the news

Nancy Stark Smith to work with Flux

See the workshop page for information about Nancy Stark Smith coming to Melbourne in November 2000. This is the main news for Flux at the moment. We're very excited about the workshop Nancy is offering - "Contact: Deepening the Form". She will be in Melbourne for three weeks and during this time Flux will be working with her in professional development. We will be furthering our research into Contact Improvisation and Performance. The three weeks will end with two short performances. At this point Nancy will be heading to Sydney to teach and perform. Flux is planning on accompanying her for these performances.

State of Flux Press Release

Press Release

Dancer, Nancy Stark Smith, spirals into Melbourne to teach and perform in Nov / Dec before heading to Sydney. Nancy is coming to Melbourne to work with State of Flux, who have been funded by an Australia Council Professional Development Grant.

Nancy began her prolific career in dance in the heady experimental New York dance scene of the early 70's. She features in the seminal video "Fall After Newton ". It portrays the development of this breakthrough contemporary dance form, contact improvisation, over its first 11 years.
Since that time she has carried the form to : North America, South America, U.K., Europe, Asia, New Zealand and now Australia. She has cultivated and disseminated this and other improvisational dance forms through her writing and publishing activities such as the dance journal "Contact Quarterly".

She will be joining forces with State of Flux, the inventive Melbourne Contemporary dance company, which focuses on contact improvisation as the basis for real time choreography. For the last 5 years State of Flux has built a vigorous dance community through its research, regular performance schedule, teaching , jamming and residential retreats.

Flux defies the norms of the stereotypical dance company in their unconventional range of ages, their risky intimate style of performance and their inclusion of one dancer in a wheelchair. They question many comfortable assumptions underlying current dance performance.

In addition to 3 weeks development work with State of Flux, Nancy will teach a 2 week public workshop, "Deepening the Form ", which filled within 3 days of registrations opening. The eagerness of the participants, who are coming from all over Australia and New Zealand, is testament to the strength of interest and innate vitality of this form, now in existence for a quarter of a century.

Nancy Stark Smith will perform with State of Flux in "left (to the edge)" & give a lecture/demonstration of contact improvisation. All this will take place @ Studio One, VCA School of Dance St. Kilda Rd. Southbank on Dec 8 & 9 at 7:30 pm. $18 full price $15 concession $12 dance students.
For further details or if you wish to book a ticket phone 9534 1326

State of Flux :

• Teaches an open class weekly.
• Teaches in a range of tertiary dance courses
• In recent years have performed in Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide in addition to a monthly performance in the Melbourne improvisation showcase "Conundrum"
• Conduct an annual retreat in contact improvisation in the Arapilles
• Engages in research into contact improvisation through Skinner Releasing technique, integrated improvisation and other movement inquires.