Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum is a research project that aims to bring artists, researchers, and institutions into dialogue about best practice to support the choreographer and the museum, and to sustain momentum in theory and practice around dance and the visual arts.
Celebrating the launch of their online Sector Resource for Choreographic Works in the Museum and anthology publication Precarious Movements, research team members, industry experts, and practicing artists reflect on dance and choreography in the visual arts, consider the significance of the resource, and officially launch the publication.
6.00pm | Introduction
Dr. Rochelle Haley and Associate Professor Erin Brannigan (UNSW) introduce the research project.
6.05pm | Artist Panel
This panel discussion brings together Precarious Movements resident artists Shelley Lasica and Rochelle Haley to discuss how artists are leading the way, exploring ways of collaborating with and forging new working methodologies. Together with curator Hannah Mathews (PICA), they will consider how encountering a dance work in the museum can offer new frames of context, inspire unexpected connections, and/or propose timely critique. Each artist has contributed new and original work to the Precarious Movements research project, and will discuss their experiences bending form, working between structures, and embracing plasticity in an institutional context.
6.35pm | Introduction to the Sector Resource
Zoe Theodore (UNSW) and Carolyn Murphy (Head of Conservation, AGNSW) introduce the new freely available, online resource focused on choreographic work in the context of the museum. This resource provides a foundation from which to build stronger relationships and working practices that support the successful development, production presentation and preservation of choreographic works in the museum.
7.00pm | Book Launch
Alexie Glass-Kantor (Artspace) officially launches the publication Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum. Edited by Erin Brannigan (UNSW), Pip Wallis (MUMA), Hannah Mathews (PICA) and Louise Lawson (TATE) with Amita Kirpalani (NGV), the publication features more than twenty expert contributions from performers, scholars, critics, choreographers and arts professionals working across archives, conservation, curation and production.
7.10–8.00pm | Reception and refreshments
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Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum (2021–24) is a research project hosted by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and involving partner organisations the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (AGNSW), the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (NGV), Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (MUMA), Tate, UK, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), and independent artist Shelley Lasica.
ABOUT THE SECTOR RESOURCE
Sector Resource for Choreographic Works in the Museum is a freely available, online resource focused on choreographic work in the context of the museum and addresses how we can better serve and represent the artist in this context. Drawn directly from our research into the field of practice through interviews, consultations and practical case studies, all information is designed specifically to improve conditions for artists working in this field and to assist museums and arts workers with this task. Equally, it is intended as a reference for artists working with museums to provide knowledge and to support their agency and autonomy in such situations.
This resource provides a foundation from which to build stronger relationships and working practices that support the successful development, production presentation and preservation of choreographic works in the museum. While not intended to be prescriptive or exhaustive, the intention is to support performing artists' safe and sustainable work within the museum context. Each choreographic practice or work is unique, requiring a tailored approach to ensure all the individuals involved in its creation and presentation are respected, supported, fairly compensated, and safe.
The Sector Resource has been developed across the entirety of the research project, with numerous individuals contributing to the shape and development of the content. The research team would like to acknowledge and extend our gratitude to each contributor, who are all acknowledged by name on the website.
We would also like to extend thanks to Nathan Cutts and Studio OK-OK for their invaluable collaboration, transforming the resource into a clearly articulated and beautifully designed website. We are pleased to announce that the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) will support the resource as the ongoing caretaker. The Institutional support and guidance from NAVA has been fundamental to the development of the Sector Resource. In its role as caretaker, NAVA sustains the continuous publication of this resource by financing its web hosting.
ABOUT THE PUBLICATION
Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum is a publication that surveys the choreographic turn within the visual arts. Edited by Erin Brannigan (UNSW), Pip Wallis (MUMA), Hannah Mathews (PICA) and Louise Lawson (TATE) with Amita Kirpalani (NGV), the publication features more than twenty expert contributions from performers, scholars, critics, choreographers and arts professionals working across archives, conservation, curation and production. The publication scopes the work of the work, the artists and institutions, and the legacy and trace of choreography in the museum today.
Authors include Daina Ashbee, Julia Asperska, Caitrín Barrett-Donlon Lara Barzon, Erin Brannigan, Lisa Catt, Natasha Conland, Tamara Cubas, Alicia Frankovich, Brian Fuata, Tammi Gissell, Angela Goh, Rochelle Haley, Maria Hassabi, Amrita Hepi, Alice Heyward, Victoria Hunt, Juanita Kelly-Mundine, Louise Lawson, MaryJo Lelyveld, Adam Linder, Hannah Mathews, Carolyn Murphy, Louise O’Kelly, Cori Olinghouse, Pavel Pyś, Melissa Ratliff, Ana Ribeiro, Latai Taumoepeau, Zoe Theodore, Pip Wallis, Ivey Wawn, Catherine Wood, and Sara Wookey.
Image: Rochelle Haley, A Sun Dance, 2024. Commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra 2023. Assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body. With additional support from the Australian Research Council through research and commissioning partner Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum. Dancers pictured: David Huggins, Ivey Wawn, Angela Goh, Lizzie Thomson, Niki Verrall. Costumes by Leah Giblin. National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra. Photographer: Kerrie Brewer
Erin Brannigan is Associate Professor in Theatre and Performance at the University of New South Wales. She is of Irish and Danish political exile, convict, and settler descent. Her publications include Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Bodies of Thought: 12 Australian Choreographers, co-edited with Virginia Baxter (Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2014), Choreography, Visual Art and Experimental Composition 1950s -1970s (London: Routledge, 2022) and The Persistence of Dance: Choreography as Concept and Material in Contemporary Art (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2023).
Alexie Glass-Kantor is a curator and the Executive Director of Artspace, Gadigal Country / Sydney, where she oversees an international program supporting ambitious co-commissioning, exhibitions, publishing and accessible archives, program of rent-free residencies, and guided the transformation of The Gunnery with board and staff. She was the curator of DESASTRES, artist Marco Fusinato’s Australian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), and since 2015 is the curator of Encounters, the large-scale installation sector at Art Basel | Hong Kong, where she presents significant commissioning and premiere projects. Curating in independent spaces, museums, biennials, and festivals, for over twenty years Glass-Kantor has curated and jointly developed hundreds of collaborative projects, including co-curator with Natasha Bullock of Parallel Collisions the 12th Adelaide Biennial of Contemporary Art and the Australian curator for the 13th SITE Santa Fe Biennial, New Mexico. As an advocate for the cultural sector Glass-Kantor serves on numerous boards including: Chair, Contemporary Art Organisations of Australia (CAOA) since 2017; Advisory Board, Museum of Contemporary Art & Design (MCAD), De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, Manila; Academic Board, National Art School, Sydney; Jury Member, Advance Global Australian Awards; alongside a program of participating in juries, public programs, symposiums and lectures. She is alum of the Bachelor of Art History & Theory (Honours), University of New South Wales.
Rochelle Haley is a Senior Lecturer, School of Art & Design, University of New South Wales and researcher engaged with painting, drawing, movement and performance to explore relationships between bodies and physical environments. For over ten years Haley has worked at the forefront of the intersection of visual arts and dance: an emergent area of research gaining international momentum. Her interdisciplinary approach to movement merges painting and choreography to investigate space structured around the sensation of the moving body. Haley’s work aims to re-imagine the dynamism of material surfaces of representation to discover methods that are sensory, kinaesthetic, affective and rhythmic. She has exhibited internationally and at leading national venues including UQ Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and UNSW Galleries. Her work has been profiled on ABC Radio National, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Art Monthly Australia, Artist Profile Magazine and Art Collector.
Shelley Lasica is an independent artist based in Melbourne. For more than 30 years, Shelley Lasica has pushed the confines of dance, choreography and performance. Her practice is defined by an enduring interest in the context and situations of presenting choreography. Throughout her career, she has been making solo performances that function as a means and a reason for showing work. This practice provides the basis for generating ensemble works that question the collaborative and interdisciplinary possibilities of choreography. She regularly collaborates with visual artists, including Tony Clark, Helen Grogan, Anne Marie May, Callum Morton, and Kathy Temin, in order to create dialogues between different modes and means of presentation. Lasica’s choreographic works have been shown nationally and internationally within both visual art and theatre contexts, including: Melbourne Festival; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Chunky Move, Melbourne; Artspace, Sydney; Centre Nationale de la Danse, Paris; Siobhan Davies Studios, London; Dance Massive, Melbourne; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Murray White Room, Melbourne; and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.
Hannah Mathews is Director/Chief Executive Officer of Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) and a curator with a particular interest in contemporary art and performance. Prior to this, Hannah was Senior Curator at Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), where her recent curatorial projects include Dale Harding: Through a lens of visitation (2021); Agatha Gothe-Snape: The Outcome is Certain (2020); and Shapes of Knowledge (2019). Mathews has held key curatorial positions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Next Wave Festival and Biennale of Sydney. Her recent editorial projects include award-winning publications on Dale Harding, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Derek Kreckler and To Note: Notation Across Disciplines, amongst others. Mathews is currently a chief investigator on the ARC Linkage Grant Precarious Movements: Choreography in the Museum.
Carolyn Murphy is the Head of Conservation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW). Carolyn’s research interests include investigating the ways in which museum and conservation practices impact artists and their works held in museum collections, with a particular interest in installation and time-based artworks. Previously Carolyn has worked at several cultural institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Canadian Conservation Institute and the Queensland Art Gallery. Carolyn undertook a Getty Fellowship at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco after completing a Bachelor of Applied Science in paper conservation at the University of Canberra. Carolyn has also completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in History and Law, and postgraduate qualifications in Museum Studies and Writing. Carolyn is currently a partner investigator on two Australian Research Council Linkage projects, 'Archiving Australian Media Arts' and 'Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum'.
Zoe Theodore is an independent curator, producer and writer based in Sydney, Australia. She regularly works with Shelley Lasica and Amrita Hepi, producing work at various institutions across Australia including Artspace, Sydney; the Immigration Museum, Melbourne and Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne. She was the Co-Editor of Dissect Journal's third issue and has held professional roles at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; and MoMA PS1, New York. She is a current PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, researching the relationship between performance, choreography and the museum.
Join us for the launch of a new sector resource and publication
