DANCING BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

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 What does it mean to be Indian and Australian? This was a central question of a research project co-directed by Gretel Taylor and Shaun McLeod through Deakin University using creative arts as its methodology. The project proposes a notion of ‘mobile citizenship’, realising that diasporic communities are navigating between complex cultural and locational identities, or ‘dancing between two worlds’.  The project offered a space to explore Indian and Australian/‘western’ performance traditions to forge hybrid intercultural combinations. A series of creative exchange workshops in 2018 led to a collaborative performance entwining forms and values. Reframing recognisably Indian customs and performance practices, merging these with western approaches and situating these outcomes in Wyndham public spaces, we seek to positively acknowledge Indian presence and complexity in the Wyndham community. The participatory nature of the walking performance aimed to give audiences an immersive taste of both this place and the Indian-Australian cultures who inhabit it. More info: Dancing Between Two Worlds 2019

Photo by Laki Sideris featuring Joshinder Chaggar, dancing Between Two Worlds, Werribee, November 2019

A BLIND DATE WITH BLIND CREEK (by EPA)

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EPA led a walking performance/sensory tour of Blind Creek, Ferntree Gully for Knox's Immerse Public Art program in 2019.  Audiences were invited to walk blindfold, share in Indigenous perspectives (Wurundjeri elder Ian Hunter), witness a dance of the missing creek and play dating games with local fauna and flora. More info: A Blind Date with Blind Creek
Photo by Laki Sideris, featuring Gretel Taylor, Peter Fraser and Helen Smith

SCOURGE

New video work by Laki Sideris and Gretel Taylor was exhibited as large-scale two-screen installation for SaltBody exhibition at Arts Mildura, September-October 2019. More info: Scourge
​Image: underwater still from GoPro video by Laki Sideris