Long Sentences

Choreography, Performance and Writing: Rhiannon Newton

Sound: Peter Lenaerts

Outside Eyes: Martin del Amo and Nikki Heywood

Researcher: TBC

Project Description

In her project Long Sentences, choreographer and dancer Rhiannon Newton experiments with the intersection of embodiment and language. In residence at the MARCS Institute Rhiannon will further explore how language relates to perceptions of a condition of interconnectedness between humans and the environment. During the residency, she will engage with researchers at MARCS to connect her choreographic experiments with scientific insights regarding how language relates to the way we perceive ourselves as deeply connected with or separated from the more-than-human world. Working in collaboration with sound artist Peter Lenaerts, as well as outside eyes, Martin del Amo and Nikki Heywood, Rhiannon will use the residency to further research and develop her solo performance work Long Sentences. In this work, a sentence becomes a choreographic object that is physically embodied, vocalised and transformed. Insisting that longer sentences might help us sense the ecological chains of affect that interconnect our bodies with the Earth, Long Sentences hijacks the time travelling and shape shifting capacities of language, so that the body can get closer to feeling the immense scales at which the climate crisis is unfolding.

Biography

Rhiannon is an Australian dancer and choreographer who grew up on Dunghutti land on the Mid-North Coast of NSW. Her creative work draws attention to the interconnection of the body and the more-than-human. Working from Gadigal land (Sydney), Rhiannon makes contributions to community and culture through choreography, performance, education, research and curation. She has developed her choreographic practice through residency, commission and presentation opportunities throughout Australia, South-East Asia, Europe and North America. Rhiannon's recent projects include Caresss (Riverside Theatre DMC, 2024), Earthbound (VOLUME Festival AGNSW, 2023), Explicit Contents (Sydney Festival, 2021; Dancehouse Melbourne, INDance Sydney Dance Company, QL2 Dance, 2022); A Strange Place (Dance Nucleus, Singapore 2022); The Gift of a Warning (New Breed, 2021); Long Sentences (Baltic Circle, Helsinki, 2019); and We Make Each Other Up (Dancehouse, Melbourne 2018). Rhiannon has worked as a performer and collaborator with artists such as Mette Edvardsen (Belgium/Norway), Martin del Amo, Lee Serle, Ivey Wawn, Amrita Hepi, Rosalind Crisp, Paea Leach, Angela Goh and Brooke Stamp. In 2022 she completed an MPhil at the University of NSW researching Embodied Ecological Awareness. Rhiannon has been on the board of ReadyMade Works since 2015 and co-directed the organisation from 2018-2021. Rhiannon has co-curated the performance-lecture series Talking Bodies since 2019, is a member of the Dance Research Australasia (DRA) working group and is a part-time lecturer at the Australian College of Physical Education and tutor at NAISDA Dance College.