A writing project in conversation with eight dance artists based in different cities in Australia who were, at the time, under different kinds of relentless lockdown. For some there was no dancing at all for months and for others the dance went on unperturbed.
Each conversation was recorded & Leach (self-named ‘Whalerider’ for the extent of this project) writes a response - poem, prose, short form essay. The artist in conversation with Leach responds in word, image, photograph, movement, composition, running scores.
This website, artwork, rough archive is a document of time spent talking - knowing we are each and all dancers. It is from this shared beginning that we did, indeed, begin and a body of work was formed.
https://whalerider.hotglue.me/
Melbourne 2020 (covid-19 lockdown - 4 months)
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A LOVE LETTER TO DANCE: SOLO FOR 44
In the beginning of Covid-19 everyone, everywhere, had to suddenly stop dancing in studios. It was an abrupt and harsh scission.
Grief was immediate.
I sent out an SOS to all the dancers I knew.
44 responded with a small dance: but 30 seconds.
Some could not, deep in grief, dance at all.
Some were in shock and not sure why they would dance.
Others kept on in tiny spaces for months on end.
This rough film was made at the beginning of a long lockdown as a small love letter to the something we all suddenly felt we lost.
It acted as a reassurance in the midst of grief and the strange new world of red summer skies and empty city streets.
Inspired by Exquisite Corpse: 42 choreographers, 1 dance directed by Mitchell Rose.