Another

Now Pieces, 2021 builds on the lineage of improvisation in contemporary dance practice in Melbourne, and opens up to forms and methods of improvisation in other creative fields and cultural practices. Improvisation as a performance technique is the disciplined exploration of embodied practice that leads to crafted, spontaneous, and artful communication made on-the-go. This monthly platform invites a range of intergenerational practitioners who–in one way or another–prioritise movement to incorporate body, sound, vocalisation, memory, image and energy, responding to each passing moment in relation to the space where they are dancing in relation to the audience. Now Pieces, 2021 curates curators as well as performers, opening up improvisation as a relevant, urgent, poetic transdisciplinary practice that reflects back patterns and possibilities for freedom, and flight.

Each month a different curator or collective is invited to host and program Now Pieces, 2021. April’s edition is coordinated by About Now, an improvisation group shaped by the investigation of Authentic Movement in shared space and time. About Now consists of Peter Fraser, Olivia Millard, Jason Marchant and Shaun McLeod. About Now are joined by two improvisation partnerships between artists who have never worked together before. Jonathan Sinatra will perform with Naree Vachananda and Ashlee Barton will perform with Phoebe Robinson. They are each another presence within the pairing. For this event About Now have also invited another, multidisciplinary visual artist and performer Katie Lee. The evening will be a culmination of a period of shared practice combining Katie’s conceptually driven installation and live-art with About Now’s responsive movement-based action as they consider that which is familiar and unfamiliar in an ever-evolving situation.

Curators: About Now
Artists: Peter Fraser, Olivia Millard, Jason Marchant, Shaun McLeod, and Katie Lee; Jonathan Sinatra and Naree Vachananda; Ashlee Barton and Phoebe Robinson
Creative Correspondent: Josephine Mead