Five experimental dance leaders from across Australia and the Asia-Pacific will come together at the Sydney Opera House for Ki 氣 Dance Festival, a weekend of genre-blending movement, cross-cultural exchange and personal discovery.
Running from Friday 22 to Sunday 24 May, the festival will feature a dance battle, jam session, masterclass series and public forum, bringing together artists whose practices draw on street dance, experimental choreography, diasporic experience and ancestral knowledge.
Curated by Dylan Goh, founder of the not-for-profit experimental dance collective Palette Session, the festival features Chaedo, MaggZ, ooshcon, REINS and Thv Flood. The artists will lead masterclasses for dancers of all styles and experience levels, before taking part in a forum asking: “What is the colour of your movement?”
The discussion will consider the artists’ personal journeys and the work involved in creating local dance movements, with a focus on hybrid practice, cultural inheritance and the role of community in contemporary dance-making.
The line-up includes Seoul-based dancer and director Chaedo, leader of Palette Art Crew, whose work combines street dance and contemporary movement; MaggZ, an award-winning movement artist and choreographer of Chinese-minority descent trained in ballet and now specialising in w_acking; and REINS, a Japanese Australian dance artist whose practice spans choreography, education and curation.
They will be joined by Thv Flood, a prominent figure in Australian underground street culture and originator of Flood, a local dance and music form created in response to the 2011 Ipswich floods, and ooshcon, a Samoan theatre maker whose practice is guided by the belief “ina ia sosolo le alofa / so love may flow.”
Goh, also known as Arcai, is an independent street dancer, producer and curator working on Bidjigal and Gadigal Country. He is the Australian founder of Palette Session, Co-Chair of Cypher Culture and, at 26, became the youngest board member in the history of the Sydney Opera House Trust.
Ki 氣 Dance Festival runs at the Sydney Opera House from Friday 22 to Sunday 24 May.