Resurgence
The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre
Friday 6 May, 7.00 pm
Saturday 7 May, 2.00 pm and 5.00 pm
Cost:
Standard – $35
Concession – $25
*Booking fees apply
Suitable for all ages.
Future Makers, Dance Makers Collective and Blacktown Arts present Resurgence.
Pressing play on movement after an uncomfortable pause, Resurgence is Future Makers’ revival project. Featuring two newly commissioned works by critically acclaimed and award-winning artists Jasmin Sheppard and Kristina Chan, and a third co-devised work by the Future Makers themselves, Resurgence brings together three vital voices in an exploratory world of dance, investigating ideas and issues critical to today.
House Light – Future Makers
House Lights is a new work co-devised by all 11 members of Future Makers. Commenced during the Sydney lockdown of 2021 entirely over video calls, this has become a frame for the work and its themes of continuing on when things get hard, processing a new normal, control, contribution and hope.
“You should know that the house lights won’t go down just because the audience stops talking and is sitting in awkward silence. You should know that dimming the lights in your loungeroom isn’t the same thing. You should know the excitement you feel when the house lights go down is because you’ve agreed to sit in the dark with a bunch of strangers and imagine together.”
Alien – Jasmin Sheppard
In early 2021, The Biden administration finally ordered Immigration officials to stop using the term Alien when referring to Immigrants.
The long reaching use of the term Alien echoes the collective perception of those who are different- in culture, appearances, or language.
Australia has its own murky relationship with the idea of an Alien being- First, with the claim of Terra Nullius- that Australia wasn’t inhabited by human beings, then with the White Australia Policy and the treatment of Immigrants and First Nations People.
Garden – Kristina Chan
Garden translates awareness, perceptions and experiences of the myriad of micro-organisms that make us human, through an anthropomorphic lens.
Thinking about bacteria, viruses and fungi from a perspective of “interbeing”, Garden is about reclaiming instinct and remembering who we are.
With a psychedelic sound score by James Hazel, made from voice recordings of the performer’s experiences during lockdown, Garden is a landscape spanning fear, loneliness, hope, connection and desire.
Future Makers is Dance Makers Collective’s Youth Company, formed in 2019, to provide a platform for aspiring young dancers and choreographers to work with professional artists in an inclusive and challenging environment. Since its inception, Future Makers have performed The Rivoli (2020) and In Situ (2021) at Sydney Festival, and Correspondence (2020), a performance installation at the Art Gallery of NSW, led by multidisciplinary artist Nadia Odlum.
Dance Makers Collective (DMC), based on Darug country (western Sydney), is the only collective-led dance company in Australia. Our mission is to build dance communities. Our work focuses on bridging gaps, between generations and communities, by interrogating the spaces between contemporary dance, social dance, community and storytelling, to generate deeply moving dance experiences. DMC is committed to developing appreciation for dance by making dance accessible to as many people as possible – irrespective of where they live.
Established in 2012, DMC has premiered 10 seasons of new Australian dance work, diverse in form and scale. Highlights include: being shortlisted for an Australian Dance Award; undertaking a national tour of DADS in 2021 (rescheduled from 2020); and presenting two sold-out seasons in successive Sydney Festivals (2020 and 2021).
“DMC is a generous and essential dance company with new energy and great momentum.” – Wesley Enoch AM
Jasmin Sheppard is a contemporary dancer, choreographer and director, a Tagalaka Aboriginal woman with Irish, Chinese and Hungarian ancestry. Jasmin spent 12 years with Bangarra Dance Theatre performing numerous lead roles such as ‘Patyegarang’, in which critics described her performance as “powerfully engaging, fluent dexterity” (Sydney Morning Herald).
She choreographed a major work for the company, MACQ, on the 1816 Appin Massacres under Governor Macquarie which toured Australian capital cities, regional Australia and Germany.
In 2012 Jasmin was nominated for an Australian Dance award for ‘Best Female Contemporary Dancer’. Her work MACQ was nominated for a Helpmann Award for best dance work as a part of OUR Land People Stories in 2017, and in 2018 received a Helpmann for best regional touring program.
Other works include: No Remittance for Legs on the Wall and Choice Cut for Yirramboi festival, which was presented at Toronto’s ‘Fall For Dance North’ Festival, 2019.
Jasmin premiered her first full-length work The Complication of Lyrebirds in 2021 at Campbelltown Arts Centre as part of Sydney Festival.
Kristina Chan is a dancer and choreographer based on the Mid North Coast NSW Australia. Through choreography and dance Kristina makes performance work that explores notions of impermanence, fragility and mortality in nature, humanity and our environment. Collaborating with artists in sound, light and visual design to create an environment for the dance to occur within, Kristina’s work is palpable and visceral.
She premiered A Faint Existence for Performance Space’s 2016 Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art at Carriageworks Sydney. A Faint Existence delves into our microcosmic existence on a macrocosmic scale and how our existence en mass has had enormous impact as a geophysical force. A Faint Existence returned to Sydney in May 2018 as part of the Sydney Opera House’s inaugural series UnWrapped and had its Melbourne premiere at Dance Massive 2019.
In 2018 Kristina presented MOUNTAIN commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre. Set in a liminal space MOUNTAIN is an embodiment of impermanence, transformation and existential threat.
Kristina has over 21 years of performance experience performing throughout Australia, Canada, UK, USA, Asia, Israel and Europe working with companies, independent choreographers and collaborators; Kate Champion’s Force Majeure, Garry Stewart’s Australian Dance Theatre, Gideon Obarzanek’s Chunky Move, Australian Ballet, Lucy Guerin Inc, Stephanie Lake, Lisa Wilson, Sydney Theatre Company, Legs On The Wall, Narelle Benjamin, Anton, Tanja Liedtke, Craig Bary, Victoria Chiu, Martin del Amo and Victoria Hunt.
Kristina has been awarded a Helpmann Award for her performance in Narelle Benjamin’s In Glass (2011) and two Australian Dance Awards for Tanja Liedtke’s Twelfth Floor (2006) and construct (2009).
Resurgence is proudly funded by the NSW Government in association with Australia Council for the Arts, Blacktown City Council and Blacktown Arts
