A series of footage that reflects the lockdown isolation due to Covid in 2020.
Concept and edit: Narelle Benjamin
Sound Design: Huey Benjamin
Performers: Marlo Benjamin, Josh Mu, Kate Dunn, Francis Rings, Brian Carby, Garry Stewart, Maddie Ziegler, Dean Walsh, Kay Armstrong, Julie Anne Long, Martin del Amo, Sara Black, Benjamin Hancock, Sue Healey, Alice Cummins, Kristina Chan, Paul White, Kathy Cogill, Claudia Alessi, Jazmine Lancaster, Anton, Narelle Benjamin.
The launch of 'PAUSE' coincides with the relaunch of the The ReelDance Archive with Narelle Benjamin being a curatorial consultant. The digital archive, held at the University of New South Wales, can now be explored on UNSW Library’s new platform for Digital Collections.
As part of the launch, Narelle and Erin will discuss the early influence of ReelDance and how it has shaped Narelle's screendance process.
Concept and edit: Narelle Benjamin
Sound Design: Huey Benjamin
Performers: Marlo Benjamin, Josh Mu, Kate Dunn, Francis Rings, Brian Carby, Garry Stewart, Maddie Ziegler, Dean Walsh, Kay Armstrong, Julie Anne Long, Martin del Amo, Sara Black, Benjamin Hancock, Sue Healey, Alice Cummins, Kristina Chan, Paul White, Kathy Cogill, Claudia Alessi, Jazmine Lancaster, Anton, Narelle Benjamin.
The launch of 'PAUSE' coincides with the relaunch of the The ReelDance Archive with Narelle Benjamin being a curatorial consultant. The digital archive, held at the University of New South Wales, can now be explored on UNSW Library’s new platform for Digital Collections.
As part of the launch, Narelle and Erin will discuss the early influence of ReelDance and how it has shaped Narelle's screendance process.
PODCAST INTERVIEW
DR ERIN BRANNIGAN WITH Narelle BENJAMIN
Recorded between Sydney, Australia & Los Angeles, USA. August 2020.
The ReelDance Archive
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The ReelDance Archive contains significant examples of local and international dance on screen work through the 1990s and 2000s, tracking the development of dance on screen as an art form over two decades in Australia and Internationally through the work of more than 200 renowned and emerging artists.
ReelDance began in 1999 in response to the growth in choreographic, screen-based works both internationally and in Australia and New Zealand. Under the guidance of founding director Erin Brannigan. After 12 years as a world-leading organisation dedicated to commissioning, exhibiting, promoting and collecting Australian and international dance on screen, ReelDance closed on 31 August 2012. The archive provides resources for teaching, research and artistic development in dance, an art form that is notoriously difficult to pin down as an object of study. Amongst practices where dance and the moving image co-exist, the collection documents developments in single-screen work across a crucial historical period. |
ReelDance archives
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ABOUT Dr ERIN BRANNIGAN
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Dr. Erin Brannigan is Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales.
Erin was the founding Director of ReelDance (1999-2008), a dance screen festival and organization that presented programs at the Sydney Opera House, ACMI, Arts House, Carriageworks, Powerhouse Brisbane, PICA Perth. She has curated dance screen programs and exhibitions for dance screen festivals in Italy, Argentina, Monaco, Israel, Brazil, New Zealand, UK, Spain and Indonesia, 2000-2007, as well as Sydney Festival 2008 and Melbourne International Arts Festival 2003. She programmed and commissioned work for a series of installation exhibitions including the first visual arts exhibition at Carriageworks, Choreographics (2007) featuring the work of Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker, Thierry de Mey and Simon Ellis/David Corbet. She presented Gesture :: Performance | Film | Dance on the public screens and performance venues of UNSW in 2010, and curated the performance component of Choreography and the Gallery: A One-Day Salon (Biennale of Sydney 2016, Art Gallery of NSW and UNSW). One of her earliest curatorial projects was Scrapbook ‘Live’: As Remembered by the Artist, Performance Space, September 2001, co-curated with artists Julie-Anne Long and Matthew Bergan. Erin has written on dance for RealTime since 1997, and her publications include Moving Across Disciplines: Dance in the Twenty-First Century (Sydney: Currency House, 2010), Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) and Bodies of Thought: 12 Australian Choreographers, co-edited with Virginia Baxter (Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2014). She has published articles in journals such as Senses of Cinema, Writings on Dance, Brolga, Dance Research Journal, Performance Paradigm, Broadsheet, Runway and International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media alongside several book chapters. |
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ABOUT NARELLE BENJAMIN
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Narelle Benjamin is a Sydney based artist now living in Los Angeles, whom has danced and choreographed with many Australian companies and independent artists over the years.
Narelle has worked on several films as a performer, choreographer and director. In 2007 she choreographed two films with the SDC made possible through receiving the Hepzibah Tintner Fellowship; Her films have won awards both here in Australia as well as overseas, including Best Short film at the Sydney Film Festival and the Australian Dance Award for Cordelia Beresford’s film “Restoration”, which Narelle choreographed and performed in. “The Shape of Water” receiving the Australian ReelDance Award in 2008 and I Dream Of Augustine with director Cordelia Beresford receiving the Australian Dance Award. Narelle premiered In Glass, her first full-length work, at the Sydney Opera House, Spring Dance Festival, and Malthouse, Dance Massive. In Glass was awarded the 2011 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance. Narelle was the recipient of the Australia Council Dance Fellowship for 2014-2015. Narelle presented Hiding in Plain Sight, at Performance Space, Carriageworks. Hiding in Plain Sight was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Choreography at the 2015 Australian Dance Awards. Narelle and Paul White created a full length work together, Cella, which evolved out of her somatic research as part of her Australia Council Fellowship. Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch included excerpts of Cella (Latin for cell) as part of their choreographic season, Underground, in July 2016. Paul and Narelle and premiered Cella in July 2017 at the COLOURS, International Dance Festival in Stuttgart, Germany. Cella had its Australian premiere at the Sydney Festival, Carriage Works 2018. Dance Massive March 2019. |
Narelle Benjamin in ‘Cella’. Photo by Pippa Samaya.
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FULL IntervieW Transcript
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Dr.Erin Brannigan: So welcome Narelle Benjamin to Dance Cinema. My name is Dr. Erin Brannigan and I'm interviewing Nelly about her new film and we're going to be talking a bit more broadly about dance screen and some of the history of dance screen in Australia and perhaps connecting it to ReelDance, International Dance Screen Festival, which we're both involved with in the early 2000s. Welcome, Nelly.
Narelle Benjamin: Thank you, Erin. Nice to be here. Dr.Erin Brannigan: All the way from L.A. So Nelly is currently based in L.A. And so, just in the context of the current pandemic. We're reaching out across the sea to have this chat. So, Nelly, could we just start with asking why you first started working with film? Because you had established yourself as a choreographer, but quite quickly turned to making films. Can you talk a bit about that? Narelle Benjamin: Yes. Well, actually, my first ever choreographic experience was working on Cordelia Beresford's film 'Restoration', and that was in 1999, so many moons ago now. Which I choreographed and danced in alongside Solon Ulbrich and I can't remember actually how Cordelia originally got in contact with me to be a film, but I think she'd seen a Chunky Move show and just called up and we met and it just went from there. So this gave me my very first opportunity to work on a film by chance, really. With an amazing director and cinematographer and to choreograph my own role for the first time and collaborate on the joy work in the film with Sol. But up until that point, I had been working in dance companies and had contributed choreographic lead to other choreographers processes, but hadn't actually choreographed my own work as yet. So this was an amazing opportunity. And working with Cordelia really opened up my eyes to another side of choreography and movement and what could be achieved like in this medium. And I really enjoyed working with the script for the first time also, where I could see and visualize the scenes and see the whole journey of the film as a whole. And yeah, and from this first experience, I was inspired in particular by the detail and intimacy that could be achieved and the possibilities with abstracting the body in the frame and working with a moving camera relationship to the moving body. Yes, so there's just like so many possibilities. So this was actually my first time I choreographed something for other than being in companies and contributing to their work. So this was before I started making work for stage as well. Dr.Erin Brannigan: Right, and so that was Cordelia's after graduating film, I think. Narelle Benjamin: Yes. Dr.Erin Brannigan: Yeah. And Cordelia is a very well established cinematographer, but she's made several short dance films in which you starred. Could you talk a little bit about what you learnt from watching Cordelia making the films that you were in? Narelle Benjamin: Yeah, I can remember really early on the first film with 'Restoration'. So that was like 20 years ago now. But when I was thinking about it and I think I learned so much from her as a director and I just remember this one time, like we did a take of one scene where I had to walk forward, like cautiously trying to see Sol and wondering if he was in my imagination or really there. And we finished the take and the camera operator said, oh, I think that might have been a bit dark, let's do it again. And Cordelia said, no, that's fine. That performance really communicated. I'm really happy with that. So the technical side for Cordelia didn't have to be perfect or wasn't as important as communicating to the audience through the performances and capturing the intention. But of course, you know, the technical side was really important to Cordelia as well. And she was an amazing cinematographer. I think Cordelia is also a really talented director, and I just loved working with her, directing me as a performer. And I think that some of my best work as a performer I've done and I really trusted her and felt free to explore. And she pushed me in new directions. And she knew what when she had captured what she was after. And probably my favourite film I worked on with Cordelia was 'I dream of Augustine', and it was an experimental work exploring the legacy of the 19th-century hysterical patient Augustine. And we did a lot of acting exercises with an acting teacher in preparation for the film and researched all of the old photographs of Augustine. He was the finest patient of Dr.Schuckert in France, and these photos became known as the most infamous visual representations of women's experiences; the hysteria. I remember shooting this at Carriageworks before the building was renovated and was the old train yard, where my grandfather used to work. So that was kind of special as a blacksmith. And I remember we place the target on the ground that was just grub and grot everywhere. And I had to roll around the floor constantly. And when I was warming up, a redback spider kind of ran past and I like, oh my god, I had to keep that out of my head, the whole kind of shoot. But during that shoot, it was literally just myself and Cordelia shooting and directing. And she set up a few lights. And then Huey my husband, he came along to help. And he was the hands of the doctor in the film. So, yeah, it's often the intimate films, are my favourite and the simple films and the low budget films, but that was an amazing experience. When I made my film 'The Shape of Water' with the Sydney Dance Company through the Hepzibah Fellowship, I asked Cordelia to direct that film as I didn't have the confidence yet to direct a film in that scale, with so many people involved. And I know she's so experienced and would do a beautiful job as she did and Cordelia and I have worked on other film projects over the years also. And more recently in 2018, we made an installation piece where I got to work with Cordelia and my daughter Marlo. So that was a real treat. And the installation was shot at the Mosman Art Gallery for three months. And this work was called 'Disappointing doll', is was inspired by a photograph taken in a Sydney asylum in 1860, and the image was of a girl recorded only as orphan child aged three. And this process was very open with Marlo and I just improvised and worked with the space and the photographs, the rain on the day. But once again, it was wonderful just to be directed by Cordelia and she made a beautiful two-screen installation and lightbox of the photo of the little orphan girl. So I guess my experience working with Cordelia has been more as a performer and being directed by her, and I've probably read more on that level. I was never part of her editing process, even though I would always come in and give some input along the way. And Cordelia, you know, would always work with great editors. She didn't do this part of the process herself, but, of course, would work really closely with the editors she was working with. So we've had a long collaboration over the years. The last time we worked together was 2018, first time, 2000. So there's been a few years there. 
Some of the biggest challenges with the first films I directed was that I was performing in them. So I had a few hats on at the same time. Dr. Erin Brannigan: Yeah wow, that's a long standing collaboration. Nelly, could we talk a bit about the early films that you made? I think your very first film was 'Arachne' that you co-directed with Matthew Bergan, is that right? Dr. Erin Brannigan: That is right, yes. That was the was the very first film. And then the next one that I did was 'On a wing on a prayer'. Yeah, probably some of the biggest challenges with the first films I directed was that I was performing in them. So I had a few hats on at the same time. And, you know, I really trusted my collaborators that I was working with. And we had already done so much preparation in the lead up to the shoots. But it was often really stressful and things always took longer than expected, setting up shoots with lighting and always on a tight time schedule. So just staying in the performing headspace was sometimes difficult. Yeah, and also just doing everything on a small budget, which I'm sure everyone can relate to, that makes dance films or probably films in general. And the other challenges have been mostly technical. You know, I'm not so technically inclined, but luckily my husband Huey is pretty good and much more patient than I am. Even the other day we had challenges finishing the sound for the video 'Pause' as well. And it took like hours and hours longer than expected and 'Pod'. So I made 'Pod' with Samuel James, who is like a beautiful filmmaker who I've worked with on many projects, and he's worked on six of my stage works and with my two films together, 'Pod' and 'Realm'. And this film 'Pod' was inspired by the beautiful detail of bloss filled nature photographs. And it was actually a really enjoyable process. Making this film, like the dances from the Sydney Dance Company, were really well, well-rehearsed and the shoot was smooth sailing. And Sam just shot the dancers in the studio. So it was kind of low stress and composited then into natural environments. So Sam had the hard work once the shoot was finished, that's for sure. It was pretty technical, but that Sam's specialty, amongst many other things, we also incorporated some of this footage from 'Pod' into the live-work 'Gossamer' that I choreographed for the stage for the Sydney Dance Company. And Sam worked on this piece with me also. And our original idea was that we would make the film 'Pod', but then use some of the footage from the live work for the live-work also. Dr. Erin Brannigan: So those films, 'Arachne' 2002, 'On a Wing and a Prayer' 2003 and 'Pod' is 2006, this was really I feel like, at the height of the emergence of dance screen, it was when we were running ReelDance and there were lots of international festivals popping up in your films, was circulating quite a lot internationally. Were the dance screen artists around at that time that you had access to, who influenced your work in this area? Narelle Benjamin: I think from working with you and helping you curate the ReelDance festival and just seeing all the wonderful films, from overseas that was sent in and from Europe, and I was so inspired by some of the filmmakers and choreographers making films during this period and just thinking back. I was thinking like Thierry de Mey films, Mey's films were just so beautiful, as were David Hinton's and Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker. And I remember that beautiful film by 'Ballets C de la B', that Kathy Cogill was in as she was working with a company. At that time in Europe. Yeah, I was inspired by so many of the filmmakers and choreographers making films during this period, and I really enjoyed working with you, Erin, helping curate the ReelDance festivals as I got to see so many films over this period, like from Europe and around the world. And just thinking back Thierry de Mey's films, were just so beautiful as what David Hinton's and Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker's films and that beautiful film by 'Ballets C de la B' that Kathy Cogill was in as she was working with the company at that time in Europe. And Kathy is in the video that I just made 'Pause'. She's the beautiful lady carrying the suitcase on the beach. And I really remember the film 'Tempus Fugit', which was choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. And that film really had a big impact on me. And I remember being so in awe and inspired by the incredible dancers from Europe that we didn't often get to see here in Australia. It was like an honesty and a rawness that translated on a visceral and emotional level for me, just heightened by the intimacy of film. And it was so great to connect with Sidi Larbi and Damien Gillet years later, as I remember them both so clearly from the films they were in. And I really remember Damien in the forest film that Thierry de Mey made. I can't remember the name of that film, though, that that was such a gorgeous film. But it be in the library for sure. Dr. Erin Brannigan: Yeah, I'll have to remember the name of that one, Nelly. Narelle Benjamin: And 'Tempus Fugit', because Damien did a beautiful solo in that throughout that whole film. And the other film that jumps to mind that we curated for the festival was Douglas Wright's documentary. I think was called 'Haunting Douglas'. That was such a poignant moving film and what an incredible man and dancer. And he also made some beautiful dance films himself that everyone should try and see. And some of them are in the ReelDance library also. He had a big impact on me also as a dancer. And the simplicity, commitment and vulnerability and the intimacy of his films really spoke to me also. And he just put so much of himself in there. And yeah, I did work with him when I was younger with the Chrissie Parrott Company. So I guess I had a personal connection to him as well. So actually thinking about it is always incredible dancers that have inspired me, most probably, and communicating through their physicality, then heightened by the intimacy that film can capture. So film is the perfect medium to capture these qualities. And one of the reasons why I was attracted to the medium, I think in the first place, and I just love seeing all the films from this era with Reeldance. 
So this was really a film that was a response to the effects of the pandemic and particularly having to isolate for so long in L.A. It's a beautiful film and you've really handed over authorship to the contributors who have each devised a little sequence in their own domestic space or somewhere near their home. Dr. Erin Brannigan: So talking about intimacy. Your new film 'Pause', which was made this year and were premiering it on Dance Cinema. The brief was I'm just going to quote you 'architecturally extracting the body into your home environment, your physical body as an extension of your home furniture, paintings, doorways, carpets, etc. Or if you're close to nature or an environment that has been a big part of your isolation, working with illusion, abstraction, humour, mortality, loss of identity, the body being home. And you quote a Romanian philosopher, Mircea Eliade, who refers to home as the heart of the real. So this was really a film that was a response to the effects of the pandemic and particularly having to isolate for so long in L.A. It's a beautiful film and you've really handed over authorship to the contributors who have each devised a little sequence in their own domestic space or somewhere near their home. Could you just talk about the impetus for the film? What drove you to make this film? Narelle Benjamin: So we went into lockdown literally two weeks after we arrived in America, so well before Australia did. So I got to know my new home, my new apartment very quickly and intimately and lucky I love to like being in this new space as we were literally 24/7 for weeks and actually now months. We're not in lockdown now, but we are still laying low as so many COVID cases and deaths here in America. So I was, as I do, doing my yoga every day at home and moving around a bit and after a few weeks. Literally felt like I'd become part of the furniture, a part of the space and that blurry line between your physical body and the space you're in then and also being isolated was probably more heightened, being away from home for me and feeling so far away from everybody. So I thought I'd really like to connect with my artist, friends and family and people I've had a really close connection to and work with over the years. So I sent out the email to see who'd be interested in contributing and for them just to shoot something on their iPhones, you know, just to mark this time in history together, even if it was just for the archives. And I really enjoyed receiving the clips at different times from everyone. So over a month and a half or two. So, yeah, it was probably like two months that if I'm just singly kind of sent me a video here and there and I just loved all the variety within the clips and the different moods and textures and colours and energy and some of the clips were just so beautifully intimate. It was like receiving little gifts from everybody and so reassuring seeing these artists that I've had so much to do with over the years, every day through the editing process. So it made me feel like I was at home as well. And as I was editing, I was really interested in giving the illusion that we were all moving together simultaneously in a moment, in time together and trying to capture that. And it's a very humble video, I think, even just setting up the iPhones themselves. So hence there isn't very much camera movement in the video. And I wanted to stay honest to the material also. So is basically the raw footage that everyone sent me with just a few effects and layering and some grating here and there. And the video is really personal and intimate, I think, and conveys, on the whole, a feeling of solitude and reflection and the pause from our everyday lives and the pace that we're all so used to, as well as the frustrations, anxiety and confinement and the longing to move forward from this period. I think. And thank goodness there's some humour in there as well from Brian Carby and Julie Anne Long. It all felt like over this period of time. I would pick out what I thought was gold within the clips that some people sent me, like really short clips. And some people sent me quite a few types of things. And so it was a real variety of even lengths of at the clips. And then I'd edit them in relationship to what was already on the timelines. So whatever arrived first, I kind of picked that out and made something of that in the next clip would come, and I put that in relationship to what was already on the timeline. So every new clip had to find its place in relationship to what was already there. And I tried to continue stories along the timeline. If there was a journey to follow and some clips were just images, which I also loved to mix it up and just give extra layers and textures along the way. And I think there's like twenty-one performers in the film, but I hope you get a sense of everyone. And it's great Kate Dunn my friend who I've known for years and we dance in the Chunky Move company together. So she's living in L.A. at the moment too. So she's in the film which is great. And also Maddie Ziegler. And she's living in America now, too. And she's part of the family now, also because she's my son's girlfriend and she's a dancer as well, too. So she's in the film. And then Paul White, who's living in Germany because we've worked really closely together and then everyone else is mainly Australian living in Australia at the moment. Dr. Erin Brannigan: I thought the editing was really interesting because you seem to be following little mini patterns within the footage. So there's a sort of cluster of images around perhaps working indoors with domestic furniture. And then there's another cluster that seems to be more about action and gesture and then there's kind of an extension out to external sites. How difficult was that editing process given you had such diverse materials? Narelle Benjamin: I think because I did receive the clips, like over the two months, I just felt like. Everyone's journey sort of just found its place, but I think I probably worked more with energy levels throughout it, like and in the middle it sort of becomes a little bit more darker and intense with like with Kate Dunn, and then with Antoine, using the breath and then using Gary's frenetic energy by the fridge. And so I think I kind of probably worked more energetically throughout it. And then also like trying to start like at the beginning of someone's journey and continue that along the timeline. So that to the very end. So the starting with Franie and then the finishing with Franie or painted up with her legs and... Yeah and lots of tinkering and changing things here and there. And also visually, I really like working with the impetuous of what visually comes before and trying to kind of energetically connect that into the next clip, even though some of the clips. Yeah. Are so different. And sometimes it does kind of feel a bit choppy as such. But I feel like with the sound to like Huey has... So we've evolved the sound since you last heard. It helps too, because we've used a lot of the natural location sounds, which were quite harsh. I was sort of pulled that back a little bit, but then try to. Yeah, it's interesting, like some clips beautifully with the sound, you could sort of like connect them and they could overlap. And then some of the things they just worked really well, just like chopping from one thing to another. So once again, I've connected things in clusters kind of with the sound as well, too, I think. Yes gel the piece together as well, I think. Dr. Erin Brannigan: And such an amazing group of performers, too, from people like Gary Stewart, who runs one of our major dance organizations. To Maddie Ziegler over in the States, to Francis Rings, one of the choreographers with Bangarra, to Brian Carby, who has been very much a mentor of many people in the dance community in Sydney. And writer, an extraordinary kind of performer and choreographer. So, yeah, an amazing, amazing mixture of people that you managed to pull together. Narelle Benjamin: And beautiful. Ben Handcock from Melbourne. Because I've had a really close with him and we've had a lot to do with each other over the years. So. Yeah. So it was so nice receiving, getting little gifts from everybody. Yeah. It was really nice and keeps me busy as well. Which was. Yeah. Which was a bonus that's for sure. And it made me just really appreciate the editing process even more as well. And I just thought and that was I think the one thing in the film process that I enjoy the most is the editing process and the choreographing, you know, in the edit. Yeah, just choreographing and re-choreographing. And yes, it's just so many possibilities. And it's actually something that I've always really been interested in, even in my late 20s when I was pregnant with Marlo and I went to Metro Screen and did an editing course then. But actually, I remember I was like I had morning sickness most of the time. But I'm sure I did learn something. And in my early 20s as well, a friend of mine, Kia McFarlane, used to make video clips and that was when they actually cut the film and tape the film back together. And I was yes, I've always really been interested in editing and it is probably my favourite. And I like just doing it by myself. I like sitting with my computer, being by myself and just taking my time with that. I just find it so enjoyable. Dr. Erin Brannigan: Yeah. So and I guess that range of artists to really speaks to the previous work that's been done in dance screen in Australia. So we're linking the premiere of this film with the relaunch of the ReelDance moving image collection, which is a selection of films that was screened at ReelDance between its first festival in 2000 all the way through to 2009, and it includes a snapshot of the work that was really being done in that period, both domestically and internationally. And so many of the artists in the in the film were making films at that time. People like Gary Stewart, Bangarra were making films. And yes, so many of Julie Anne Long and so it's kind of a really beautiful film to link back to that history, I suppose. So Nelly, when you think back to that time and the role of ReelDance within the broader dance community, what do you think it was responding to and what was it representing? Narelle Benjamin: It was yeah, when I think back, it was just such a great time for dance as a whole in Australia, I think, you know, and it really connected the entire dance community. And it just brought a lot of artists from different disciplines together and inspired many Australian artists, including myself, to create films and further our choreographic practice through the film medium during this era, as well as being able to be inspired by the dance films from around the world during the festival. So it was a really rich time in the dance world. And yeah, and I think over that period time I had six films screened at the festival and also worked on other people's films as a dancer, other choreographers films. And yeah, there were many workshops from overseas artists during this period organised by ReelDance that many Australian dancers and choreographers and filmmakers were part of. Yeah, it was a really exciting time and it made such a difference to have a platform to show our films and a festival to celebrate the art form every two years. And that attracted international artists as well as Australian artists. And and it also toured around Australia. So having your work to the country is part of the festival was really special also. Yeah, it was a really that was a really rich are really rich time in Australian dance on so many levels having that festival. Dr. Erin Brannigan: Yeah, it certainly, I think, was really helpful for people to see work from overseas that wasn't available here and that wasn't touring here. I think that was really an important part of what we were doing. 
Narelle Benjamin: Yeah, definitely. And I just yet learnt so much. I just love seeing all those European films during that time. And yeah, it really influenced me in my making for stage work as well as my film work and kind of pinpointing more what I was kind of interested in as well too I guess. Yeah. So, Erin, I really want to ask you also what originally attracted to dance on film? And then you've written your book and you've done all your research and started the festival, which you curated all those years as well, too. And I've never actually really known where that passion kind of like came from and how originally you became interested in dance on film as well. Dr. Erin Brannigan: Yeah, it's interesting because I guess I think that it would probably was just watching musicals when I was growing up because my mom was really into them. And now my mom's a lot older and talking about when she was really young, going to all the cinemas in the inner West in Sydney. Apparently there were a lot around Hurlstone Park, Dulwich hill, Summer hill. And my mother was really very fond of them and back in those days they would show a lot of the old films on telly on the weekend and my mother would sing along. So I think I just kind of, by osmosis, I sort of developed a kind of interest in film musicals. And then I guess I did a few music video clips when I was still dancing. And I was really interested in that format because it seemed to just allow so much freedom in terms of how you could shoot dance. Yeah, but then I guess when I was doing film studies at Sydney Uni, Laleen Jayamanne was one of my lecturers and she showed us Chantelle Ackerman's film on Pina Bausch. And I think for me that was a combination of beautiful experimental filmmaking from Ackerman and the amazing work about and it was such it's such a strong collaboration between those two amazing artists. So that really sparked something in me. And so then when I went back to do my PhD, I really wanted to focus on that. And I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to run the festival at the same time. So writing my PhD and curating the festival were really great combination. Yeah. So a little bit convoluted. I guess it was also just access. I knew that it was a really great way for people to access dance internationally, which is really, I guess, becoming very important now with all of the digital performances available online. But I also knew that it was a good way for dance companies to get exposure. And looking at the success of a company like DV8, Lloyd Newson's company, he was so smart having his films, having his choreography filmed really well by David Hinton. It really accelerated his exposure internationally. So, yeah, it was a combination of all those things, I suppose. Yeah. But it certainly feels like that period there were so many little dance film festivals popping up and they were physical like people would go and gather. And I visited quite a few of them in Ireland and Monaco and Naples and the Netherlands. And I feel like it may be a time that's passed in some ways because everything's so available online now. Narelle Benjamin: And the bigger festivals now that still exist, the bigger dance on film festivals. Dr. Erin Brannigan: Yeah, but then there's this other economy where the films are circulating online in a different way. And the work that the Dance Cinema guys are doing with the way they present films and have them streaming for a certain amount of time. It's a really, it's just another model and it's curated and it's a community. It's yeah it's great. Narelle Benjamin: Yeah. I'm sure through this period of time with COVID, I'm sure so many films will be made during this period. So I'm feeling like we should have a whole lot of festivals where everyone can go and be together and watch the films together. Yeah, I performance for a long while but yeah I think that would be a nice thing if that kind of happened. Even in Australia, there should be a few festivals of the films that people have made over this period of time and where everyone can come together and watch them together, not just on their screens. Dr. Erin Brannigan: Yeah, that's a lovely idea. Um. We might wrap up there, Nellie. Thank you so much for chatting with me across the seas and when you and I have a chat. And please enjoy Nelly's film and delve into some of those films in the real dance archive that we've mentioned. Not all of them are in there. It's the filmmaker's discretion about whether they're available or not, but its certainly a lot of Australian work and some really great international work to explore. So thank you. Thank you. Bye. |
"This was really a film that was a response to the effects of the pandemic and particularly having to isolate for so long"... |
