Submissions are now open for the third edition of the 2018 Keir Choreographic Award. Eight finalists will be given the opportunity to present their work at Melbourne’s Dancehouse in March 2018, where four will then be chosen to do a season at Carriegworks in Sydney. The winner will receive a $30,000 reward, with a $10,000 Audience Choice Award also up for grabs.
The Kier Foundation, Carriageworks and Dancehouse have announced a list of high-profile international panellists who will make up the jury. Joining local dance icon Lucy Guerin will be Anna Chan (Head of Dance, Performing Arts of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in Hong Kong), Ishmael Houston-Jones (US choreographer, author, performer and curator), Eszter Salamon (Hungarian choreographer, dancer and performer), Christophe Slagmuylder (Director of International arts festival Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels) and Meg Stuart (Brussel’s based American choreographer and dancer).
Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and launched in 2014 as Australia’s first major choreographic award, the Kier Choreographic Award looks to identify and illuminate experimental choreographic practices occurring in the Australian context today. “With the KCA Public Program, Dancehouse is extremely committed to introducing an array of outstanding thinkers and practitioners to both the dance field and the community at large,” says Dancehouse Artistic Director Angerla Conquet, “It provides a context to consider the deep, subtle ways in which dance, with its multiplicity of choreographed and embodied practices, connects to the social, the ethical and the political.”
The biennial competition, dedicated to the commission, presentation, promotion and dissemination of new Australian choreography will accept entries until August 11th 2017. The entry requirements for the Award call for professional artists with an established practice to enter by submitting a five-minute video pitch for a choreographic idea of 20 minutes in duration.
The jury will assess the video applications and the eight short-listed works will be provided with commissioning funds to realise their idea.
Participants can enter the competition by downloading and reading the full application, with regulations available at carriageworks.com.au or dancehouse.com.au.
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