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Ivey Wawn

Ivey Wawn is a dancer working and living primarily on Gadigal Land (Sydney). She makes performances mainly for live audiences and performs regularly in the work of other artists from a range of disciplines. She is committed to dance as a potential form of resistance; to social abstraction and commodification, making work about labour, being together, sensation and magic among other things. She is supported to continue working as an artist by a secondary income in hospitality and continues to study a Bachelor of Political Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney since 2016. Ivey’s work has been supported by Arts House, the Australia Council for the Arts, Critical Path, DirtyFeet, First Draft Gallery, Kaldor Public Art Projects, Liquid Architecture, Next Wave Festival, Performance Space, Underbelly Arts Festival among other institutions.

Original Action

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For my action, I spent a week working on site at Artspace, engaging each day in a practice of Mourning Dancing. At its base level, this exercise involves dancing with one's attention on the past. With each new action the dancer keeps their mind on their previous movement and on the histories attached to it. As they perform, they attempt to remember and hold on to their own relationship to each move; recalling memories of people, places and things that are stirred up in the sensations produced. The dancer makes for themselves a historical context in these conjured points of connection between themselves in the current moment and the remembrances of people, places and things connected to the movement. When the dancer returns to the practice, they lament the dance before, creating a new loop that is extended upon and modulated each time. For 52 ACTIONS I am presenting seven moves that were reiterated throughout the week.

26.10.2020

She is remembering using her fingers to measure her friend Geoffrey. They are dancing at Abbotsford Convent for Ellen and Alice. She is remembering seeing him in the distance and taking in the green walls of the long space with audiences sat along the edges. She is remembering doing this move in the context of this practice at Chunky Move with Ellen, Taree, Megan and Daniel. She is remembering the orange walls and pulling her fingers in that detailed way in relation to the seating bank which is stacked against the wall. As she moves her fingers in that way, she thinks about pasta and her friends in restaurants. She is mourning the difference each time as she focuses on the sensation in her upturned hand, in relation to the sensation held at the back of her head.

Filming: Mark Mailler
Music: Megan Alice Clune

27.10.2020

She is remembering the time it took to be able to balance easily on one leg. She is feeling the muscles in her leg, the way that they pull her knee in a slight spiralling trajectory as it comes up. She is remembering learning about her leg. She is remembering her knee injury and the surgery that she had on it. She is remembering Jane, her physiotherapist speaking about the muscles in the thigh. She is carrying the weight of all the times she was told to extend her leg higher. She is feeling the sensation of looseness in her wrists, remembering how on the first day of the week this move came out and felt so right. She is remembering the light from that day and how the shadows of the leaves were relating to the movements of her hands. She is mourning the difference between this time and all of the other times this move emerged throughout the week.

Filming: Mark Mailler
Music: Megan Alice Clune

28.10.2020

She is remembering the feeling of having a shaved head and remembering the feeling of wearing her helmet. She is remembering her partner touching her head in the morning. When she has her hand out she is remembering the sensation of her grandmother’s hair under her hand. She is remembering describing the sensation to her friends while they were working on this practice in Melbourne. She is mourning the loss of some details that were present when this move first emerged in the context of this practice. She is pulling all of the people attached to this sequence closer to her in memory.

Filming: Mark Mailler
Music: Megan Alice Clune

29.10.2020

She is feeling the sensation of touch from her own hand, remembering performing for her friend Atlanta in 2018. She is making a shape that reminds her of yoga, but which occurred continually in late 2019 and early 2020 in the context of this practice with her friends Ellen, Taree and Megan. She is cupping the air with her forearm remembering being with them in North Melbourne Town Hall, with Daniel playing music for them live. She is missing her friends, mourning the feeling of togetherness she feels when dancing with others. She is still with those friends, gyrating her pelvis, remembering Ellen in front of her. She is mourning all of the times they have danced together, keeping them close so as never to forget.

Filming: Mark Mailler
Music: Megan Alice Clune

30.10.2020

She is remembering her time dancing as a teenager, being told to hit the ends of movements with some force. She is remembering working with Amrita, dancing with Rhiannon and Zachary. She is enjoying the feeling of exertion through a limb. She is remembering dancing with her friend Brooke at Critical Path. She is feeling her arms hit an imaginary surface, remembering all of the times that she has given herself imaginary surfaces to work with when improvising. She is mourning the spontaneity that was in this move when in a bigger dance. She is mourning the strength that she had in her body before COVID.


Filming: Mark Mailler
Music: Megan Alice Clune

31.10.2020

She is remembering the countless ballet classes she has done; the teachers who told her to send her knees wide, the rooms she was in, the friends she was taking class with. She is remembering the times when she learned to place her shoulders on her back in such a way that the scapula flatten. She is remembering the first time that this movement arose in the context of this practice in Switzerland - an empty white dance studio in winter time. She is remembering all of the times that it has emerged thereafter. She is mourning the loss of some detail and sensation in the hands. She is mourning the difference between this time and the time before.


Filming: Mark Mailler
Music: Megan Alice Clune

01.11.2020

She is remembering the way that her cousin Mark responded to this movement, how they called it a barcode. She scrapes the floor, reiterating a move from a project she did some years ago. She remembers showing Trish, Becky and Jess this move, like putting a little sparkle in the air. She is remembering her friend Aston who had the desire to do the splits and the sparkle his hands down his body. She is remembering all of the times that she raised her leg. She is mourning the times that these moves have happened in other places and in other configurations, trying to keep them attached to the people and places that they came from.


Filming: Mark Mailler
Music: Megan Alice Clune