Now Pieces continues a long standing disciplined exploration of embodied performance practice that leads to crafted, spontaneous and artful communication made on-the-go. On the last Sunday of the month, Now Pieces offers an improvisational performance evening at Dancehouse dedicated to low-fi public performances curated by and featuring local dance luminaries.
Ebony Muller on Now Pieces #7:
In this iteration of Now Pieces, seven artists with their own distinct improvisation and performance practices and lineages will come together to perform for one non-stop hour-long event. Utilising a score for practising and performance borrowed from Naarm-based dancer, choreographer and academic Olivia Millard, the artists will negotiate the performance space, dipping in and out of performing and witnessing; shifting, disrupting and relating to each other and the structure in individual and communal ways.
Curator/Performer: Ebony Muller
Performers: Kady Mansour, Margot Morales, Shelley O’Meara, Indigo Perry, T. Shriraam and Natalie Surry.
Ebony Muller (they/them) is a performance artist, researcher and casual academic at Deakin University, where they completed their PhD in 2022. Primarily based in Naarm, they are of Sri Lankan, Greek and Albanian descent. Their current research centres on care ethics and philosophies of slowness in creative practice and performance. This interest is sustained by their embodied experience as a queer, racialised and multiethnic person living with chronic physical and mental illness, which enacts implicitly, but forcefully, in their work. Ebony primarily develops and facilitates embodied improvised encounters – whether with or for performers, participants or audience. Their work largely explores responsive behaviours and operations within these formats, utilising movement and sound(ing) to induce the cathartic or ecstatic in their work.
Kady Mansour (she/her) is an emerging dance artist and choreographer based in Naarm. Her practice encourages connection with broad audiences through creating inclusive and participatory experiences and/or performances. Her choreographic work interrogates experiences we share in everyday life, incorporating elements of physical theatre throughout the choreographic process.
Margot Morales (she/they) is a writer, performer and director. Their experimental cabaret IN THE LIKELY EVENT OF FOREVER won the 2023 Green Room Award for Best Writing in Cabaret. Their queer adaptation of Eros and Psyche, PSYCHE404ERROR, was nominated for a Green Room Award in Experimental Practice and won Best Work in Festival at Melbourne Fringe 2021. They are currently an Artistic Associate at Melbourne Theatre Company. Margot has directed AN EVENING WITH JK for Melbourne Fringe, CLUB NITE at Miscellania and AND SHE WOULD STAND LIKE THIS with Antipodes Theatre Company for Midsumma. As a comedian, she was nominated for the Golden Gibbo at MICF 2019 and has performed at the Enmore Theatre, Forum Theatre, and with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Recently, Margot has been expanding their dance practice. They’ll be performing in Shelley O’Meara’s TITS OUT for Melbourne Fringe, has participated in Arts House’s development lab for Riana Head-Toussaint’s ANIMATE LOADING, and completed a directing secondment on Lucy Guerin Inc.’s NEWRETRO.
Shelley O’Meara (they/them) is a Naarm-based video artist and dancer. Their work combines live movement, animation and intricate video layering techniques to develop highly immersive works on and off the screen. They employ practice-based research methodologies to develop score-based, structured improvisation drawn from their training background in martial arts and Contact Improvisation. Concerned with power, autonomy and the politicisation of bodies, movement is Shelley’s primary storytelling tool and in 2019 they began training in contemporary dance to broaden their understanding of dynamic movement and embodiment. Shelley is a core member of interdisciplinary collective Root Synthesis and moonlights with site-specific theatre company Gold Satino.
Indigo Perry (she/her) is a writer-performer based in Naarm. Her books are Darkfall (UWAP 2020) and Midnight Water (Picador 2014, shortlisted for the National Biography Award). As well as writing for books, Indigo writes live in performance, experimenting with process and dis/appearance of text and writer.
T. Shriraam is a dance artist, researcher and teacher from Naarm who comes from an inter-cultural background. Having trained in multiple movement and dance vocabularies, his practice is of critical thinking and an investigation in identity and belonging. Through dance-making and performance, Shriraam explores spirituality, gender, politics and activism. Shriraam is the founder of Shri Nrityam, where they collectively curate and promote South Asian dance and movement practices. Currently, Shriraam is undergoing postgraduate studies in Dance at Victorian College of Arts (Melbourne) and is investigating the non-binary aspect of their Shri Nrityam practice.
Natalie Surry (she/her) is an improviser and dance maker based in Millowl. She is interested in the memories that are held in the dancing body and the ways in which remembering moves that body. Her work focuses on mapping, place, and embodied space, and is often grounded in her relationship with traditional Kiribati dancing. She is a part of the research team at AllPlay Dance, a collaboration between Monash and Deakin University which creates inclusive dance programs for children with disability. Natalie is a part of Olivia Millard’s ongoing group dance improvisation practice (2014 -).
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