Overview

Performance development

A collaboration between Sam Mcgilp (Australia), Harrison Hall (Australia), Kazuhiko Hiwa (Japan) and Makoto Uemura (Japan), Running Machine is a promenade towards the future of human movement – a hybrid digital performance work.

“Through collaborative research into gait analysis, assistive technologies and digital dramaturgies, Running Machine examines what the body means culturally and digitally through the act of walking. Our previous developments have worked with the traces of presence that are left behind in the absence of the body. Through recordings, remote live-streaming and both physical and digital artefacts, we have worked to imbue the performance space with ‘ghosts’ or past presences. Makoto Uemura’s specialisation is in ‘Non-Human Theatre’, which seeks to create theatre experiences through these ‘traces of presence’ that provide a deeply human experience in spite of absent performers. In Running Machine, we expand this approach to include digital traces: recordings, remotely transmitted data, and interactive objects to ask “what is lost and what is found when the body enters digital space”.

Running Machine had its first development at Kinosaki International Arts Centre, Kinosaki (Japan) and Doso Residency, Fujiyoshida (Japan), with phase two development occurring at the Garambi Baan/Laughing Waters Residency Centre in 2022, supported by InPlace and Dancehouse, with future inclusion in Arts House’s BLEED Festival in 2022.

Dr Sam McGilp

Dr Sam Mcgilp Dr Sam Mcgilp is a media artist working collaboratively in contemporary performance contexts based on Wurundjeri country in Naarm. His work spans film, performance, installation and online spaces. In 2020, he created BONANZA! With Harrison Hall and Juzzy Kane as part of Chunky Move’s Activators Program, which was screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2021 and was selected as a finalist for the Green Room Awards. In 2019, he was awarded an Australia Council professional development grant to undertake residencies at Kinosaki International Art Centre and Do-So Residency, Fujiyoshida. He is a current recipient of the 2021 Creator’s Fund program researching how emerging technologies can create new dramaturgies for performance that centre the body.

 

Yuiko Masukawa

Yuiko Masukawa is a Japanese choreographer based in Melbourne, working with the classical form in contemporary contexts. In 2019, she was awarded an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant to undertake a series of structured choreographic secondments with the New York City Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet and Japanese contemporary choreographer, Toru Shimazaki. She was recently selected to participate in Dance House’s Emerging Choreographers Program throughout 2021 as well as Lucy Guerin Inc and Phillip Adams BalletLab’s new showcase program Out of Bounds. In 2021, she received Creative Victoria’s Creative Workers Founds and Besen Family Foundation for her second development for After Party.

 

Harrison Hall

Harrison Hall’s work situates contemporary performance and dance in experiential art environments. Recent works traverse states of flux between the digital and physical realms utilising new technologies to augment and abstract the body. Recently he was awarded a Solitude1 Residency from Chunky Move and the Tanja Liedtke foundation in which alongside Luca Dante, he spawned Maelstrom, a multi-channel digital choreography installation premiering at MARS Gallery (Melbourne) and Metro Arts (Brisbane) in late 2021. Through Chunky Move, he also presented BONANZA! with Dr. Sam Mcgilp, a PerformancexDialogue media artwork that included conversations with NAXS corp (Taiwanese audiovisual art collective) and Lu Yang (Chinese digital artist). This work was a 2021 Green Room Award Finalist and selected for the Melbourne International Film Festival. In 2019 Harrison travelled to Japan to undertake a Kinosaki International Arts Centre residency alongside Dr. Mcgilp and dancer Yuiko Masukawa. Here they met Hiwa Kazuhiko a Sculptor/Media Artist and Makoto Uemura, a Non-human theatre maker. This inter-cultural team have since continued their collaborations in Running Machine, a new project, which recently received an On-Residence Grant through Dancehouse (Melbourne). In 2020 Harrison was selected as a participating artist at the Taiwan Performing Art Centre’s ADAM Lab and is thrilled to be continuing his connections within this network.