Author Archives: Richard

Dance in nature – virtual lunch with Elizabeth Cameron Dalman

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Noon – 1pm, Saturday 30 October 2021
A Gunning Arts Festival event

Book and pay

Join Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM, dubbed the Mother of Contemporary Dance in Australia, for a virtual lunch and enjoy her presentation about her work creating dance in Nature.

Pour yourself a glass of Prosecco, prepare a cheese board and sit back in the comfort of your home for this intimate gathering, a Gunning Arts Festival 2021 online event.

Elizabeth was the founder of Australian Dance Theatre in Adelaide in 1965 and its director for 10 years before moving to Italy where she lived and worked in the tiny hilltop village of Airole for 11 years before returning to Australia.

She bought a property on the shores of Lake George/Weereewa just over thirty years ago and created Mirramu Creative Arts Centre and Mirramu Dance Company. Since then, her work making site specific work in Nature has flourished and a string of productions has been made and shown both in the open air and in theatres in Australia and internationally.

Now in her eighties, Elizabeth is still dancing, choreographing, teaching and mentoring, as well as taking care of the 100 acre bush property set beside the ancient and sacred lake, which has been the inspiration for so many of her dance theatre works.

Attendance will be via Zoom.

Payment

Cost $5 which will help support the costs of production, the artists and the festival administration.

Upon payment, participants will be sent a link to join the dance in nature lunch party.

Please support your local food and beverage vendors by ordering directly from them so that you can make this a special event at home.

The Gunning Arts Festival is supported by the Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal via its Tackling Tough Times Together program and is proudly sponsored by Bailey’s Garage, BJCE Australia, Upper Lachlan Foundation, and the Upper Lachlan Shire Council.

Summer Solstice 21 Dec 2019 – Update

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We are going ahead with the Summer Solstice celebration and performance today. However due to the heat, the smoke and unpredictability of the terrible weather and fire conditions, we are scaling down the event.

We have also made arrangements to hold it indoors if necessary. Please make your own decision about attending or not. Of course, we would love to see you but we also totally understand if you decide not to come, especially when you have to make such a long journey in the heat.

We are hoping to film the performance in situ on Sunday, weather permitting. Let me know if you would like to attend this. And/or we may try to schedule the performance again in 2020. We will let you know if we do this and post advice to this website and Facebook.

Christmas and New Year greetings from Mirramu to all.

Book launch

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tempestsOn 21 April Mirramu was host to the launch of Barbie Robinson’s poetry book: That looks on tempests – thoughts on the nature of love (published 2018, For Pity Sake Publishing Sydney).

A happy crowd assembled for drinks and chat in the grounds with wonderful catering by Bernadette Johnson.

The launch contained a number of performance elements including three beautiful dances by Mandy Tutalo and a rendition of one of Barbie’s poems by composer/musician Gabriela Cabral. It was a delightful event drawing on the magic of place and enabled by a team of wonderful helpers.

The book is available in Canberra at Harry Hartog’s Booksellers, Woden and online at http://forpitysake.com.au

Wellington Festival

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Wellington Festival, New Zealand, 14 – 17 March


By contrast with Ireland, Wellington turned on uncharacteristically balmy weather, and festival audiences very much enjoyed the four performances and a meet-the-artists forum in the beautiful old St James Theatre.

After Wellington, the Teac Damsa company moved on with performances in Luxemburg, Seoul and soon in Cologne, Germany and Longford in Ireland. Elizabeth is taking a short break from touring to work on home based projects at Mirramu.

Irish tour of Loch na hEala

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Ireland

Touring with Teac Damsa’s Loch na hEala continued with six weeks in Dublin and regional Ireland. Yet another accolade came in the form of best contemporary dance choreographer (British Dance Awards 2018). Audiences responses continued to be very positive with standing ovations everywhere.

The weather was less kind with freezing conditions and snow as the Beast from the East met a storm front from the south west causing cancellations of two performances in Mullingar and confining the cast to barracks for two days.

The famous Abbey Theatre that is steeped in history and full of theatrical spirits, was a place of deep inspiration for our two-week season there.

Adelaide Walk of Fame

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In January 43 degree heat in Adelaide Elizabeth was inducted into the Adelaide Festival Centre Walk of Fame. There was an excellent morning ceremony attended by many of those represented in the Walk and an evening Gala concert with a great variety of entertainment. Great job Adelaide Festival Centre.

2018 new year greetings

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Sadlers Wells photoNew year greetings  and heartfelt thanks for your continuing interest in our work.

Drawing breath and catching you up on our news – we know many of our Mirramu community have kept up with us but here is a little bit of light reading to bring you up to speed with our main comings and goings from late 2015 to the present.

2017 – a whirlwind of activity

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2017 was a busy year at Mirramu and elsewhere.

Perth WA -February, working on the second stage of Dust on the Shortbread.

Mirramu Creative Arts Centre Bungendore NSW– March, working with Sue Healey from Sydney and Dancecology from Taiwan on Lineage/Contours, a dance film project supported by artsACT. Also performing and presenting at Liz Lea’s BOLD festival, March, in a variety of Canberra venues including Belconnen Arts Centre, National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery of Australia as well as QL2 at Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres (Gorman House).

Contours filming session, March 2017

Contours filming session on Weereewa. Photograph: Barbie Robinson

 Loch na hEala in 2017 continued its success and a demanding world touring schedule

  • Brighton Festival, UK, May
  • Clomel, Ireland, July
  • Stuttgart, Germany, July – Colours Festival
  • Sydney Opera House, NSW Australia, September
  • Moscow, Russia, November – Theatre of the Nations
  • Sadlers Wells, December, London return performance

Stuttgart performance July 2017

Stuttgart performance. Photo courtesy Michael Keegan-Dolan

At Mirramu Creative Arts Centre – in association with Force Majeur and Griffith Regional Gallery/Theatre – a five-day dance workshop for young Aboriginal women from Griffith.

Adelaide, South Australia, September – the launch of the Australian Dance Theatre book, FIFTY and a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Dance Excentrix/Arts Excentrix. Book launch photographs: Barbie Robinson

 

Critical Path Residencies – supported by funding from Regional Arts NSW, in partnership with Critical Path Sydney, Mirramu welcomed choreographer/dancers Katina Olsen in September and I Chin Lin (Taiwan) and Lisa Maris McDonell (NSW) in November.

 

Taiwan – Elizabeth was joined by Mirramu Dance Company co-founder, Vivienne Rogis, for the Tsai Jui Yueh Festival in Taipei in November. They performed a duet entitled Spiral Passage.

Tsai Jui Yueh Festival 2017

Photo supplied by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman

 

2016 – new directions and exciting projects

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2016 was a year of transition and progression for Elizabeth and  Mirramu with many and varied opportunities to share with other artists. 

In Perth WA – working with Serena Chalker and Quindell Orton from Anything Is Valid Dance Theatre in Perth on their new project – Dust on the Short Bread. Elizabeth worked with actor George Shevtsov on this production. This is a site-alternative performance set in a house in North Perth. exploring the lives of an older couple; the tension between maintaining independence and vitality and the effects of dementia in the ageing process. This work explores a generational connection to the comforts of home.

In Sydney –  working with Sue Healey on her film En Route. This was a great experience traveling to Sydney for a shoot on the railway lines at Carriage Works and then up to Cooma for filming on some very old regional railway stations. The film is now complete and recently was showing on a new panorama screen at the Wynyard train Station in Sydney. Congratulations to Sue for her great work, her camera-man, Judd Overton, and the rest of the team. Photos supplied by Elizabeth Cameron-Dalman.

Auckland, New Zealand – attending the un-Disciplining Dance Symposium in Auckland, New Zealand. Elizabeth presented a paper entitled Embodiment of the Land.

In Ireland  – and the beginning of an amazing new adventure. Elizabeth was accepted into Michael Keegan Dolan’s dance theatre company, Teac Damsa, to perform in his new version of Swan Lake – Loch na hEala. It was an exciting adventure to travel to Ireland and to work with Michael and his team of performers, musicians, designers, technicians and management. They are a wonderful group of people coming from many different parts of the globe – Ireland, England, France, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, New Zealand, Korea, Belgium and Australia.  After 6 – 8 weeks of preparation the troupe moved to Tallaght near Dublin for two performances.

Aarhuis.theatreFrom there the tour went to:

  • Dublin proper for nine performances as a part of the 2016 Dublin Theatre Festival
  • Aarhus in Denmark for two performances in a gorgeous old style theatre (pictured).
  • Sadlers Wells Theatre in London. This for Elizabeth was the highlight in a wonderful theatre where nearly 800 people came each night.

The production received excellent reviews everywhere. It was listed by Judith Mackrell from the Guardian in London as one of the 10 best productions in Great Britain for 2016. Loch na hEala/Swan Lake was awarded  best production and best costume design for 2016 in  the Irish Times Theatre Awards.

Cadenet, France  –  attending a special Mobius Kiryuho workshop in Cadenet, France. This was a celebration of the work of Master Kajo Tsuboi in France during the past 30 years.

Finishing 2015 – a year of celebration

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Already lots has been said about 2015 – it was a year of celebration with the 50th anniversary of Australian Dance Theatre and Mirramu’s suite of performances and events in Canberra and Adelaide. Fortuity and L showcased Elizabeth’s signature works and saw collaborations with Dancecology from Taiwan and Australian Dance Theatre.

We were fortunate to be supported by Arts NSW and artsACT for our local projects and went all out with personal; funding for the very important Adelaide season at the Festival Theatre Centre. Photographs: Barbie Robinson

TAIWAN  –  TNUA and Tsai Jui Yueh Festival

Elizabeth worked as guest lecturer at the Taipei National University of the Arts for four months from September 2015.

She also participated again in the Tsai Jui Yueh International Dance Festival mounting three sections of Tango Lament from Mirramu Dance Company’s repertoire.  Vivienne Rogis and Hans Ahwang-Ware joined Elizabeth for the festival and together they danced a new version of Tree Spirit. Hans also performed a Torres Strait Island dance.

Elizabeth joined Dancecology for several events and was one of the teachers for their three-day Dance in the Environment workshop. Grace and Elizabeth spoke to members of the Taipei Wilderness Society about their intention through site-specific and nature inspired works to bring people’s awareness to environmental issues.