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 Saturday 4th December, 2004
In the village of Hill End, NSW.
In May 2003, choreographer/performer Julie-Anne Long spent five weeks
as artist in residence at Murray's Cottage, Hill End. Hill End is an
historic village, 85km north of Bathurst, known for its boom and bust
gold rushes of the 1800's; and as a place whose landscape is embedded
in the Australian, by artists such as Russell Drysdale and Donald
Friend.
So what attracted a choreographer to Hill End? Julie-Anne has been fascinated by 'The Picnic' (Nun's Picnic)
painted by Jeffrey Smart, in 1957, at Hill End. It is an eerie image of
2 nuns perched in the dusty red landscape, with the Catholic Church
looming on the horizon behind them and an ominous dark sky above.
During her 2003 residency, which was hosted by Bathurst Regional Art
Gallery, Julie-Anne scavenged and wandered around the village, a
vagrante collecting bits and pieces of her new work "The Nun's Picnic".
She was intermittently joined by Collaborators, Sam James (videomaker),
Heidrum Loh (Photographer) and Lucy Culliton (painter).
As a continuation of the work generated by the Hill End residency,
Julie-Ann returned to Sydney to gather together a group of six
Sydney-based choreographers; Narelle Benjamin, Michael Whaites,
Bernadette Walong, Rakini Devi, Martin del Amo and Kathy Cogill; each
from diverse backgrounds with individual performance styles. The
Artists were provided with material gathered from Julie-Anne's
residency and each created a physical performance response to the
stimuli. A key component of this was the nuns’ habit "cossie"!
The results of Julie-Anne’s endeavours can be experienced in a
never-to-be repeated performance event at Hill End on Saturday, 4
December. A Nun’s Picnic video installation and photographic exhibit is
also part of the ARTFUL MINING exhibition at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery 21 October – 5 December. |
