Dwell: landscape in the figure

2022. screen-dance work (10 mins)

concept, direction, production: Sue Hawksley
choreography, performance: Sue Hawksley, Tammy Arjona & Billie Cook
image, montage: Richard Hodges
sound design: Jesse Budel
special thanks to: Mike Tye; The National Parks and Wildlife Service, a division of the Department for Environment and Water, South Australia; Murraylands and Riverland Landscape Board.



images: Richard Hodges

Dwell: landscape in the figure is a screen-dance work responding to the urgent issue of habitat loss. It focuses on three endangered ecological communities in the Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu Peninsula regions of South Australia - coastal, heathy woodland, and wetland. Their rich biodiversity is evocatively conveyed through haunting visual and sonic footage, and by three dancers who embody the 'landscape in the figure'. Movement, sound and image become increasingly stressed and degraded as the space available to them diminishes, reflecting the precariousness of these unique habitats when encroaching threats swing the ecological balance against them.

Dwell invites contemplative viewing and deep listening. It seeks to cultivate a sense of embodied presence in, and as, nature (landscape in the figure), and in so doing foster appreciation of the part we play in it. Presence as place.

SCREENINGS AND PRESENTATIONS

FlorenceDanceOnScreen Festival - Florence, Italy. May 2023.
3rd International Ecoperformance Film Festival - São Paulo, Brazil and ► online - June 2023.
International Dance and Somatic Practices Conference - Coventry University - July 2023.
Solastalgia: loss and return exhibition - Coral Street Art Space, Victor Harbor - August 2023.

► VIDEO DOCUMENTATION

> Dwell: landscape in the figure - TRAILER

✐ WRITING

> Dwell PROJECT BLOG

Hawksley, S. (2021) Landscape in the figure: cultivating presence as nature , Conceição | Conception. Campinas, SP. Vol. 10, no. 00, p. e021009. doi: 10.20396/conce.v10i00.8666681

We acknowledge that we meet, create and work on the traditional land of the Ngarrindjeri, Kuarna and Peramangk Peoples. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We pay our respects to the Elders past, present and future.

This project was made possible by the Australian Government's Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia.