Aimee Smith

Wintering

2012 Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, 19-27 May 2012.

(images by pia johnson & sarah rowbottom

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Dancers: Rhiannon Newton, Jenni Large

Duration of Work: 60 minutes
Sound Composition: Ben Taaffe, Craig McElhinney & Kane Ikin

Lighting Design: Trent Suidgeest

Costume Design: India Mehta

Set Construction: Ainsley Canning

Concept: A work inspired by the fragility and strength of an iced landscape. Through this immersive and meditative contemporary dance work Smith asks the questions; What is it to live in a changing and disintegrating world? How do we sit with the tension between beauty and destruction, hope and fear?

Wintering opens a conversation about climate change not by facing the familiar politics of the issue but instead bravely attempting to reveal the subtle emotional and disquieting nature within.

The Futures Project (2011-ongoing)

Concept by: Aimee Smith

Concept: The Futures Project invites people to share or teach the artist a skill or piece of knowledge that they have, that they think might be useful in surviving or shaping the future. This skill or knowledge is transferred to the artist and, wherever possible, is practiced during the exchange. The artist becomes a kind-of human encyclopedia, whilst the work is becomes a vehicle for sharing, collecting and beginning. Perhaps this project is also a way to face fears, articulate dreams, and take hold of the future.  Below is a link to a video documenting the project so far.

The Futures Project Video

The Futures Project came out of a 2 month artist residency at Taipei Artist Village in 2011 and takes a very different direction to Aimee’s past body of work.

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Accidental Monsters of Meaning

The Western Australian Museum, Perth March 2011.

& Spectrum Project Space, Perth 31 July-2 August 2009.

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performers: Deb Robertson, Rhiannon Newton, Michelle Anderson
Duration of Work: 40 minutes
Music: Sound design by Ben Taaffe
Set Construction: Ainsley Canning

Concept: What are the monsters of our time? Where are they leading us?
Accidental Monsters of Meaning examines the twists and turns of consumer culture – a world where consumption is destruction, where the consumer becomes the consumed, and where survival is not a given. Set in the ambiguous and sterile space of a museum – zoo – viewing gallery – shopping mall world, the human being becomes a product of our times, the consumer becomes the product for consumption, and we are forced to face the realities of survival and extinction.

Breakings (full length solo)
Premiered at PICA, Perth 8-11 2010

Choreography & performance: Aimee Smith
Sound design: Ben Taaffe
Lighting design: Mike Nanning
Video mapping: Jerrem Lynch
Set design: Fiona Bruce & Bryan Woltjen
Duration of Work: 55 minutes

Concept: Breakings is a sharp, confronting and reflective look at today’s mediated world, Breakings questions our relationship with the media and how it influences our perception of the world. Hailed by the West Australian as one of Perth’s most promising emerging choreographers, Smith is known for her cutting edge political dance, and Breakings certainly continues this legacy.
Amongst a pile of out of tune television sets, walls converge and a body is caught between hope and fear. An alarm clock sounds, a  lone individual wakes in a domestic space like no other, where the virtual and real worlds mix, where her bed is today’s newspaper, her cat is her tv, and her weetbix taste like the news. As she is bombarded with a tirade of news bulletins, flashing images of beauty and perfection, and the lure of gameshow fame, Smith struggles to keep up with her ever changing environment where she no longer knows what’s real, what’s truth or what to believe in.

Reviews: by Nina Levy in The West Australian Mon 12 April 2010

“Independent choreographer Aimee Smith has developed a reputation for creating innovative, thought provoking works.
As a rule, Smith’s strength is the clarity with which she explores contemporary issues, and her solo work Breakings, which explores the effects of mass media on modern life, is no exception.

“Smith is a beautiful dancer and her performance on opening night was deft and sure.”

“Breakings…confirms that Smith is a highly intelligent choreographer and I look forward to seeing what she creates next.”

Breakings(short solo)
Premiered at PICA, Perth 5-8 June 2008, as part of STRUT’s Prime Cut Season.

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Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performers: Aimee Smith
Duration of Work: 10 minutes
Music: Data.Adaplex by Ryoji Ikeda, For Ezekiel Honig & Young (Pan) Americans by Klimek
Sound design by Ben Taaffe

Concept: For everything we see and hear about the world around us, how do we feel about it? Breakings is a collection of responses to this question and an investigation of the schizophrenic experience of living between hope and fear.

Review: http://www.realtimearts.net/article/86/9118

Schreibstuck
Premiered at PICA, Perth 20-22 March 2008, presented by STRUT .

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performers: Aisling Donovan, Paea Leach & Sally Blachford
Concept: Shreibstuck is a concept performance work by German artist Thomas Lehman consisting of choreographic instructions written into a book format and sent around the world to be interpreted by international artists. Western Australian choreographers including myself, Bianca Martin, and Sete Tele and Rachel Ogle created the 3 versions that made up this Australian Premiere of the full production

Make Your Move – Creative Challenge 2007 -AWESOME Arts

Every year Perth based arts organisation AWESOME embarks on a regional arts project aimed at providing experiences for, and celebrating, the creativity of young people in regional WA. Over 2007 I have worked with AWESOME (thanks to an Australia Council EPIC Grant) to lead Make Your Move, a dance and sound based project. Over the year we have sent artists out to 10 communities, spending 2 weeks in each community facilitating creative activity with the young people through the mediums of dance and sound. Each residency culminates in a celebration day where the wider community is invited to come together to celebrate the work of the young people. The processes and products of each community were then showcased in an installation in metro Perth as part of AWESOME’s annual International Arts Festival. For more information go to www.awesomearts.com.au

Fragments of a fracture ….(little broken moments….)
Premiered at the Taipei National University of the Arts Theatre, Taiwan 25 August 2007 as part of TaipeIdea.

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performers: Chen Hang-ring, Chow Cheuk-yui, Dee Jia-ling, Huang Yin-guan, Huang Yu-yuan, Jian Lin-yi, Lin Yu-chieh, Wen Shu-jie
Duration of Work: 8 minutes
Music: RadiQ Riot

Concept: For everything we see and hear about the world around us, how do we feel about it? Is there any room left for us to hope? Fragments of a fracture is a collection of responses to this question, that have emerged from the dancers and I during our 3 weeks together.

Refund Policy

Premiered at The Playhouse, Perth 21-27 March 2007, BUZZ Dance Theatre’s Terminal Velocity Season.

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Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performers: BUZZ Dance Theatre; Skye Sewell, Josh Mu, Glen Lo, David, Jenni, Rachel Ogle
Lighting Design: Nick Higgins
Costume Design: Trenna Kerr
Duration of Work: 20 minutes
Music: Markant, Klimik – Milk & Honey, All – All Tag 5

Concept: A representation of a decisive moment – a moment of emergency and of survival – an event that calls for ordinary people to react to a desperate situation in extraordinary ways. The work was born from a deep concern and passion for our environment and fear of what consequences our abusive treatment might have. It investigates our attitudes towards our environment; our commodification of the Earth – the illusion that it can be bought or sold, and refunded – and our obsession with containing and controlling it.

Courageously Heroic Gallantry

Premiered at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Perth, March 8-11 2007 in STRUT’s Four on the Floor Season.

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performer: Aisling Donovan
Duration of work: 20 minutes
Music: Elvis Presley – GI Blues , Otis Redding – Security, Dimitri From Paris – Toujours L’Amore, voice sample of Michael Whaites
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Andrew Lake for his mentorship through the process.

Concept: From where I sit, the sport of war seems filled with foul play. The propaganda of war appears rife with misconceptions. The whole thing is ridiculously frightening. Courageously Heroic Gallantry is a sarcastic exploration of this, that in the end, hits home harder than expected.

Review: http://www.realtimearts.net/article/78/8543

Alpha.Beta.

Premiered at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts Main Theatre, Perth, May 24 –26, 2006 in LINK Dance Company’s Off The Map season. Later that year the work toured to Russia.

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performers: LINK Dance Company 2006; Shannon Riggs, Katie Chown, Gillian Sarangapany, Rebecca McCormac, Patricia Wood
Duration: 19 minutes
Music: Lenka Clayton – Qaeda Quality Question Quickly Quickly Quiet

Concept: This work sits with the soundscore of an alphabetised reading of George Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address, broadcast live to the American nation. Dictated by the alphabet, this work is a dictionary of war and its hidden agendas. The performances of these 5 women at times seeming schitzophrenic, at other times simply ridiculous.

Press Play

Premiered at the 2006 Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, Australia March 2006.

Devised: Aimee Smith
Performers: Jessyka Watson-Galbraith, Aisling Donovan & Aimee Smith
Sound design: Dave Miller
Duration: Flexible, can be performed for up to 4 hours.

Concept: Press Play is a performance installation that employs audience interactivity to explore the concepts of power and manipulation, in and between humans, particularly in reference to Australia’s current political debates on immigration within our country. Over a marathon performance (up to 4 hours) 2 dancers work within a confined space. In front of them, roaming in the audience, is a “remote control” for any willing viewer to press. A press of the button changes the sound/ voice being projected. The dancers respond physically, and on demand, to the sound samples selected and controlled by the audience members. The sound score for this work, designed by Dave Miller, is composed from voices of non-native English speakers, migrants if you like, living here in Australia. They are reciting, in their native languages, the words of our Prime Minister John Howard during his 2001 election campaign speech, “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”.

53′

Premiered at The Blue Room Theatre, April 20 – May 6 2006.

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performers: Deb Robertson, Pamela Konijn & Aimee Smith
Lighting design: Lucy Birkinshaw
Lighting operation: Ursula Andinach
AV Assitant/ Advisor: Andrew Lake
Sound & AV operators: Aisling Donovan & Eliza McNeil
Duration: 53 minutes
Music: Version – Probe, Frederic Chopin – Minute Waltz, Inch-time & the Zephyr Quartet
- Kyoto (autumn leaves), Swod – Fugitif

Concept: What would you do with 53 minutes? Fascinated by the concept of time. What it is. It’s ability to run out. Its ability to creep up. It’s ability to be a fixed and measured but also its ability to elude us. Its ability to disappear. Its non-permanency. Its ability to dictate and define people and the way they live. Its ability to measure us, to keep us in check, or out of it. And how the ways we use it can define and represent who we are. Fascinated by all of these thoughts, and inspired to see how others reacted to it, the question was asked, a list was compiled, and a performance created..

A Lesson in Falling

Premiered at LINK Dance Company’s Trichrom-aktion season, Perth April 5-7 2005.

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performers: LINK Dance Company 2005; Laura Ross, Susan McGinn, Hannah Cann, Emma Harris and Sharlene Campbell
Duration: 25 minutes
Music: Yann Tiersen – Comtine d’un Autreete, Mazzy Star – Into Dust, Yann Tiersen – Le Moulin, Bjork – Frosti, DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like (part 4), Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet – Summer Overture

Concept:
I fall from a great height.
I tread lightly.
I have a heavy heart.
I am caught in a heavy downpour.
It weighs on my conscience.
I am weighed down by love.
I feel light as a feather.

I am all of this in a single lifetime..

the-state-of-inbetween

Premiered at STRUT dance #2 June 2003 Season, Perth Australia. Also performed at Putting on an Act, Perth, July 2003 and Dancers Are Space Eaters International Dance Festival Perth October 2003.

Choreography: Aimee Smith
Performer: Aimee Smith
Duration: 5 minutes
Music: Radiohead – The Gloaming

Concept: …am I sleeping awake or awaking from my sleep? Is this a dream or reality? And what do you call this place, in between? This place that you can’t quite pull yourself out of, or into.

the-state-of-inbetween is a short solo work exploring the state of half-sleep, half-wake. The state of half-dream, half-reality. In this state the dancer’s rolling and turning and twisting never ceases. She may find a moment of suspension only to fall out of it, into another whirlwind of movement.