Performances, walks and workshops in relation to this place, now known as Mount Dandenong
Dancing Place: Corhanwarrabul is a program of immersive sensory, aesthetic and cultural experiences of Melbourne’s closest mountain.
View live performances by leading site-specific dance artists held around Mount Dandenong on 28 & 29 November, 2020. Participate in the interactive Sensory Walk and visit Pedestrian Poetics for Public Space until the end of March, 2021.
Dance artists whose work focuses on relationships to ‘place’ were invited to present performances for/from/at/in/with the forest sites of Corhanwarrabul.
Murrundindi
Kiera Hunter, Hailey George and Mandy Nicholson
Wominjeka Ngarrga (Welcome Dance), Biik Ngarrga (Country Dance) and Buln Buln Ngarrga (Lyrebird Dance). Thanks to Lynette George.
Choreographer: Gülsen Özer. Dancers: Abi Li Zhen, Caroline Ellis, Viv Rogis
Lucky are we that walk this place high up.
We go below, to the creeks our teacher.
Our backbones bend, Learning the seasons.
Garlands of purple violets and kangaroo apple blossoms.
Dani-Ela Kayler
A movement study of the gestures of plants responding to wind.
Gretel Taylor
The spirit of an early settler lingers uneasily, aware that the process of colonisation continues to impinge upon the present.
Environmental Performance Authority (EPA)
The EPA guided audience members between performances, facilitating sensory experiences along the way.
Environmental Performance Authority (EPA)
The Environmental Performance Authority’s role was as audience guides to both the place and the site-based performances, culminating in ‘Welcome to the Countryside’, a white-washed colonial picnic. Over scones and jam and cream, participants reflected upon how the afternoon’s experiences had influenced their impressions of Corhanwarrabul. Some of these responses were recorded as part of an engagement study for RidgeWalk.
Participation in place by people of all ages was the emphasis of this program, with workshops in Wurundjeri dance led by Djirri Djirri, environmental dance with Viv Rogis, a walk Connecting with Country with Murrundindi and a performance by young dancers Dance Arc.
Mikayla and Hailey George from Djirri Djirri taught participants the Biik Ngarrga (Country dance) and Buln Buln Ngarrga (Lyrebird dance), which felt powerful in this site.
This workshop was about stepping out and reconnecting with the physical landscape and the people around us in this moment. With our new social/spatial plan what does that look like? What does that feel like? What does that sound like?
Created by Dance ARC director Viv Rogis in collaboration with performers from Yarra Valley Ballet, this dance is about stepping out and reconnecting with the physical landscape and the people around us in this moment.
The weekend’s events concluded with a wander with Murrundindi, Head Man of the Wurundjeri people, sharing his knowledge of plants and seasons of Corhanwarrabul. There was a wonderful sense among the group of reverence for Indigenous culture and this place.
Welcome to the Sensory Walk!
This is a playful interactive walking experience, devised by EPA.
Walk from Trig Track car park (opposite CFA, Ridge Road, Kalorama) to Mt Corhanwarrabul (Burkes Lookout Reserve) exploring sensory activities along the way.
Use the map to click the 10 pinned sites along the Trig and Kyeema Tracks, to view a suggested task or provocation for each site.
You are encouraged to then upload a response for each site.
Please stay on the paths and be mindful of other users of the path.
Enjoy!
iPhone users need to have Location Services on and their browser (Safari/Chrome) While Using ticked. (Go to Settings>Privacy>Location Services)
Dancing Place: Corhanwarrabul offers both live and online audience/participants a range of immersive sensory, aesthetic and cultural experiences, refocusing perceptions of Melbourne’s closest mountain.
Corhanwarrabul (the Dandenong Ranges) has long been a place of dance and ceremony, as a site for gatherings of the Wurundjeri people and other Kulin Nation tribes. This program has invited contributions from performing artists whose work focuses upon ‘place’. Indigenous dance is a complex embodied expression of relationship to Country and kin, often referring to features and elements of its surroundings, such as animals or birds. The other artists have responded to this place in their varied ways also, some from existing relationships with this landscape from local perspectives, and some acquainting with it as visitors from Melbourne or further afield. We invite you to listen with all of your senses to this place.
Curator: Gretel Taylor
Cultural consultant: Murrundindi
Artists: Djirri Djirri, Gulsen Ozer, Dani-Ela Kayler, Vivienne Rogis, Gretel Taylor, Environmental Performance Authority (EPA), Tammy Wong Hulbert & Marnie Badham
Dancing Place: Corhanwarrabul is an initiative of BodyPlaceProject. BodyPlaceProject is a platform through which Gretel Taylor and collaborators create performances, facilitate workshops and undertake research investigating the body in relation to sites or places.
Dancing Place: Corhanwarrabul is supported by Yarra Ranges Council through their Community Grants program and in association with RidgeWalk.
Website, video and photography by Laki Sideris