Rhiannon Newton

Rhiannon Newton – Long Sentences

“The negativity that comes from working with words, they miss a lot of the stuff, that is the stuff, that is why people like us like dancing.”

Rhiannon Newton

Rhiannon is an Australian dancer and choreographer. Her creative work draws attention to the interconnection of the body and the more-than-human world. Rhiannon makes contributions to community and culture through choreography, performance, education, research and curation. This discussion is focused on her work Long Sentences soon to premiere at DanceHouse.

  • the generosity of taking something seriously
  • the words from the show
  • co-existing with the work
  • a quote from the book “Sun and Steel – Mishima Yukio”
  • dancing and then writing from noticing
  • 3 sentences make up the show (the first sentence is 17 minutes long)
  • working with many mediums and being varied about how sure you are with each
  • there is a meaning and a logic
  • adjusting choreography so that it doesn’t just wash over people
  • breaking yourself apart into the materials (choreographic, performative etc)
  • “I don’t want anyone to be interested in me, I want them to see the work”.
  • we compare Xavier Le Roy to Beyoncè
  • the first day of rehearsals being dangerous due to having freedom from the show and it’s own agenda.
  • commenting on your own improvisation while you’re doing it
  • the self-undermine
  • doing choreography that is thrilling

“If i’m going to put this in front of someone I (decided that I) need to help them also take it seriously. And put something at stake.”

Rhiannon Newton

links:

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TheMattmosphere

Matt Cornell is based in the Asia-Pacific region and grew up in Darwin, on Larrakia land. He works through dance, choreography, sound, photography, and discussion to question the arbitrary configuration of systems, and is passionate about overcoming cognitive bias... to ask better questions… to dissolve malignant social narratives.

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