Underbelly Bazaar

Underbelly Bazaar @ Hi-Fi Bar, Melbourne — Thur 11 Dec. A student & teacher music & dance extravaganza inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

More info: www.underbellydance.com

Chunky Move Faced Bastard at MIAF

On either side of a dividing curtain a group of performers juggle two simultaneous shows played to two opposing audiences. Each exit through the curtain becomes an entrance on the other side. There is no backstage, nowhere to get off, nowhere to hide.

Two Faced Bastard is a world premiere. Created by Gideon Obarzanek and Lucy Guerin
Full $37 / Groups (8+) $33 / Concessions $30 / Students $25
8-12 October
Arts House, Meat Market, Melbourne
http://www.chunkymove.com

International Dance Competitions 2009

Call for Participation: Interested in performing in Europe?,

The Directors of Barcelona Dance Awards, present the 20th International Competitions and invite your dance group to performing and teaching at the most prestigious dance events in Europe the next 09season.

BARCELONA DANCE AWARD – from 9th to 13th April 2009 in Barcelona (SPAIN) and from 18th to 22nd June 2009 in Italy and in th end of june in Paris (France).

For the past few years, acceptance to our annual festivals has been extremely competitive. Please prepare your application promptly according to the guidelines .

organizer E-Mail: <awardance08@tiscali.it>

our updated Web Site: <http://web.tiscali.it/awardance08/>

Miss Pole Dance Australia 2008

Australian Finals – 10 October 2008. Enmore Theatre – Sydney

The search for Miss Pole Dance Australia 2008 has nearly finished and spectators come from around the world will be making their way to witness the Australian Championships which have played to a sellout audience for the last 4 years. With worldwide interest in Pole Dancing blossoming, Miss Pole Dance 2008 promises to be the best yet.

This highly prestigious event attracts professional pole dancers from all over Australia, competing for the “Miss Pole Dance Australia” title. These elite athletes demonstrate what Pole Dance now represents in the field of sporting entertainment – that is – strength and agility choreographed to showcase the outstanding talent of the participants.

Apart from having fun, the overall goal of the competition is to show the public that pole dancing is an extremely challenging sport as well as a graceful and impressive art. In order to achieve this goal, the performances will showcase some fantastic costumes (no nudity), fantastic aerial pole moves and amazing dance styles.

The winner of the national final will be flown to Jamaica early next year to compete in the World Finals.
Email: vanessa@bobbispolestudio.com.au
Web: www.misspoledanceaustralia.com.au

Shaun Gladwell Exhibition – Townsville – Qld

Experience the beautiful video artworks of Shaun Gladwell, who has been selected to represent Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art. Shaun Gladwell is one of Australia’s most prominent young artists, working
extensively internationally in the medium of video. His practice critically engages personal experience as well as wider speculation upon art history and the dynamics of contemporary culture. This range of interest and sources is explored through a variety of mediums, but in recent years most particularly video installation. His recent projects in video have made discursive links between historical models and understanding of the body in space, such as the flâneur and contemporary cultural figures including the skateboarder, the motocross rider, the freestyle BMX rider, break-dance crews, a capoeira practitioner, and other physical and street performers.

Until 5 October
Pinnacles Gallery, Riverway Arts Centre, 20 Village Blvd, Thuringowa (Central QLD) Australia
http://riverway.townsville.qld.gov.au/explore/gallery/exhibitions

Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding

Author: Dorothy Ko — The history of footbinding is full of contradictions and unexpected turns. The practice originated in the dance culture of China’s medieval court and spread to gentry families, brothels, maid’s quarters, and peasant households. Conventional views of footbinding as patriarchal oppression often neglect its complex history and the incentives of the women involved. This revisionist history, elegantly written and meticulously researched, presents a fascinating new picture of the practice from its beginnings in the tenth century to its demise in the twentieth century. Neither condemning nor defending foot-binding, Dorothy Ko debunks many myths and misconceptions about its origins, development, and eventual end, exploring in the process the entanglements of male power and female desires during the practice’s thousand-year history.

Cinderella’s Sisters argues that rather than stemming from sexual perversion, men’s desire for bound feet was connected to larger concerns such as cultural nostalgia, regional rivalries, and claims of male privilege. Nor were women hapless victims, the author contends. Ko describes how women–those who could afford it–bound their own and their daughters’ feet to signal their high status and self-respect. Femininity, like the binding of feet, was associated with bodily labor and domestic work, and properly bound feet and beautifully made shoes both required exquisite skills and technical knowledge passed from generation to generation. Throughout her narrative, Ko deftly wields methods of social history, literary criticism, material culture studies, and the history of the body and fashion to illustrate how a practice that began as embodied lyricism–as a way to live as the poets imagined–ended up being an exercise in excess and folly.

Editor’s note. Yup fascinated with ‘little feet theory’ and got sucked into buying this + Splendid Slippers on Amazon.

Deloitte Ignite Festival 2008

Blast Theory has been commissioned by the Royal Opera House, London, to create a new work for the Deloitte Ignite Festival 2008. Curated by renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, Deloitte Ignite will represent a revelatory tour through the senses, with a whole spectrum of experiences to stimulate, tantalise, and inspire.

For three days, Blast Theory and eight young people from the Mile End area of London will be linked to the Royal Opera House for ‘You Get Me’, an online chase game where you choose how far to go.

At that moment in Mile End Park itself a tracksuited teenager with a walkie-talkie hovers near the green bridge. First, you have to get them. Dive into the virtual park, race past the canal and – if you can walk the walk – break through into the lush nighttime world of pavilions and sodium glows. Take a satellite tracked stroll with them: they have something to say.

‘You Get Me’ is a work about understanding, intimacy and mediation.

Play at the Royal Opera House or at http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/yougetme

Performance times: Friday 12 Sept, 1pm – 3pm (GMT)
Saturday 13 Sept, 1pm – 5pm (GMT)
Sunday 14 Sept, 1pm – 5pm (GMT)
Admission: Free but bookings are essential to play at the Royal Opera House

Book at
http://www.roh.org.uk/deloitteignite/

‘You Get Me’ has been developed with the support of the Mixed Reality Lab of the University of Nottingham with additional support from Urban Adventure Base, Chisenhale Gallery Education Program, Fundamental Architectural Inclusion and Mile End Park (Tower Hamlets Borough Council). Blast Theory is supported by Arts Council England.

Apparently That’s What Happened

A Jo Lloyd presentation

Wednesday 25 – Sunday 29 June 2008
Arts House, Meat Market, North Melbourne Town Hall

A dog attacks a child at a party. A robbery victim lies bleeding. Who really knows what went on?

Apparently That’s What Happened is a new dance work that explores the aftermath of those moments when, faced with sudden drama, we react in ways we never would have predicted. Disturbing incidents where each witness has a different perspective.

Audience members will leave with their own account of what happened – not one viewer will experience the performance in the same way weather they be a victim or voyeur.

Take your android by the hand

Are we about to see the world’s first ballet-dancing robot? Wayne McGregor, resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, has started work on a new piece looking at the links between artificial intelligence and choreography. Called Entity, it will be McGregor’s first new production with his own ballet company, Random Dance, in two years, and will premiere at London’s Sadler’s Wells in April before touring nationwide.

More …

Awesome Arts:Now on!

The AWESOME International Arts Festival for Bright Young Things is a wonderful celebration of youth. Choose from mesmerising multimedia dance performance, poignant puppet theatre, captivating contemporary visual art, sound installation, music, animation and more.

With such a wide range of mostly free events and activities make sure you get into it. And have an Awesome time!

Check the website for times:
http://www.awesomearts.com/awesome-festival/program/page12/

16 – 25 November
Western Australian Museum Foyer,
Perth Cultural Centre, James Street, Perth