Dance & Science: 'The Perception Experiment' (2017) - GUTS Dance // Central Australia

A single grain of salt sits atop a dormant mass. A tentative shuffle begins a migration, gravity-beckoned and persistent. Micro-movements and moments occur over expanses of time, interrupted and intersected by bodies. The trickle becomes a torrent, becomes a cloud, becomes a pattern; capturing breath and heartbeat before sweeping away.
In their first work made in Central Australia, choreographers Frankie Snowdon and Madeleine Krenek invite you to explore time and space through an offering of live dance performance, sound and salt. Through provocative sensorial immersion, The Perception Experiment strives to examine our experience of being in the physical world, blur its edges and offer an alternative view of how we might navigate through it.
The Perception Experiment is a work born from preoccupations with the intangible, disappearing, particle theory, and remnants of ephemeral actions. We have examined these fascinations by sharing physical space with multiple bodies, whilst offering ways these ideas, and our form of dance, might be experienced via multiple sensory pathways.
From opposite sides of the planet, our individual musings and experiments surrounding these concepts collided and brought together an amazing team of brains and bodies in the vast expanses of the Central Australian desert. It's a place which caused us to look at time, space, the environment and our individual physical identities with a specific, challenging and unique perspective.
What has come out of this time is a collection of experiments in experience and representation, and an attempt to capture, through the creation of spaces, sound and moving bodies, the essence of our endless and unrelenting obsessions with what can and cannot be seen, heard and felt in the physical world as we think we know it.
Deep gratitude to our collaborators, then and now, whose generous contributions in mind, movement and design, and patience whilst wading into the unknown, make risk and creation possible; and to you, the audience, for sharing this with us.
We would also like to acknowledge the Arrernte people of Central Australia, a place that has been instrumental in shaping this work and our practice, on whose land we live, work and dance.
Credits:
Choreography: Frankie Snowdon and Madeleine Krenek
Collaborating performers: Frankie Snowdon, Madeleine Krenek, Tara Samaya, Kelly Beneforti
Sound Design: Darcy Davis
Lighting Design: Jen Hector (operator Tom Roache)
Footage and Editing: Pippa Samaya
Tour/Production Manager: Anders Pfeiffer
Supported by: The Australia Council for the Arts, Arts NT, The Regional Arts Fund and Araluen Arts Centre
Touring support: The Australia Council , The Regional Arts Fund, Creative Partnerships Australia, private donors, and Artback NT.
To see more of GUTS Dance visit www.gutsdance....