Tracks Dance Studio, Frog Hollow Centre for the Arts, Darwin City

October 2017 – March 2018

The Space Time studio residency program at Tracks provides local, independent dance and movement artists with the opportunity to access free studio space and creative mentorship from the Tracks artistic staff. It was developed in response to the limited opportunities for the development of contemporary dance and choreographic practice in the NT. This program runs during the height of the wet season, roughly November to March each year, and culminates in a public showing and forum on March 8th, 2018, Live Darwin Hub, Smith Street Mall, to present and discuss the residents' findings. 

Residents 2017-18

Solar - Dance artists with consolidated project ideas. Up to 80 hours

Rochelle Cabry

Rochelle, originally from Darwin, is primarily a hip hop dancer but has also studied in contemporary, jazz and ballet. Since completing her studies she has worked and toured as a dancer throughout Europe.
Artist Statement of Intent: “My initial vision includes having a day or afternoon of workshops (and possibly a discussion or Q&A) with DJing, rapping, graffiti/street art and dance. Then in the evening having a showcase - which would be open to the public - involving all elements of hip hop but displaying what the art form transforms into when put into practice.

Planetary - Dance artists with emerging project ideas. Up to 40 hours

Aaron Lim 

Aaron was Tracks 2017 Mentoree, and has taken up previous studio residencies. Aaron has been exploring new movement vocabulary through improvisation that is both derived from his B*Boying dance background, and attempts to investigate movement pathways outside of it.
Artist Statement of Intent: “I want to create a solo work. This will be my first development. I don't really know what I'm going to look at besides it being a solo work.”

Jordan Bretherton

Jordan is a graduate of Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, although born in NSW he was raised in Darwin.
Artist Statement of Intent: “I would like to use this residency to explore what Tattoos are. The geometry, meaning, story, placement and why people have them on the body. I would like to complete a rough skeleton of a work for a future performance next year in February. I plan to achieve this by setting tasks to my dancers, coming in to the studio with a plan of action and following through with it, using my own tattoos as a starting point and then exploring images and family/friends tattoos to create movement. I have an idea of where I can see this project going however I am open to more exploration from my dancers and also mentors.
I plan to promote this work in conjunction with Darwin High School and show what Dance artists have to offer in the NT and push for more artists to do classes and create shows and be a part of the dance community.

Nebula - Dance artists engaging in open research and practice exploration. Up to 20 hours

Jenelle Saunders

Jenelle has been a previous Space Time studio resident, and has performed in many Tracks shows.
Artist Statement of Intent: She is interested in an ongoing exploration that she calls “Dance Mongering (continued) - Undulations, variations in movements, crescendos, pauses, movement and stillness, in and out of unison, inclusion of improvised and choreographed dance. The studio residency time and space will be used to create choreography with invited dance peers.”

Alexandra Jordan 

Alex is a fully qualified Dance Movement Therapist and has been practicing for 14 years.
Artist Statement of Intent: “This residency will serve a dual purpose. Firstly to nurture and develop a community practicing Contact Improvisation in Darwin.  This will include a focus on development of existing skills as relevant to various individual practices (contemporary dance, therapeutic dance, choreography etc.). We will also schedule sessions focussing on the development of skills in family based contact improvisation. The format of these sessions will partly involve skills sharing between members present and seeking to practice and explore further skills and ideas, which extend us. I hope this activity will serve to bring dancers from various sectors together to develop a shared language in this form of dance. I also hope it will lead to the development of a regular group able to come together to jam and share skills in contact improvisation into the future. The second use of the space will be to develop an open community based program based on Dance Movement Therapy, Mindfulness, and Body Mind Centring principals which I will offer next year to meet many requests for such an opportunity.  I will be offering 4 courses of 6-8 week blocks as follows: Exploring mindfulness through movement, Embodied anatomy (1 and 2), and Dancing our life story (a review of life stages). The residency will be useful to bring some keen participants together for a preliminary exploration of some of these ideas.”

Company Partners

Tracks Inc is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; and is proudly sponsored by the Northern Territory Government.

Tracks 2018

Artistic Co-Directors: David McMicken and Tim Newth
Company Director: Adelaide Wood
Administrator: Jessica Mellor
Production Manager: Duane Preston
Dance Animateur: Kelly Beneforti
Bookkeeper: It Figures

Committee Members: Mary Durack (Chairperson), Glenn Bernardin (Treasurer), Michael Grant, David Taylor, Ken Conway, Venaska Cheliah, Sudha Coutinho, Mandela Yu. David McMicken, Tim Newth, Adelaide Wood (Ex-Officio Members)

Public Fund Trustees: Rev. Steve Orme, Dr Anita Toth, Ippei Okazaki

Patron: Her Honour the Honourable Vicki O’Halloran AM, Administrator of the Northern Territory