Publish | 02.07.2021
Topic: Things will have to wait
Publishing date: 21 May 2020
Guest speakers:
- Judith Hamann: performer and composer
- James Batchelor: choreographer and performer
What does it mean to be under a stay at home order when you’re far from home? In this podcast we speak to two international artists, dancer and choreographer, James Batchelor, and composer and musician, Judith Hamann.
Both artists in residence, James speaks from lockdown at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris and Judith calls in from Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP), located on a small island 20 minutes from the city.
Embarking on their respective residencies at the beginning of March, each artist experienced a swift and dramatic change of circumstance. Here they discuss the gap between their original ambitions – for live performance, for choirs and collaboration, for networking and sightseeing – and their new, circumscribed reality. Connection is still possible, “thank God for Wi-Fi”, but we might observe that isolation breeds introspection. Is there something almost utopian about a residency truly cut off in space and time? What conditions for creation can be maintained in isolation, and what will have to wait?
And, ultimately, where is home anyway?
Here we consider what home means for these international Australian artists, whose artistic development and professional practice means / has meant they are always on the move.
What does it mean to stop and to stay?
Image credit: Judith Hamann
Production credits
Sound design: Sudeep Lingamneni
Editing and mastering: Jonnine Nokes
Music credits:
Judith Hamann – Etude for Multiphonics
Judith Hamann & Rosalind Hall – Gossamers
Judith Hamann & Lori Goldston – Alloys
About the INTEL: podcast series
The Australia Council’s INTEL: PODCAST SERIES is a peer-to-peer market intelligence resource designed to inform and upskill the arts sector on ‘live’, best practice, and innovative approaches to international engagement. The series spotlights guests who are actively forging pathways for the internationalisation of Australian work, and who continue to work within a cross-cultural and cross-border capacity.
Know more about our guest speaker
Click on the ‘+’ to read the bio.
James Batchelor
James Batchelor
James Batchelor is a Choreographer and Performer from Canberra, Australia. His work is known for its visual clarity, architectural sensitivity to space and rhythmic playfulness. James’ movement is hypnotically focused and detailed drawing audiences into a contemplative and imaginative realm. His practice is collaborative, spanning mediums of dance, film, music and sculpture. The result is highly original and immersive performances of impact and scale that resonate with audiences internationally. In 2016 he was invited by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies to join a two-month scientific expedition at sea to sub-Antarctic Heard and McDonald Islands. This incredible experience led to the creation of Deepspace, which premiered in Dance Massive 2017 and has since toured to 21 cities around the world to contexts such as Centre Pompidou (Paris and Malaga), MONA (Hobart), Vitalstatistix (Adelaide), Canberra Theatre Centre, Tanz im August (Berlin), Bassano del Grappa (Italy), Tramway (Glasgow) and December Dance (Brugge).
In 2019 James was chosen among a field of several hundred applications to be part of the prestigious Aerowaves mobility program in Europe with Hyperspace, which has now been presented in over 20 contexts including Dance Massive (Melbourne), Canberra, London, Paris, Lithuania, Helsinki, Norway, Ljubljana, Limassol, Prague, Ostend, Luxembourg and Glasgow.
James also has a dedicated teaching and creative practice working with youth. He has worked with and mentored Australian youth dance companies such as Quantum Leap, Stompin, Drill and Yellow Wheel. In 2019 he received a major commission from QL2 to create a main-stage production Proscenium. As a performer James has collaborated with some of the leading choreographers in Australian dance such as Anouk van Dijk (Chunky Move), Antony Hamilton, Prue Lang, Stephanie Lake and Sue Healey.
Judith Hamann
Judith Hamann
Judith Hamann is a performer and composer from Birraranga (Melbourne) who is one of ‘Australia’s foremost contemporary-music cellists’ (RealTime Arts). Her current work focuses on an examination of ‘shaking’ in her solo performance practice, the creation of new works for cello and humming, and Materialities of Realisation (with Charles Curtis). Hamann has worked with artists and ensembles including Australian Art Orchestra, Oren Ambarchi, Sarah Hennies, Graham Lambkin, Alvin Lucier, Stephen O’Malley, Eliane Radigue and La Monte Young. She has performed widely at festivals including the LA Phil Fluxus Festival and Aural in Mexico City. Hamann has also performed or composed music released on labels including Saltern, Pogus, Another Timbre, Caduc and Marginal Frequency and holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from University of California, San Diego, where she majored in contemporary cello performance.
Judith is a champion of new and rarely performed music, immersive approaches to sound, and engages with a range of interdisciplinary and experimental projects including collaborative work with visual artists Keith Deverell, Sabina Maselli, and film makers Joshua Bonnetta and Benedetta De Alessi. She has also presented installation work in Melbourne, San Diego, the Noosa Hinterlands, and at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Judith has been an artist in residence at Tokyo Wondersite Aoyama, The Recollets (Paris), Q-02 (Brussels), Kunstmeile Krems Betriebs GmbH (Krems), Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and Syros Sounding Paths Residency (Syros). She is also a regular member of the APRA award winning regional music program (2016 tour) and Sonus Ensemble through TURA New Music Australia, working in community in the Kimberley region of Australia.
