Double Interview: Alice Gale-Feeny and Michaela Gerussi

In this 'double interview' Michaela Gerussi and Alice Gale-Feeny (both initiators of the podcast) ask questions about each others' artistic practices, trace some of the ideas which inform them, and unpack different perspectives between their (respective) backgrounds in fine art and contemporary dance. The conversation departs from a place of friendship and familiarity, whereas Alice and Michaela have been working closely since 2019 as peers on the 'MFA Creative Practice: Dance Professional Practice' course with Trinity Laban and Independent Dance.

They discuss:
-Dialogue; facilitated or 'choreographed' conversations as frames (i.e. Quaker meetings; 'fishbowl conversations', Bohmian Dialogue)
-Authorship and collaboration
-Notions of ‘material’ in both dance and fine art/performance contexts
-Fine art training (the changing idea of the art history canon)
-States of attention in artistic practice (i.e. distractions as generative)
-Objects and written/spoken voice/language as material in physical practice; as extensions of the body; [“The post- in the human suggests not that we come afterways as prosthetic newcomers, but that we were always already embodied in excess of our organs.” (Erin Manning, Politics of touch : sense, movement, sovereignty. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. P. 157)]
-Karen Barad, feminist science
-Fascia studies
-Choreographer and dance researcher Kevin O'Connor
-Practice as Research; a perspective which values the tacit knowledge which is present in practice
-Performance practice(s) vs dance-making practice(s)
-Manchester-based dance-artist and researcher Amy Voris
-Making a work vs its performance; witnessing. Where do we locate and emphasize the work?
-The Solo performance; implications/optics of that as starting point, where attention is placed, possibilities of subtlety, detail, etc.

Bios: Michaela Gerrusi is a dance artist researching the complexities of how we sense ourselves. Informed by her studies in Craniosacral Biodynamics, her practice is concerned with the intersection of the nervous system, self-regulation, affect and dance-making. michaelagerussi.com

Alice Gale-Feeny is currently developing a performance practice that investigates the emergent potentials of speaking aloud and being with objects as a way to occupy a middle ground between self/selves and other(s). alicegale-feeny.com 


Read more (links):

Bohm, D., & Nichol, L. (2004). On dialogue (Routledge classics). London ; New York: Routledge. (https://www.routledge.com/On-Dialogue/Bohm/p/book/9780415336413)
The Cadbury's Bourneville model village (https://www.bvt.org.uk/our-business/the-bournville-story/)
Alice Gale-Feeny, Fishbowl Conversations (https://alicegale-feeny.com/incirclesaroundtables)
Karen Barad, (2007). Meeting the universe halfway : Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press. https://www.dukeupress.edu/meeting-the-universe-halfway
Rasmus Olme on magnets, from a SKH Dance Podcast conversation with Eleanor Bauer (https://www.spreaker.com/user/10974845/episode-4-rasmus-o-lme?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=user%3A10974845&utm_term=episode_title)
Kevin O'Connor (https://www.ecologicalbodying.com/)
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