Sharing the Dance Massive experience
- 3 Aug 2015
Liesel Zink shares her experiences of Dance Massive and the National Dance Forum.
In March 2015, I was fortunate enough to attend the biennial National Dance Forum and Dance Massive Festival in Melbourne. I attended performances by Australian choreographers and engaged in events and activities including workshops, networking opportunities and panel conversations. These events attracted dancers, choreographers, producers, curators and directors from all over Australia providing an ideal opportunity to reconnect with friends and networks in the industry as well as get a sense of the overarching movements and challenges facing the Australian dance Industry.
As part of Dance Massive, I was selected to present my latest work in development, ‘The Stance’, for Ausdance’s Open Studios Series. Although sharing an incomplete work to new audiences can be intimidating, it can open up new avenues for critical dialogue pushing your practice into new and unexpected territories. The Open Studios Series challenged me to step outside the comfort of my local arts community in Queensland and articulate my ideas and methodologies to a completely new audience. I found this to be an invaluable opportunity to further refine and understand my artistic practice and motivation. Open Studios was an ideal platform to be able to share my ideas in the flesh with national and international networks. Their feedback injected new questions and challenges into my creative work encouraging me to think differently and, in turn, extend and enrich my artistic work.
It helped me establish some exciting new networks that I hope will lead to future work, collaborations and development opportunities. Being able to present a showing in the context of a high profile national festival allowed me to better understand where my practice fits within the larger ecology of work being created in Australia and beyond.
And for me, that was the magic of Dance Massive and the National Dance Forum; not only to share the work happening in your own local arts community, but also to witness the work happening around Australia and engaging in critical discussion on the trends and challenges facing the different dance communities within our country. How is each artist and creative community testing and extending the form of dance? What are the common themes arising in creative work? How are we addressing issues of diversity? How do different creative environments influence our ability to take creative risk? How do our respective audiences shape our creative practice? These questions encouraged me to reflect upon the environments in which I create work and made me personally reflect upon where Queensland fits within the larger context of Australian art making.
Being less influenced by the trends of larger capital cities, I believe Brisbane and Queensland provide an environment where you can genuinely explore, establish and strengthen your own unique approaches to art-making.
Saying that, it can be difficult to gain opportunities to showcase your creative work within the broader national and international arts community. This is why events like Dance Massive and National Dance Forum are so valuable. They allow us an opportunity to better understand the larger context in which we create work and can provide showcasing and networking opportunities that open up the possibility for future work, collaboration, development and presentation. In the longer term, enriching the practice of Queensland artists will stimulate the continual growth and development of the dance community in which we practice.
I admittedly felt very humbled to be one of a strong contingency of Queensland artists representing my local community at Dance Massive and felt a sense of pride in saying that I was a Queensland artist.
Liesel Zink is a Brisbane based choreographer and live artist who researches the political body in public space under a social psychology framework. She has created works for Expressions Dance Company (‘Synapse’ 2013; ‘It fell on the floor between them’ 2010), LINK Dance Company (‘The Miranda Warning’ 2014), Tasdance Education Program (‘Image’ 2012) and created two new Dance Theatre in works for Artslink QLD Schools Touring in 2014 and 2015 (‘Shift’ & ‘No Way’). As part of her independent practice she most notably creates dance and sound work in public space including ‘The Stance’ (Brisbane 2015, Junction Arts Festival 2016) and award winning work ‘fifteen’ (Next Wave Festival & Brisbane Festival 2012).
She is a collaborative creator and performer with Polytoxic Dance Company, Phluxus2 Dance Collective has been an associate artist of La Boite Theatre Company, Expressions Dance Company, and on the Advising Panel for Backbone Youth Arts. From the Australian Council Liesel has received funding through Artstart, JUMP Mentorship program, the Dance and Music Initiative and she was one of five Australian dance artists selected to attend to IETM in Montpelier, France 2014.
www.lieselzink.com Twitter: @liesel_zink