Wednesday 14 May
12.45 – 1.30pm
Cell Block Theatre

Dance as a contemporary art medium is a category of choreographic practice with a lineage stretching back to mid-20^th century North America has re-emerged since the early 1990s. Such work belongs as much to the gallery as does video art or sculpture and is distinct from both performance art and its history, as well as theatre-based dance. Erin Brannigan will discuss the scope of her large scale research project Precarious Movements: Dance and the Museum (2020−2024) which collaborated with the Tate UK, the National Gallery of Victoria, the AGNSW, Monash University Museum of Art, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Shelley Lasica and Zoe Theodore. The project ran over 12 years and resulted in 3 books, 7 case studies and an online resource for the sector Precarious Movements.

Erin Brannigan is Associate Professor in Theatre and Performance at the University of New South Wales. She is of Irish and Danish political exile, convict, and settler descent. Her publications include Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image, Choreography, Visual Art and Experimental Composition 1950s ‑1970s  and a companion monograph to the latter, The Persistence of Dance: Choreography as Concept and Material in Contemporary Art. She has published various chapters and articles in film, performance and dance journals and anthologies and regularly presents on dance for ABC Radio National.

Image Credit: The Last Resort, 2020. Performance view for the 22^nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), Cockatoo Island. Photograph: Zan Wimberley.