in the loop – quick picks oct 9

uts international animation festival

A wide array of local and international animation will be on offer at the upcoming UTS Sydney International Animation Festival (Oct 12-14). Premiering this year are two contrasting independent features from France’s Bibo Bergeron and the Czech Republic’s Tomáš Lu?ák. Bergeron’s child-oriented, somewhat Americanised yet still wondrous A Monster in Paris is a visually lush steampunk adventure-romance which references King Kong and the early days of cinema. Lu?ák’s Alois Nebel, while no less visually impressive, is a decidedly adult film based on the Czech Republic’s first modern graphic novel. Beginning in 1989, the year during which Czechoslovakia’s Communist regime fell, it is a stark yet moving portrayal of one man’s personal struggle with nightmares past and present.

Another festival highlight, Dance of the Shadows, documents the life of Lotte Reiniger, the German film artist responsible for creating the first feature-length animated film in history. The festival will also show¬case animated documentaries, up-and-coming Japanese animators, promising local talent including Indigenous animator Jason Japaljarri Wood and some particularly strange fare during a “Late Night Bizarre” session, as well and discussion panels. Katerina Sakkas.
UTS Sydney International Animation Festival, Oct 12-14; http://www.siaf.uts.edu.au/

are we there yet?, uwa & the cruthers collection

Anne Newmarch, Self portrait, 1981, photo-etching

courtesy the Cruthers Collection

Anne Newmarch, Self portrait, 1981, photo-etching

After a few years of relative quiet on the subject, feminism is once again a hot topic as women from generations Y & Z explore their connection to previous thought and the role of women in their own milieu. Recently Serial Space’s Time Machine dedicated a whole day of their festival to explore the role of women in media and technology-based art (see Dan Mackinlay’s account). Now the University of Western Australia, in collaboration with the Cruthers Art Foundation, has announced a two day symposium titled Are we there yet?.

The event accompanies the exhibition Look. Look again: the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, the first significant survey drawn from the collection featuring work by female Australian artists who have mostly slipped under the mainstream artworld radar. Including pieces from over the last century the works in the exhibition range from portraiture, domestic studies and still life to abstraction and political activism.

The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art was donated by Sir James and Lady Sheila Cruthers to the University of Western Australia in 2007 and represents the largest collection of work by women in Australia. The symposium brings together curators, artists, historians and theorists to discuss the importance such a collection has to the future of female representation in the arts. Speakers will include Felicity Johnston, the curator of the Cruthers Collection, Leigh Robb, curator at PICA, Catriona Moore, lecturer, Art History and Film Studies at University of Sydney, Ted Snell Director, UWA Cultural Precinct and the CoUNTess who writes a blog exploring the uneven representation of women in Australian art (http://countesses.blogspot.com.au/) and is a participating artist in the Performance Space SEXES program (see article).
Are We There Yet? a two-day symposium on women’s art, Oct 20-21, registrations open until Oct 19, UWA, registration & info; Look. Look again: the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art; Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, UWA, Perth, Oct 20-Dec 15; http://www.lwgallery.uwa.edu.au/cruthers-collection-of-womens-art

lecture—improvlab with artists from the forsythe company

While Melbourne gets the Forsythe Company experience in full, Sydney doesn’t miss out entirely. Thanks to Shane Carroll and Meredith Brooks, company dramaturg Freya Vass-Rhee and dancer Riley Watts will be conducting a workshop and presenting a lecture at the Bangarra Studios.

Vass-Rhee and Watts will be in Sydney collaborating with cognitive scientist Kate Stevens on the Dance Engaging Science project which is part of the Forsythe Company’s Motion Bank activities. Motion Bank is a four-year project (2010-13) which involves the publication of digital dance scores created by guest choreographers including Deborah Hay, Bebe Miller and Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion (see article). It involves research into how the “special qualities of computer-aided recording and design can be applied to the challenge of documenting, analysing, notating and presenting dance with the aim to extend and complement creative practice” (website).

Vass-Rhee will give a 65-minute lecture titled Performing Perception which will present some of her research into Forsythe company’s working methodologies. Riley Watts will then conduct a two-part practical workshop for 20 dancers exploring the movement and awareness practices employed in the company’s work.
Lecture—improvlab with artists from The Forsythe Company, Bangarra, Studios Sydney, Oct 20, lecture 1pm, workshops 2.15pm; for more information and bookings email shane.e.carroll@gmail.com; <a href="http://motionbank.org/en/" target=”_new”>http://motionbank.org/en/

RealTime issue #111 Oct-Nov 2012 pg. web