Disruption and corruption of the body as a method of making and conceptual framework
On our March theme of CORRUPTION, artist, performer and choreographer Holly Durant will be discussing her body and body of work as a performance artist, and ways in which she’s employed disruption and corruption of the body as a method of making and conceptual framework. An idea artist Yayoi Kusama describes as ‘evolution by obliteration’. Holly will be sharing some of her current PhD research on energetic materials and connections created by performing spaces and bodies and how they can create new worlds for future bodies. As an artist and feminist, Holly aims to transform pejorative and oppressive limitations into generative actions. While corruption is often viewed solely as a negative force, Holly sees it as an opportunity to create positive change by growing something new from the cracks it creates. In her work, she challenges the traditional notion of beauty and strives to alter how bodies are perceived. By corrupting the established aesthetics and inherent links between appearance and attributes, she hopes to create a soft, embodied, and community-focused experience of looking and being looked at that empowers individuals to define themselves by their actions and relationships rather than by societal norms and stereotypes.
About the speaker
Holly Durant is an Australian choreographic artist known for her multi-disciplinary performance installations. Her works deal with pleasure and power and consistently gather communities and build platforms for interrogating and celebrating our diverse and brilliant bodies. Her most recent work, Alter Edith, was awarded the Green Room Award for most outstanding experimental performance practice in 2022, a recognition of her unique and innovative approach to artmaking.
By exploring ideas of embodiment, co-presence and ‘worlding,’ her inhabited installations blur boundaries of skin, liveness, subjectivity, and experience and make trouble for binaries as they melt into ebbing tides. These layered sensorial environments and disobedient gestures transform the body, conjuring glimpses of future bodies and future worlds.
A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (dance), and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (fine art), her performance works have straddled many forms, from contemporary dance in traditional theatre settings, to touring with a queer feminist burlesque troupe, to creating cabaret and club acts. She has also worked in durational forms, including 80-hour-long gallery installations, and has led community projects such as choreographing The Clams, Melbourne's least professional feminist water ballet squad.
She has worked extensively with Discordia, MONA, Finucane & Smith, and many more. Holly's work has shown internationally from Centre Pompidou, Paris to Modafe Festival, Korea, to the Havana International Theatre Festival, Cuba, and in Australia’s major festivals and institutions including Rising Festival Melbourne, Dark Mofo, Sydney and Darwin Festivals.
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Hosted by
The Commons Collingwood
36-38 Gipps St Collingwood
Melbourne, Victoria Australia 3066
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