The Interior Performance Activation

Deadline:

20 August

Institute of Modern Art

Join Brisbane based dancers Isabella Hood and Jag Popham for a movement exploration of Natalya Hughes exhibition ‘The Interior’. In this twenty minute performance the dancers will use their bodies and their relationship with each other to weave their way through the terrain of ‘The Interior’. Using the sculptural seating, soft furnishings, and wall painting of this immersive installation, they offer movement inspired by the therapeutic context. Their bodily dialogues will feature subtle adjustments to self-soothe, seek comfort, and reveal or conceal. Through this activation we hope to open up the dynamics of the relations between analyst and patient.

Natalya Hughes’s ‘The Interior’ invites audiences into an exaggerated consultation room playfully furnished for psychoanalysis. Audiences are invited to recline and be enveloped, soothed, and held by the furniture’s womanly forms while taking turns playing analyst and patient. Throughout this bodily encounter The Interior hopes to create a space where the existence of women can be reimagined on different terms in the ‘post-Me Too’ world.

Performance Time: Saturday 20th August, 1:30pm – 1:50pm

Isabella Hood is an Australian dance artist, choreographer, and teacher. Isabella is a company dancer with Australian Dance Collective (formerly Expressions Dance Company) and has worked with artists such as Natalie Weir, Amy Hollingsworth, Gabrielle Nankivell, Melanie Lane, Bruno Guillore, Christina Chan, Cass Mortimer Eipper, Stephanie Lake and Dominic Wong. She has toured nationally and internationally with the company and collaborated with CCDC and Beijing Dance/LDTX in 2018 and 2019. She is now based in Queensland, working as a freelance artist and choreographer, undertaking local residencies at the Judith Wright Centre, Mad Dance House and Studio1, Brisbane. She is currently a guest choreographer for RBCorp Instruction’s triple bill season of Shadow Works, making a new work on the emerging company.

Jag Popham is from Māngere, Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. His movement practice began with ballet at SABA Young Ballet before adding other movement modalities such as contemporary, yoga, running and martial arts. Jag is also exploring breathwork, Zenthai Shiatsu and holistic coaching. Jag trained at the New Zealand School of Dance, majoring in contemporary, and graduated in 2015. In 2019/2020 Jag worked with Lloyd Newson on a remount of Enter Achilles, co-produced by Rambert and Sadlers Wells. Jag has had the privilege of working alongside many incredible artists and performing works created by the likes of: Natalie Wier, Alasdair Macindoe, Melanie Lane, Hofesh Shecter, Gabrielle Nankivell, Xing Liang, Amy Hollingsworth, Jack Lister, Richard Causer, Kuik Swee Boon (T.H.E), Stephanie Lake, Malia Johnston, Thomas Bradley, Sarah Foster-Sproull and Okareka Dance Company.

Image description: Three people interact with the sculptural seating that is part of ‘The Interior’.