I Dance Festival is a mini film festival of dance films, showcasing excellence in dance films curated and created by artists with disability across the ACT, Australia and the world. 

Hosted by Hanna Cormick, Matt Shilcock and Liz Lea for the 2020 International Day of People with Disability. 

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Curators: Hanna Cormick, Matt Shilcock

Festival Producer: Liz Lea, the Australian Talented Youth Project

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Auslan Interpretation: Brett Olzen

FEATURES SUPPORTED ON THIS FILM    |   

UATH LOCHANS | SHORT FILM

A solo dancer and a physical and visceral experience of place.

Shot on location at Uath Lochans, Glen Feshie, Invernessshire Scotland and commissioned through the Water & Glass project produced by Peter Royston, (Dance Development Perth & Kinross, Scotland)

Film credits:

Performer: Marc Brew
Director/camera – Katrina McPherson
Editor – Simon Fildes
Original music- ‘Southdown’ by David Lintern and James Weaver
Producer – Peter Royston, on behalf of Perth and Kinross Council

 This project was made possible by funding from The National Lottery – Public Engagement fund.

Audio Description by Simon Fildes

NO FEATURES SUPPORTED

LANDSCAPE DIARIES | SHORT FILM

A Larrakia, saltwater- crocodile man from Darwin - ‘I’m an artist; dancer and poet. I like to make my poems come alive in my dance’

A film by Joshua Campton

Featuring Joshua, Lorcan Hopper and Jianna Georgiou

Audio Description by Hanna Cormick and Liz Lea

FIRST LANGUAGE | SHORT FILM

First Language is a meditation on movement; on the inherent choreography at play in wheelchair-use. 

The legitimacy and illegitimacy of certain forms of movement has traditionally been dictated by the Western Dance Canon. Often, this is enacted through language; through the development of associated lexicon which further enshrines the favoured practices, as it is used to communicate and elevate them.

For example, many of us can readily visualise and think of terms that describe Balletic movement; whether or not we consider ourselves to be Ballet dancers.

What happens to movement that is not recognised in this way?

As a wheelchair-user, I have a movement language that is intricate and precise. It is a part of my bodily memory, and has taken a lifetime to hone.

However, there is no recognised lexicon to communicate and legitimise my wheelchair movement. If I want to share my practice with others, there is no validated language available for us to utilise.

First Language is a response to that: a concentration on the visible language in silent revolt against the erasure and non-recognition of legitimate forms of cultural expression.

The video captures and archives the body, the movement, the muscle-memory: the persistence of culture through intimacy and visibility.

The audio-description track for the work represents another form of witnessing movement that is derived from disability culture; an alternate use of language that distils the previously unseen into the seen and heard.

Acknowledgement: the movement material in this work was initially developed in the context of the 2020 Keir Choreographic Award.

A film by Riana Head-Toussaint

Audio Description: Riana Head-Toussaint & Imogen Yang

NO FEATURES SUPPORTED

BREAKING UP | SHORT FILM

The silent film, “Breaking Up” explores the idiosyncratic experience of connection and communication in an era where this process is becoming increasingly impersonal through social media. With an increased reliance on English in a textual form to communicate and deliver information, many deaf people who struggle with English felt the gap between the Deaf world and the hearing world widen immeasurably. Through a cathartic self-dialogue, the Artist Sue Jo Wright explores her unique and traumatic experience of how social media is paradoxically both an incredible gift and detrimental weapon, and its part in devaluing and negating her Deaf identity, as symbolised by the “sad, long goodbye” to her own hand which is the essence of her own identity. 

A film by Sue Jo Wright

Audio Description by Imogen Yang

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Deaf Acknowledgment: 

We acknowledge and respect the members of the Deaf Communities in Australia, who preserve their rich heritage, culture and our language: Auslan (Australian Sign Language). We also acknowledge our custodians of Auslan, promoting awareness, equality and access through our sign language. 

NO FEATURES SUPPORTED

CANARY | SHORT FILM

A true story, a fantasy, an allegory. Imago Theatre presents a film of Hanna Cormick's text score, Canary, that plays at the intersections of presence, absence, embodiment, cellular movement and light. In a striking meditation on the poisons we live with, Canary asks what it is for a body to be placed in harm's way to keep other bodies safe.

Written by
Hanna Cormick

Cast
Julie Trépanier (Performer)

Creative Team 

Andrew Andreoli (Director of Photography) 
Cristina Cugliandro (Director)
Danna-Rae Evasiuk (Lighting Designer) 
Amelia Scott (Projection Designer)
Evan Stepanian (Sound Designer)

Produced by Imago Theatre
Montreal, Canada

Text commissioned by The Arctic Cycle for Climate Change Theatre Action

Audio Description by Hanna Cormick

NO FEATURES SUPPORTED

TO CATCH A THING IN FLIGHT | SHORT FILM

In 2019, Deaf dancer and choreographer Anna Seymour, artist Fayen d'Evie and videographer Pippa Samaya created "Shape of an Echo", a film work that presents a gestural description of "Hauntings H M Castlemaine" 2019, a sound work by blind artist Andrew Slater that acoustically describes the corridors, cells and dungeon as Slater navigated the Old Castlemaine Gaol with his mobility cane. 

We are honoured to present the premiere of a new link in this descriptive chain of works, "To Catch a Thing in Flight" 2020 by artist and photographer Hillary Goidell, an audio-description of Seymour's movements and expressions as she performs in "Shape of an Echo." 

The chain of ekphrastic works was catalysed for Dust, an artist-curatorial project of Fayen d'Evie exploring sensorial translations and inter-sensory conversation, through creative investigations of a constellation of archaic star-like prisons designed for sensory segregation and control. 

"Shape of an Echo" 2019 was a finalist in the Incinerator Award for Social Change. If you wish to view this original work on which To CATIF in based please click on this link

https://vimeo.com/429122215

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Hillary Goidell; "To Catch a Thing in Flight" 2020 (Audiodescription of the film "Shape of an Echo" 2019 by Anna Seymour, Fayen d'Evie and Pippa Samaya (a gestural description of the sound work "Hauntings H M Castlemaine" 2019 by Andrew Slater (a description of the Old Castlemaine Gaol composed from field recordings))). 

NO FEATURES SUPPORTED

YOUR DIFFERENT / MY SAME | SHORT FILM

'Your Different / My Same' by Josh Twee uses dance, text and physical theatre to explore the human condition. Together with Matthew Shilcock, Josh explores the perceptions of ability/disability and the body. 

The work investigates philosophical and practical connotations of physical and internal capabilities and the blurred conceptual line between function and dysfunction. Discussing the collaboration with Matthew, Josh says, “We share lived experience. I have had many insightful and inspiring conversations with Matthew on the topic of accessibility, empowerment, awareness, and just getting it done in everyday life”. 

A dance film commission by Dance Hub SA in partnership with Ausdance SA. Dance Focus is a dance film initiative by Dance Hub SA in partnership with Ausdance SA and supported by the Department of Premier and Cabinet & Torbreck Vintners. The project is designed for Choreographers to challenge, resonate and engage with screen dance.

Audio Description by Matt Shilcock

NO FEATURES SUPPORTED

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING SUPPORTERS