IN|FORM | Treading Traces

Julie Chenery, Janet Donald, Kym Stevens and Gail Hewton, 4 long time dance colleagues and all experienced artists, were able to benefit from Ausdance QLD’s SEED opportunity in March 2019 to further develop their project Treading Traces.

Through funding and/or space availability, the SEED residency offers the resources and time to develop a new creative project for dance practitioners working in community dance and facilitation spaces, which is specifically what Treading Traces and our practice is about.

The initial idea for Treading Traces was conceived by Noosa based community dance practitioner, Gail Hewton who works exclusively with older people through her RIPE Dance practice. The idea was to bring together Gail, Julie, Janet and Kym to collaborate for the first time in the development and delivery of a site-specific community dance work that could be presented as part of Floating Land, the internationally renowned biennial outdoor sculptural festival held in Noosa. The SEED Residency opportunity was very timely as that’s all Treading Traces was, a seed of an idea that needed some support to allow these artists some time to dialogue together in order to further develop this initial concept.

The SEED funding enabled the artists to travel from Lawnton, Sippy Downs & Cooroy to Noosa Heads, Gail’s base. On Saturday 2 March, all 4 artists met in Noosa Heads to discuss the project before travelling to potential performance locations: Noosa Rivermouth; Noosa Main Beach and Noosa National Park. On Sunday 3 March, Janet and Gail travelled to Lake Cootharaba at Booreen Point. At the site visits we discussed viability of the sites and any foreseeable logisticalconcerns; selected specific areas as potential performance sites; brainstormed concepts for each site including a range of themes and ideas in terms of movement, performers required, design including props and costumes, etc. On both days a volunteer photographer accompanied us to take a number of digital photos of the sites and of us moving together in these spaces that could be used for our submissions.

We consulted with the RIPE Dance community and broader community regarding their interest in being involved in the project and received very positive responses.

The SEED funding afforded us time together to clarify and develop a good overview of our vision for Treading Traces that we used for our submission to Floating Land to be considered for inclusion in the 2019 event program in October. This submission was successful and subsequently we submitted an application to Noosa Council’s RADF grant program for funding to enable the project to go ahead. We are awaiting notification.

So often dance artists and practitioners do projects on the smell of an oily rag or for love. We appreciated the financial support given to us by Ausdance Qld to help the early development of Treading Traces and assist us to better formulate the concept and vision for this unique community dance project.

Julie Chenery | Janet Donald | Kym Stevens | Gail Hewton