
Février 2013
dancehouse.com.au