Images by Micaela Schettini
Sand in development, a collaboration with Itamar Freed, Katina Olsen and Bella Hood
The seed of a new contemporary dance work created on the Sunshine Coast. This project is the beginning of a new collaborative relationship between myself, visual artist Itamar Freed, esteemed Wakka Wakka and Kombumerri dance artist Katina Olsen and renowned dance artist Bella Hood. Sand is a study of the relationship between body and landscape; the impact of landscape on the body. the impact of body on landscape, the impact of landscape on landscape. This work exists between reality and a dream-like state, skirting the edges of surrealism and consciousness as a doorway to discover more about our relationship to landscape. The set involves one ton of sand, creating a landscape beneath the dancers and also falling from the ceiling. From mesmerising, delicate and explosive, Sand is dynamic new work that intrinsically communicates through an interdisciplinary relationship between dance and visual art. The work is inherently connected to place.
First development August 2020. Video by Rainer Scheu - Create Right
Second development June 2021. Images by Itamar Freed
“The work was inspired! It shows the maturing of an artist from both a choreographic perspective but also as a performer. Thank you for sharing this with us. The use of sand makes clear the links with our local environment, but neutrality of the chairs, costume and absence of soundtrack brought into play an additional sensory component. The changing landscape really brought to mind the cliffs at Rainbow Beach, now so covered in vegetation you can hardly see the coloured sands , in comparison to the sand cliffs denuded by the cyclone of the 60s and 70s that we saw in our youth. Not changed by people but by the tyranny of nature.” Kym Stevens, August 2020