show hiding film study series

The ‘age of screens’ has changed the production and consumption of culture irrevocably, particularly for dance, arguably the most ephemeral of art forms. Over the next three years, Tasdance is embarking on a ‘body-to-screen’ project to explore the ways human movement, human form and dance translate to screen.

This project commenced at the beginning of 2018 with the production of a series of individual short video studies entitled Show Hiding. The creation of this series was part of Tasdance’s summer intensive Exposure 2018: Free Fall.

The ‘brief’ to the Exposure participants was to create a ‘self-portrait’ that shared identity without revealing the face. That is, the body – in part or whole – needed to do the ‘talking’. The dancer-makers in most instances also created their own, or each other’s, sound.

For broader social contextualisation of the task we added the question: “If the projection of our individual identities onto the surfaces (screens) of the world is a play between what we reveal and conceal, what are some different ways to show hiding?

Felicity Bott
Tasdance Artistic Director