Metamorphetic States: Bodies, Entities, Forces, Atmospheres

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DATES
10 FEB - 10 MAR 2025
MONDAYS
6:30PM - 9PM

10 FEB, 17 FEB
24 FEB, 3 MAR, 10 MAR

LOCATION
THE DRILL HALL, CRITICAL PATH
1C NEW BEACH ROAD, DARLING POINT, NSW, 2027
GADIGAL & BIRRABIRRAGAL COUNTRY

PRICE:
SINGLE CLASS: $30 (+ booking fee)
5-WEEK PASS: $120 (+ booking fee)

PARTIAL SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE FOR QTBIPOC IF NEEDED (8-WEEK PASS ONLY)
* To apply, please email your BIO when applying for the scholarship to Victoria Hunt at victoria.l.hunt@gmail.com

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Based on the success of Victoria's 8-week practice series in 2024, Critical Path is thrilled to invite you to a continuation of this series for 2025. This year, the workshops will take place from 6:30PM-8:30PM followed by an optional talking circle and a cuppa till 9PM.

FROM THE ARTIST

Metamorphetic States: Bodies, Entities, Forces, Atmospheres

Can we perceive, construct, and perform animate relationships that are more-than-human?
Can we become the architect of guardian and protector energies during times of collapse?
How must we attune ourselves to the dynamics of embodied intelligence, dream logic, ancestral wisdom and living cycles - coexisting in radical gestures amid the malevolent forces shaping our times.

Lineages: We will engage with diverse strategies, notably IndigiQueer futurisms, Mātauranga Māori (Indigenous-Māori knowledges) and BODYWEATHER philosophy, which questions what the body is, where awareness and consciousness arise, and how the imagination functions within the practice.

This workshop series will offer processes that playfully question the bedrock of how we live our lives. Participants are invited to come as you are, and bring your imaginations, an openness to try new approaches, and curiosity.

Fields of inquiry include:

MB (mind><body, muscle><bone) - a rigorous series of rhythmic and dynamic proposals which cultivate strength, stamina, flexibility, coordination.

MANIPULATIONS - a partner-based practice involving one practitioner giving and the other receiving a series of touch-based stimulations, with roles alternating throughout.

IMAGE-BASED SENSORY EXPLORATIONS – sensitivity training and movement creation through refined image-based propositions and improvisational practices.

NB: BODYWEATHER philosophy was developed by Min Tanaka and his Mai-Juku performance company in Japan. Tess de Quincey was a member of Mai-Juku (1985-91) introduced the BODYWEATHER practice into Australia in 1989. Victoria Hunt joined De Quincey Co. to begin an apprenticeship in 2000.

ABOUT VICTORIA HUNT

Victoria Hunt is a multidisciplinary artist with ancestral affiliations to Te Arawa, Rongowhaakata, Kahungunu (Māori), Irish, English, Finnish heritages. Born on Kombumerri Country (Surfers Paradise, Australia), their work as a dancer, choreographer, director, dramaturg and photographer delves into Indigenous epistemologies within diasporic concepts of identity formation and belonging. Grounded in Mātauaranga Māori, Body Weather philosophy/practice and IndigiQueer revitalization within creation practices, they traverse the politics of Rematriation – inserting bodies into frameworks of power, for future ancestors.

Their award-winning works, Copper Promises: Hinemihi Haka and Tangi Wai…the cry of water have toured nationally and internationally to critical acclaim. Copper Promises was nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best Female Performer in Dance, then toured to Origins Festival (UK), IMPACT15, PuSh Festival, National Arts Centre, Public Energy, Scene Contemporaine Autochtone - FTA - Festival TransAmeriques (CA); Tangi Wai...the cry of water premiered at Liveworks Festival (Syd) and Dance Massive (Naarm/Melb) and was nominated for an Australia Dance Award, Helpmann Award, three Green Room Awards, receiving Best Visual Design in Dance. Her short film TAKE won the Mana Whenua award (Wairoa Film Festival 2019) and has screened across six continents. Their recent work KŌIWI was commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW and Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, premiered at Sydney Modern in July 2023.

She is a member of De Quincey Co. Australia’s leading Body Weather dance company (Syd), holds a BA in Photography (1999), a first-class honours in Performance Studies (UNSW 2018), is a feature artist in the Biennale of the Arts of the Body, Image and Movement (Madrid), and is the lead actor in two feature-length speculative fiction films, Nightfall on Gaia (2015) and Cosmographies (2024), both directed by Juan Salazar. Victoria is the co-founder of Weather Beings with 2Spirit Metis artist Moe Clark (tio'tia:ke/Montreal).

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This project is proudly supported by Critical Path.

Critical Path respectfully acknowledges the Gadigal and Birrabirragal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land where the organisation is based.

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IMAGE ID: An otherworldly spectral entity is partially visible - hovering between a liminal threshold of fine particle mist. There are minimal details in this shrouded light grey realm. She wears an assemblage of grey and white regalia and her arm is raised to hold in place a bone relic mask which completely covers the head.

IMAGE CREDIT: COSMOGRAPHIES film still; photo: Juan Salazar; and KŌIWI, commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of the exhibition Dreamhome: Stories of Art and Shelter, and co-commissioned by Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, an ARC linkage project hosted by UNSW, Monash University Museum of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Tate UK, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Neilson Foundation, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Sydney and Marrugeku;