Beyond the Ballerina is probably the most appropriate title for the exhibition currently running at the Wyndham Culture Centre.
The eight-artist team of Joel Bray, Zoë Croggon, Anne Ferran, John McCormick, Adam Nash, Sally Smart, Leyla Stevens and Anne Scott Wilson have brought together a patchwork of movement.
Executed across several rooms and through a multisensory experience, the integrated work serves to challenge our understanding of what dance is, where it can be experienced, and how we engage with it.
Photography, video, virtual reality, augmented reality and 3D video span across the open rooms to convey the organic and unrestrained nature of movement.
Included in the exhibition is an 3D audio visual demonstration of a vessel in the Antarctic with choreography replicating the actions workers would use on deck, facing the elements and with only each other to rely on.
Ballet itself has symbolic relevance in the overall scheme of the collaboration, itself starting an extremely formal, disciplined profession but evolving and adapting to regions, as well as becoming a source of pleasure and wellness.
The decentralised approach of using eight artists across several artistic and technological mediums represents the evolution of movement and its core universality.
Beyond the Ballerina looks at dance through the visual arts, taking the artform out of the theatre and off the stage, placing it in the gallery, seen through the eyes of visual artists.
It is a free event and will run 9am-5pm each day between 9 October and 21 December.
Details: https://www.wyndham.vic.gov.au/whats-on/beyond-ballerina
