Meg Foley
Lay of this Land

Lay of this Land (working title) is a solo performance derived from an improvisational practice which Foley began in 2010. In this practice, she attempts to choreograph and perform the transparency of performing. This is part of how it feels: I want to connect with you, to show you all of this; I want this to be worth it, and I want to enact my body on this space, enact my consciousness on my body. What if this is all I’ve got? In that case, I want more. More bodies, more feeling, more dimensionality. With your gaze, I go further, and I appreciate that. I care about what you go through with me. As much as it can be as I’m throwing myself off a proverbial cliff for you (me), re-orienting the space for you (me), this is mutual. I am mapping experience from the inside, where mapping is the act of placing a system of thought and perception atop something that already has its own intricate series of relationships and organization. I am this Meg with many. I absorb all information present and it collides to manifest the form that is Meg.

Transparency in this context aims to reveal the psychology of performance, to share, to ask what is it to be seen, and to recognize that you can’t hold onto anything, especially one understanding of experience.

This solo practice has been supported by the generous involvement of peer and coaching artists: Gregory Holt, Christina Gesualdi, Annie Wilson, luciana achugar, and Jeanine Durning, respectively. The practice is performative and is made in the moment so it often does “better” (perhaps I mean more challenged, supple and far-reaching) with others in the room. For that reason in 2012 I performed it six times in various performance contexts.

Meg Foley is a Philadelphia-based artist. Her work has been shown in Philadelphia, NYC, Toronto, and Warsaw in proscenium theaters, low-tech spaces, visual art galleries, at outdoor festivals, and at a TEDx event in Phoenixville, PA. She currently collaborates with Gregory Holt as a process contributor on his quest to choreograph and perform 10,000 non-repeating movements. Aside from dancing, her favorite things to do are looking at others’ creative work and talking about process or being in the woods. Current projects include The 3:15 Project, in which she spontaneously makes a dance, wherever she is, at 3:15pm daily. The current round of the project began in October 2012 and continues presently. Although she is a body junkie, her work is informed by her background in visual arts, photography and installation art most specifically. She is a 2012 PEW Fellow in the Arts, and she teaches art theory and composition at University of the Arts.
www.movingpartsdance.org

Sandra Parker
Three Frames

Sandra Parker’s exploration of the nature of time is influenced by cinema and photography. Using these forms as tools for abstraction, Three Frames shapes and manipulates perception, exploring how the body occupies choreographed time and duration in the ‘here and now’, yet carries the possibility of a trajectory that moves beyond the present moment. ‘This is a world of quiet intensities and silent behaviours, a place where feelings originate. Parker allows for these alternative depths, she seeks them out. Although not part of the everyday, they are its alter ego, the other side of familiarity.’ Real Time, Australia

Live performance by Benjamin Asriel with sound composition and design by David Franzke, with video performance by Benjamin Asriel and Tanya Voges.

Sandra Parker is an Australian choreographer based in Melbourne, Victoria. Parker’s work aims to expand the possibilities of cross-art form collaboration, creating intimate and detailed works for audiences in Australia and internationally. She is an Australia Council Dance Board Fellow, and in 2001 received the accolade of an Australian Government Centenary Medal for Services to Australian Society and Dance. Her work has been supported by numerous grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria, the City of Melbourne, the City of Port Phillip, the Australia China Council and the Besen Family Foundation.
sandraparkerdance.com

Parker’s work has been presented in Australia at the Sydney Opera House, Brisbane Powerhouse, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Salamanca Arts Centre Hobart and at the Melbourne International Festival for the Arts 2000, 2002, 2003, 2012; and internationally in France, Portugal, Germany, China and the US. International projects include an Asialink residency to Tokyo, Japan with choreographer Kei Takei; the creation of Span for Danspace, St Mark’s Church, New York with Choreographers Bebe Miller, Susan Braham and Australian Shelley Lasica; and the creation of Playhouse for the Guandong Modern Dance Company, Guangzhou, China (Asialink) in 2007. Sandra has created two dance films with Director Margie Medlin, in absentia and in the heart of the eye, winning the 2000 Reel Dance Spectrum Film Award for excellence. The films went on to screenings in many international festivals, including Dance on Camera Festival, Lincoln Centre, New York as a competition finalist. New installation works in development created during her Fellowship include Three Angles, a single channel, interactive video installation, Live View, a movement and binaural sound work, and Three Frames. Parker is currently an artist-in-residence at Residency Unlimited, an artist-centered organization dedicated to producing customized residency formats to support the creation, presentation, and dissemination of advanced contemporary art through strategic partnerships with collaborating institutions. Parker is also working with partnering organization PointB Worklodge, which is providing a working environment during her residency. Her residency and development are supported by the Australia Council for the Arts Dance Board Fellowship. The focus of Parker’s Fellowship is the development of installation works from the perspective of a choreographer.

SANDRA PARKER DANCE made its US debut at the Joyce Soho, New York, where she presented her 2005 work The View From Here, as part of the Australia Council for the Arts, Dance Down Under promotion at APAP where she was a featured artist. Recent projects include: Out of Light, Sandra Parker Dance 2009 (nominated for five Green Room Awards, including the Betty Pounder Award for Choreography); a Red Gate Gallery residency supported by the Australia China Council, 2009; Document, Dancehouse, Housemate residency, 2011; Transit, Sandra Parker Dance, 2010, Melbourne Festival 2012, Faits d’hiver, Paris, 2013, and The Recording, Dance Massive 2013.