Dream states seem to come into play this week as we turn the clocks back for daylight savings.

Our Monday musings sees us throw back to the recent Women in Design Conference and Michelle Boyde and Feifei Feng's exhibition 'Dream Design'.

Our Women in Design Social Dreaming Facilitator Susan Long - Director of Research and Scholarship at NIODA, responded to the event with a piece of written word entitled 'Woman Dreaming'.

Woman Dreaming

She stands
Still
Midst the curving swirling
Misty colours
That curl up and around her.
At her feet
Lie the bric and brac
Of old and broken buildings.
From her fingers
Drips the blood of a thousand wounds.
Yet she is no martyr
Her eyes reflect
The brilliant softness of landscapes
That reach to the edge of the world.
She stretches her wings
So, what can she do
But fly.

Susan Long
Women in Design Colloquium
Launceston, September 2018

Image credit: Michelle Boyde and Feifei Feng 'Dream Design' 2018 exhibition installation featuring performance by Felicity Bott. Photo credit: Bruce Moyle 2018

The ‘age of screens’ has changed the production and consumption of culture irrevocably, particularly for dance, arguably the most ephemeral of art forms. Over the next three years, Tasdance is embarking on a ‘body-to-screen’ project to explore the ways human movement, human form and dance translate to screen.

This project commenced at the beginning of 2018 with the production of a series of individual short video studies entitled Show Hiding. The creation of this series was part of Tasdance’s summer intensive Exposure 2018: Free Fall.

The ‘brief’ to the Exposure participants was to create a ‘self-portrait’ that shared identity without revealing the face. That is, the body – in part or whole – needed to do the ‘talking’. The dancer-makers in most instances also created their own, or each other's, sound.

For broader social contextualisation of the task we added the question: “If the projection of our individual identities onto the surfaces (screens) of the world is a play between what we reveal and conceal, what are some different ways to show hiding?

Felicity Bott
Tasdance Artistic Director

Depth Charge | Creative Development

Buzz Dance Theatre - King Street Arts Centre, Perth, WA

Team | Artistic Director Felicity Bott, Theatre Christine Best, Choreographer + Performance Claudia Alessi, Sound Leon Ewing, Lighting Andrew Lake, Costume + Objects Holly Boyton, Installation Paul Wakelam

Completed | 2008

Photographer | Paul Wakelam

Relax The Chimp Performance Princes Square Launceston Tasmania

Junction Arts Festival

Team | Artistic Director Felicity Bott (Tasdance) + Performer Bec Jones + Performer Josh Thomson + Sound/DJ Paul Wakelam + Production Co-ordination Darren Willmot

Completed | 2016

Builder | Junction Arts Festival

Photographer | Dermot McElduff

Relax the Chimp is an outdoor dance event that invites everyone to dance, experiment, play and get physical whilst watching their own larger-than-life avatar dancing on the big screen. Created by Tasdance and launched via a partnership with University of Tasmania, Relax the Chimp features the University of Tasmania’s community, Launceston’s dance groups and YOU.

Come and let your inner dancer free in an environment where there is no right or wrong, nor any limits on age, ability or style. The music will be based on open requests from the community made in the weeks leading up to the event and will represent the feeling and culture of the community we are based in and the dance styles this community enjoys.

Let us know your ‘trigger song’ and then come along to play and groove in the open air at the festival hub.

Relax the Chimp at Junction

Sarah Aquilina

Prince’s Square will be transformed into an outdoor immersive dance environment throughout Junction Arts Festival.

Tasdance presents Relax The Chimp, an interactive experience which projects movement onto a stadium-sized screen in avatar form.

Tasdance artistic director and the creative driver behind Relax The Chimp, Felicity Bott, said they wanted to see everyone in Launceston at Prince’s Square, moving, playing and experimenting with dance.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t think there is a rhythmic bone in your body – you will definitely still have fun.”

The unique technology at the core of the project has been developed in partnership between Tasdance and the University of Tasmania, Tasmanian College of the Arts during an eight week Tasdance residency which commenced in late July.

The application is designed to pick up cues from body movements and project them onto a big screen.

“Relax The Chimp is really about the people who come to dance in front of the sensors,” Ms Bott said.

“We have found that once people realise that their movements are creating large scale images on the screen, they really start to have fun with it.

“Dancing becomes easy and exciting even for people who wouldn’t call themselves dancers.

Prince’s Square will be transformed into an outdoor immersive dance environment throughout Junction Arts Festival.

Tasdance presents Relax The Chimp, an interactive experience which projects movement onto a stadium-sized screen in avatar form.

Tasdance artistic director and the creative driver behind Relax The Chimp, Felicity Bott, said they wanted to see everyone in Launceston at Prince’s Square, moving, playing and experimenting with dance.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t think there is a rhythmic bone in your body – you will definitely still have fun.”

The unique technology at the core of the project has been developed in partnership between Tasdance and the University of Tasmania, Tasmanian College of the Arts during an eight week Tasdance residency which commenced in late July.

The application is designed to pick up cues from body movements and project them onto a big screen.

“Relax The Chimp is really about the people who come to dance in front of the sensors,” Ms Bott said.

“We have found that once people realise that their movements are creating large scale images on the screen, they really start to have fun with it.

“Dancing becomes easy and exciting even for people who wouldn’t call themselves dancers.

“When you add a favourite music track into the mix, the stage is completely set for the humans to relax, let go and dance together.”

Relax The Chimp is a free event, running from September 8 to 10.

Field Hospital - Dark Mofo Hobart

Graphic

Team | Artistic Director Felicity Bott, Dancer Gabriel Comerford, Installation + Graphics Paul Wakelam

Completed | Concept Completed 2017

Photographer | Dermot McElduff

Field Hospital: Light, nutriment,

Field Hospital is a dance performance installation that aims to explicate the sensation of ‘coming to’; of returning to consciousness.

Using the time and space of the winter solstice as if it were a ‘hallowed eve’, Field Hospital is conceived as a somewhat hierophanic[1] ritual performed by a professional dance company over a full night in an environment that is transitory, in which all is borderline.

In Field Hospital, ‘borderline’ refers to any of the liminal interstices between profane/sacred; here/not here; awake/asleep; consciousness/unconsciousness; life/death; establishment/punk. The sacred and the profane hover together, like hierophant and heretic dancing together - willingly.

This is a winter solstice offering for performers, audience and invigilators to pause together, to perceive and to feel. It is an art-induced suspension of time and space: place to enter the dark, and return.

[1] A ritual that ‘channels grace’ such that the sacred punctures through the profane, ‘bringing light to’ the everyday and renewing sense of purpose, values, direction.

clothing, a face…An architecture of respite for a performance of aftermath…Insomnia, sleep,horror, vertigo, appetite, fatigue…A performance explicating elusive phenomena. Night as object. Bodies assailed by unformed, sensuous elements. Opiate-filtered perception. An architecture of pause for restless casualties. Field Hospital: Dance and design configured for the fulcrum of the year: A solstice offering for audience and performers to pause, agency surrendered, at-the-border. Field Hospital: An art-induced suspension of time and space. All are/all is ‘borderline’, transitory, waiting to heal, waiting to die, bodies supine in various depths of consciousness, liminal. Field Hospital: Human subjects birthed by disaster; fielding balls delivered by DNA and circumstance; arriving somewhere only as death comes into view; death viewed through an opiated haze…elusive, instructive. Dancers as ‘opiates’ that course through the space mimicking endorphins - nurse orderly doctor specialist shaman soothsayer apparition or angel.Field Hospital: Light, nutriment, clothing, a face…An architecture of respite for a performance of aftermath…Insomnia, sleep, horror, vertigo, appetite, fatigue…A performance explicating elusive phenomena. Night as object. Bodies assailed by unformed, sensuous elements. Opiate-filtered perception. An architecture of pause for restless casualties. Field Hospital: Dance and design configured forthe fulcrum of the year: A solstice offering for audience and performers to pause, agency surrendered, at-the-border. Field Hospital: An art-induced suspension of time and space. All are/all is ‘borderline’, transitory, waiting to heal, waiting to die, bodies supine in various depths of consciousness, liminal. Field Hospital: Human subjects birthed by disaster; fielding balls delivered by DNA and circumstance; arriving some where only as death comes into view; death viewed through an opiated haze….elusive, instructive. Dancers as ‘opiates’ that coursethrough the s pace mimicking endorphins - nurse orderly doctor specialist shaman soothsayer apparition or angel....Field Hospital.

evolve:revolve Graphics Dance Season

Tasdance Theatre North Launceston

Hal'cyon Graphic Dance Theatre Installation

Team | Paul Wakelam + Felicity Bott (Tasdance) + Tasdance Dancers

Completed | 2016

Photographer | Dermot McElduff

In The Dark - Perth Institute of Contemporary Art Northbridge Western Australia

Deborah Hay Solo Performance Project: In The Dark

Constructed cardboard constructions.

Team | Artistic Director Felicity Bott + Paul Wakelam with Room 3.11 ALVA at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.

Completed | 2010

Photographer | Neil Wallace

STRUT, Dancehouse and Critical Path commissioned world renowned USA dancer and choreographer Deborah Hay, with Ros Warby acting as mentor, to work with ten Australian dance artists. Felicity Bott and Bianca Martin from WA will perform their solo adaptation of her work.

WHAT DOES A BODY LOOK LIKE WHEN IT’S DANCING TO THE TUNE OF DEBORAH HAY? NOTHING IN PARTICULAR OR, AS HAY WOULD PUT IT, “THERE IS NO WAY IT SHOULD LOOK.” THIS MEANS THAT THERE ARE NO PREDETERMINED MOVES OR GESTURES WITHIN HAY’S WORK; THE USUAL CHOREOGRAPHIC LURE FOR COMPOSING THE BODY TO ACCOMPLISH PARTICULAR MOVEMENTS IS ABSENT.

This lack of predictability concerns performer and audience alike, which is not to say that the dancing is arbitrary. To watch a person engage with Hay’s choreography is to access a precise mode of experience. When we see the work ‘working’, we see a dancer on the edge of an abyss, oriented towards an obscure future. This isn’t merely the opacity of not having experienced what is yet to happen, for that is something every dancer faces. Rather, Hay’s work offers the dancer a heightened sense of not knowing.

Hay’s choreography intensifies the abyss of the future through turning the present into a void. Like Wile E Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoon suddenly poised over that dang canyon, there are no supports. Now what? To my mind, this is a key element of Hay’s work: to intensify the performative present by taking away what is usually there.

The title of this piece, In the Dark, indicates the sense in which the performer retains an open attitude towards an imminent future. The choreography could be seen as the means by which this is achieved. Over the years, Hay has developed numerous choreographies, complex combinations of left-field instructions, inscrutable, paradoxical, yet oddly concrete. They are, after all, the dancer’s only companion.

Hal'cyon Graphic Dance Theatre Installation

Dark MOFO 2016

Team | Paul Wakelam + Felicity Bott (Tasdance) + Maggie James

Completed | 2016

Photographer | Dermot McElduff

Dancers are Space Eater's PICA Northbridge Western Australia

Team | Shannon Bott + Felicity Bott + Paul Wakelam

Completed | 1997

Builder | Strawberry Constructs - Paul Wakelam + Merrick Belyea

Photographer | Paul Wakelam

What, I ask you, was that all about?.

‘Strawberry Constructs’ design and construction of ‘two chairs’ for choreographers/ dancers, Shannon and Felicity Bott for their duo at PICA’s performance space.

Depth Charge Performance Play House Theatre, Perth, Western Australia

Team | Artistic Director Felicity Bott (Buzz Dance Theatre) + Theatre Christine Best + Choreographer + Performance Claudia Alessi + Sound Leon Ewing + Lighting Mike Nanning + Costume + Objects Holly Boyton + Installation Paul Wakelam + Production Co-ordination Genevieve Jones + Graphics Hans Arkveld

Completed | 2009

Builder | Graham Warburton + Paul Wakelam

Engineer |

Photographer | Sohan Ariel Hayes + Paul Wakelam

Produced in September 2005 at The Playhouse, Perth

Buzz Dance Theatre

Created & Directed by Felicity Bott Artistic Director
Choreographed by Felicity Bott in collaboration with Sete Tele and the Dancers
Reheasal Director: Setefano Tele
Co-Writers: Felicity Bott and Monica Maine
Sound Design and Music Composition: Michael O’Brien
Song Composition and Production: Mel Robinson
Performers: Katrina Lazaroff, Paul Blackman, Rachel Usher, Glen Lo and Leanne Mason
Understudy, Indigenous Dance Consultant & Co-collaborator: Simon Stewart
Set & Object Design team: Paul Wakelam & Geoff Green-Armytage|
Costume Production: Anna Serna
Lighting Design :Nicholas Higgins
Theatre Consultant: Monica Maine
Acro Balance consultant: Claudia Alessi

Produced in June 2005 at The Playhouse Theatre, Perth

Buzz Dance Theatre

Choreography: Felicity Bott Artistic Director
Composer/Foley Artist: Michael O’Brien
Costumes: Toby Whittington & Anna Serna

Performers:
Paul Blackman, Rachael Hare, Katrina Lazaroff, Glen Lo, Leanne Mason, Tim Rodgers, Rachel Usher

Buzz Dance Theatre

Colour is a springboard for an immersive dance, sound and visual arts event that overtook an entire school.

The Partnership Buzz Dance Theatre is dedicated to creating programs for children that break down the boundaries that separate art forms or divide art from other types of communication. Their inspiring performances emulate the fluidity with which young audiences engage with art and technology in Australian culture

(www.buzzdance.com.au).

Greenmount Primary School engages approximately 430 K-7 students and has an enviable reputation in the Swan Education District for giving its children and parents opportunities to experience exciting educational and cultural programs including specialist Japanese, Music, Art and Physical Education programs.

The Project Colourwheel is a meeting of minds as well as disciplines, and utilising creative input from 120 Greenmount Primary School students as well as a team of arts professionals to create a performance for the entire school. Two key ideas prompted the conception of this work. Firstly, that colour is already “loaded” with many diff erent meanings that can be expressed in many art forms.

Also, colour is a readymade conduit to the emotions, ideas and experiences of the young performers and the audience.

The Process Felicity Bott, Artistic Director of Buzz Dance Theatre, along with five dancers spent two days in workshops and rehearsals with 90 students, “mixing colours” using simple dance choreography. Colourwheel hooked into a child’s existing interests and then moved beyond to engage the child in experiences that were exciting, open ended, new. “What was really amazing was how quickly the artists got the kids performing. There was no teaching by rote, as the kids created the dance, learnt it and then performed it. This greater investment meant [the students] worked really hard. They were so proud of themselves and felt lucky to be involved. It was a huge surprise that it could happen so quickly. They looked like they had been practicing for weeks!” commented one teacher, Christine Brown. Violet reminds me of my Nanna, her favourite colour. My nanna died but I admire her, I have many memories. She used to make all her own clothes, quite often purple or violet or mauve. My nanna was really tiny and when I hugged her I had to be careful not to break a rib. Rachel Usher, dancer

The music was created and performed by cellist and vocalist Melanie Robinson and incorporated the results of a sound-recording workshop with 12 children who wrote and recorded poems about art and colour. “It blew my mind ... the kids were so engrossed as audiences and as performers. We chose kids from every class, creative kids, whether or not they would be comfortable on stage, and gave kids not usually good in class a chance to perform well”, Christine described.

6 Telling Tales

An eight-metre mat was the “set” for the performance, made by visual artist, Paula Hart, as an outcome of workshops with 30 children in the weeks preceding the performance. The mat follows the pattern of an artist’s colour wheel; the design interprets colour to stimulate all the senses and to tap into a pre-teen sense of humour. For instance, yellow is represented not only by sunflowers but by stained teeth and vomit too. Many lessons are transferable to other areas of life, such as how to deal with frustration, as students experienced that “good” colour-mixing can elude you till the last moment. And as one child said, “I felt really proud of myself ... We were doing lots of duos and you had to really trust the other person and be trusted as well”.

Christine commented that, “The language that the children have used since [the performance] is at a much higher level. We did follow-up activities in classroom about performance and why it’s important and how it makes you feel. This got everybody talking about art and seeing it as a valuable and exciting thing”.

This pilot project was undertaken as research and development by Buzz Dance Theatre and required no additional funding. Children work as a team, knowing they can work with someone they mightn’t necessarily get on with ... but in the context of working toward a major aim, learning skills of give and take, of trusting, those are skills that are really important. It encourages kids to take ownership of their behaviour and be proud of their achievements. Scott Stene, Principal

Buzz Dance Theatre

Produced in May 2004 at The Playhouse,Perth

Choreographed by Felicity Bott Artistic Director

Composer: Jo (19) Mansell
Costume and Set: Bec Dean
Lighting Design: Nicholas Higgins

Choreographic Consultants: Bernie Bernard (Streetdance), Claudia Alessi (Acrobatics), Setefano Tele (Duo, Dance Theatre), Damien Ciranna and Lianne Carroll (Latin) and Richard Seidel (Breakdance)

Dancers:
Paul Blackman
Bridget Fiske
Katrina Lazaroff
Tim Rodgers
Rachel Usher

Stage Manager: Jenny Toomey

Produced in August 2003 at The Playhouse, Perth

Noir Revolver
Choreographer: Felicity Bott
Design: Bec Dean
Sound: Mike O’Brien
Lighting: Nicholas Higgins
Costume: Nicole Gradisen
Hair Design: Neil Taylor

Dancers: Natalie Allen, Victoria Maughan, Ellen Legge, Anna Fehlberg, Alannah Beech, Claire McIlroy, Sofie Burgoyne, Jamie Lee, Frances Rofe, Nicola Chapple, Jessica Dudley

Powder Monkey/Real Boy Real Girl Town Hall Midland Western Australia

Steps Youth Dance Company Poster

Team | Paul Wakelam + Felicity Bott

Completed | 2004

Photographer | Paul Wakelam (unknown Grafitti Artist)

Corpora 999 Jack Sue Gallery Perth Western Australia

Belle Grave – ‘Baby, be brave’ Performance Artrage Festival

Team | Performance Felicity Bott + Performance David Fussell + Sound Michael O’Brien + Lighting Eliose Bailey, + Installation Paul Wakelam

Completed | 2001

Photographer | Marco Mona + Paul Wakelam

Corpora 999, presented this show at Jack Sue Gallery and was funded as a part of the Artrage Festival 1999.Corpora 999 is a collaboration between Paul Wakelam, Felicity Bott, Marco Mona, David Fussell, Michael O’Brien, Eloise Bailey, and the publicity of Jude Leon and Fiesty Promotions

Powder Monkey/Real Boy Real Girl Town Hall Midland Western Australia

Steps Youth Dance Company

Team | Collaborating with Artistic Director Felicity Bott + Theatre Christine Best + Choreographer & Performance Setefano Tele, Leon Ewing, Sam Fox and Samara Cunningham + Sound Leon Ewing + Lighting Nicholas Higgins + Costume & Objects Kate Campbell-Pope + Installation by ‘Strawberry Constructs’ _ design+ construction Paul Wakelam and construction Geoff Green-Armytage to create a spacial installation for dance/theatre with 18 children from Swan Region, Midland. Production Co-ordination was by Nicholas Higgins.

Completed | 2004

Photographer | Nic Higgins + Paul Wakelam + Ashley De Prazer

Edge Test PICA Performance Space Northbridge Western Australia | University of New England Performance Space Armidale New South Wales | Canberra Theatre Centre Performance Space Canberra ACT

Steps Youth Dance Company
Performed at PICA,
The Australian Youth Dance Festival and
The Street Theatre, Canberra
in September/October 2001

‘Play The Game’ by Setefano Tele presents a paper cut-out ‘gibberish community infatuated with quiz shows. The work takes the packaged competitive tension that has fueled interest in quiz shows since the beginning of television and brings it to a dance context: There are questions, answers and above all , a parade of curiously compelling contestants.

”Never Mind The Snow’ by Felicity Bott plays with the media’s scaled-up representations of physical performance and space, and the highly contrasting reality of the individual alone with the daily details of living. Ultimately, capital soaked hype and insular banalitynotwithstanding, the dancers articulate edgelessness and ‘never mind the snow’.

Placement These two new dance works are arranged ‘tectonically’ in and around each other and are performed within a third work; the installation by Paul Wakelam. All aspects of the design for the show explore body, place and meaning. The dancers inhabit a floating suburban dream home and are suspended in home space, complete with all its encumbent meanings, movements and associations.

Team | Felicity Bott (AD Steps Youth Dance Company) + Sete Tele (Choreography) + Paul Wakelam (Design & Installation) + Nicole Gradisen (Costume) + Michael O’Brien (Sound) + Nicholas Higgins (Lighting) + Tanya Miles (Production Co-ordinator and Stage Manager)

Dancers | Courtney Hay, Richard Bethell, Karen Henderson, Shannon Riggs
Hayden Teo
Kim Rumbold
Marisa Aveling
Greschen Brecker
Francis Rofe
Gala Moody
James O’Hara

Michelle Calkin
Glen Lo Michaela
Dane Peniston

Completed | 2001

Photographer | Paul Wakelam + Ashley De Prazer

EDGE TEST – Perth, WA/Armidale, NSW/Canberra, ACT. Collaborating with Artistic Director/Choreographer Felicity Bott, Choreographer Setefano Tele, Costumier Nicole Gradisen and Lighting Nicholas Higgins to create an installation and costumes for dance with 16 youth dance practitioners. The installation was designed to accommodate three different venues across Australia and to pack up with minimum travelling costs. Production Co-ordinator was Tanya Miles with Michael O’Obrien on sound.

Movement Safari Old Customs House Fremantle Western Australia

Steps Youth Dance Company

Team | Collaborating with Artistic Director Felicity Bott + Theatre Christine Best + Choreographer & Performance Setefano Tele and Samara Cunningham + Sound Leon Ewing + Lighting Nicholas Higgins + Installation Design Paul Wakelam

Emerging Dance Artists | James O’Hara + Sam Fox + Jessyka Watson-Galbraith + Karen Henderson + Glen Lo + Tanya Miles

Completed | 2003

Photographer | Nic Higgins

Corpora 401 Jack Sue Gallery Perth Western Australia

Creative Development

Team | Performance Felicity Bott, Theatre Christine Best, Performance David Fussell, Direction Barry Laing, Sound Michael O’brien, Lighting Eliose Bailry, Costume Felicity Bott, Installation Paul Wakelam

Completed | 2001

Photographer | Paul Wakelam

2% | SUB missionary positions | the ORDINARY object thereof

Corpora 401 received a development grant from ARTS WA and presentedthis showing at the Jack Sue Gallery. This grant allowed 3 weeks of intensive workshops between Corpora members with direction from Barry laing re working previous performances. Corpora 401 is a collaboration between Paul Wakelam, Felicity Bott, David Fussell, Barry Laing, Michael O'Brien and Eloise Bailey.

Corpora 201 Rachabites Hall Northbridge Western Australia

Performance

Team | Performance Felicity Bott + Performance David Fussell + Performance Bec Dean + Sound Michael O’brien + Lighting Eliose Bailry, + Installation Paul Wakelam

Completed | 2001

Photographer | Paul Wakelam

Calculating Hedonism – ‘Stories from sober and temperate bodies’ – Perth, WA.Corpora201, presented this show at The Rachabites Hall and was technically assisted by the WA Fringe Festival 2001 and Gazebo 64 and was a part of prag/port/pert program. This program also consisted of Paul Gozola’s ‘Cut Piece’ and Czech Republic’s Kristyna Lhotakova and Ladislav Soukup’s ‘Venus with the Rubics Cube’. Corpora 201 is a collaboration between Paul Wakelam, Felicity Bott, David Fussell, Bec Dean, Michael O’Brien and Eloise Bailey.

The West Australian – Sarah Palmer, Today – February 6th , 2001, pg. 6.

WA Fringe Guide – Mary O’Donovan, Duck Vol. 2 – February 8th, 2001, pg. 3.

RealTime – Sarah Millar, RealTime No42 – April – May, 2001, pg. 24.

Totem Playhouse Theatre Perth Western Australia

Steps Youth Dance Company

Team | Felicity Bott (Steps Youth Dance Company) + Paul Wakelam + Ahmad Abas + Mark Cooper

Dancers | Jade Back, Stephanie Bond, Adrian Chadd, Joshua Clarke, Candice Elliott, Lara Hatch, Kelly Henderson, Owen Horton. Alexander Kerr-Sheppard, Abigail Klopper, Christine Langton, Glen Lo, Leanne Mason, Beckie May, Venettia Miller, Cori Moran, Heath Mundy, Jada Powell, Kathryn Puie, Joseph Trefeli, Zoe Ventoura,

Completed | 1994

Photographer | Ashley DePraser