Masterclass

When: Friday, November 4, 1-3pm

Where: AC Arts, Rehearsal Studio, Level 3, 23 Light Square, Kaurna Yarta

Cost: $30 (+ booking fee)

Studio open at 12:45pm, please arrive then to check in and warm up.

The Mill in partnership with OzAsia Festival present a contemporary movement masterclass with Marrugeku’s Dalisa Pigram and Rachel Swain.

Dalisa Pigram is touring to Adelaide to perform in Gudirr Gudirr as part of 2022 OzAsia Festival.

About the masterclass:

Marrugeku's co-artistic directors Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain will lead a workshop for dancers, movers, and choreographers. The workshop will introduce Marrugeku’s devising approaches drawing on personal and cultural backgrounds to create contemporary movement. We will experiment with techniques to layer and structure movement, ideas, characters and cultural influences. The workshop will draw from the processes Marrugeku used to create Gudirr Gudirr.

Experience level:

Participants should have 2-3 years of experience in one or more of dance, circus, street forms like parkour or hip hop, traditional or contemporary Indigenous dance, martial arts or other movement based practices.

The workshop is also open to actors with some movement experience interested in improvisational movement processes to generate theatre.

About the Co-Artistic Directors:

A Yawuru/Bardi woman born and raised in Broome, Dalisa has worked with Marrugeku since the first production Mimi and has been Co-Artistic Director since 2008. A co-devising performer on all Marrugeku’s productions, touring extensively overseas and throughout Australia. Dalisa’s solo work Gudirr Gudirr earned an Australian Dance Award (Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance 2014) and a Green Room Award (Best Female Performer 2014). Dalisa co-conceived Marrugeku’s Burning Daylight and Cut the Sky with Rachael Swain, co-choreographing both works with Serge Aimé Coulibaly. Together with Swain she co-directed Buru, Ngalimpa and co-curated Marrugeku’s four International Indigenous Choreographic Labs and Burrbgaja Yalirra. Dalisa co-conceived with Rachael Swain and Patrick Dodson Marrugeku’s Jurrungu Ngan-ga [Straight Talk], co-Choreographing the new work with the performers.
Dalisa also co-choreographed and performed in Marrugeku’s new digital work, Gudirr Gudirr video and sound installation. In her community, Dalisa teaches the Yawuru Language at Cable Beach Primary School and is committed to the maintenance of Indigenous language and culture through arts and education. Dalisa is co-editor of Marrugeku: Telling That Story—25 years of trans-Indigenous and intercultural exchange (Performance Research 2021).
Rachael Swain —Artistic Co-director Marrugeku: a settler artist, born in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Rachael works between the lands of the Gadigal in Sydney and the lands of the Yawuru in Broome. She is a director and dramaturg of intercultural and trans-disciplinary dance projects and a performance scholar and researcher. Since the company’s founding, she has co-conceived and directed Marrugeku’s productions Mimi, Crying Baby, Burning Daylight, Cut the Sky and Jurrungu Ngan-ga. She co-directed Buruand Ngalimpa with Dalisa Pigram. Rachael was previously Co-Artistic director of Stalker Theatre, co-devising and performing in the early works and directing Blood Vessel, Incognita (with Koen Augustijnen), Sugar and Shanghai Lady Killer. She was dramaturg for Dalisa Pigram’s award winning solo Gudirr Gudirr, Le Dernier Appel and Burrbgaja Yalirra.
Rachael trained at the European Dance Development Centre in Arnhem, the Netherlands, The Amsterdam School for Advanced Theatre and Dance Research (DAS ARTS) and gained a PhD in Performance Studies from Melbourne University. She held an ARC funded post-doctoral research fellowship at Melbourne University 2013-2016. Rachael is the author of Dance in Contested Land—new intercultural dramaturgies (Palgrave 2020) and co-editor of Marrugeku: Telling That Story—25 years of trans-Indigenous and intercultural exchange (Performance Research 2021).