Authenticity: heritage and avant-garde

In her new work, plenty serious TALK TALK, reviewed in this edition, Vicki Van Hout humorously addresses the issue of appropriation in dance with serious intent. In 2012 for our Burning Issue series, Vicki wrote “Authenticity: heritage and avant-garde,” an essay on the challenges faced by an artist of Wiradjuri heritage when making use of dance steps from other Australian Indigenous peoples in experimental hybrid dance works with a growing expectation that permission for borrowing had to be sought at every turn.

You can read the essay here.

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Top image credit: Vicki Van Hout working on installation for Briwyant, 2012, photo courtesy the artist