As the inaugural recipient of The Mill's Engage residency I'm very grateful to have been able to participate in two workshops, one in Perth at Strut and one here in Adelaide at Leigh Warren Dance Hub. I am now midway through a creative research period where I am working on my choreographic practice that involves choreographic scores and performance drawing. The Mill have organised time for me in the new studio at Restless Dance Theatre and also with the third year dance students at AC Arts. So throughout this residency I have felt extremely supported by The Mill to experiment and start to develop a new dance work, and have had the opportunity to meet dancers and visual artists from all around Australia through the workshops and different organisations that have supported this residency.
The Choreographic Future's workshop titled Choreography Across Disciplines facilitated by Canadian choreographer Ame Henderson, has helped bridge the gap between the new project that I had proposed, to the creative research that I'm involved in. I won't know what the full effect of this residency will uncover until I've seen this choreographic project to the next stage and can look back to reflect on it, but I do feel that the structure of the residency- having been able to attend a workshop in Perth at Strut with Maxine Doyle of Punchdrunk prior to this and then having studio time to cultivate my current choreographic interest of mark making, recording a trace and involving an audience by taking the work off the stage and into a gallery setting- means this Engage residency with culminate with a new work that has taken my choreographic practice to a new level and given me a deeper understanding of the possibilities of my craft.
I look forward to continuing discussions with The Mill around the potential to realise an outcome to this creative research that might have connections to some of the other wonderful dance and arts organisations that I've been introduced to, but for now the ENGAGE residency is living up to it's proposal to engage me in the practice of developing my choreographic practice whilst engaging me in the artistic community of Adelaide. www.tanya.voges.net