Issue 36: Dance
INTERFERENCE: ANGELA TIATIA in response to AMRITA HEPI’S A CALTEX SPECTRUM
A CALTEX SPECTRUM
Is it possible to transcend class through movement, or do society’s inscriptions remain firmly imprinted on the body?
Three performers conduct an embodied exploration of cultural corporeality, navigating a complex entanglement of the theatre’s social function, a motorbike and it’s ensuing somatic assumptions. They have you surrounded. Dualities intersect, as codes switch ‘n cruise the oily spectres of colonialism: the civil versus the savage, loneliness, joy, survival and the fantasia that surrounds colour and the body. Through sound, monologue, and all-consuming physical presence, performers blaze through dances of social mobility over time. A Caltex Spectrum unravels your material multiplicities.
Amrita Hepi is an artist working in dance, choreography, performance, video and installation. A Bundjulung (AUS) and Ngapuhi (NZ) woman, her practice probes intersecting ideas of authenticity, the perpetuation of culture, tradition and a ‘decolonial imagination’, questioning where this now resides within a contemporary framework. Her work has taken many forms but always begins from working with the body as a point of archive, memory and resistance. She is a member of the Western Australian Dance Company OCHRES and has worked collaboratively with Victoria Chiu, Marrugeku, Melanie Lane and Amos Gerbrahnt, Bhenji Ra and Force Majeure. Amrita trained a the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA) dance college and Alvin Ailey American Dance School, New York. She has been an artist in residence at BANFF centre for the arts Canada and ACE OPEN South Australia. She has exhibited and performed at Sydney Opera House, Next Wave Festival, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Carriageworks, TEDX, Banff Centre Canada, Art Central Hong Kong, DARK MOFO Tasmania and Impulstanz Vienna.
Angela Tiatia is a visual artist who explores contemporary culture, drawing attention to its relationship to representation, gender, neo-colonialism and the commodification of the body and place, often through the lenses of history and popular culture.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.