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Mimeisthai


                            








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Phoebe Robinson
Screendance


Mimeisthai is a folio of two screendance works, filmed, directed and edited by Phoebe Robinson.



Performers:
Rhys Ryan, Chloe Arnott, Oonagh Slater and Luke Fryer.

Music: Mathew Rolfe 
ronnyquasar.bandcamp.com secrettowns.bandcamp.com

Mimeisthai is the creative component of a practice-led PhD in choreography at the University of Melbourne/Victorian College of the Arts, Australia, accompanied by thesis: Dancing the Mimetic Faculty: A Peculiar Phenomenology (2022).


We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the unceded land on which this work has taken place, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and pay our respects to Elders past and present.



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Phoebe Robinson    
Mimeisthai is part of an ongoing and multimodal project that includes multi-channel video installation and single channel film formats. Mimeisthai I was officially selected for Cinedans 2024, 'ongoing installations', presented at the Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam. A previous, shorter version (12mins) featured in ‘Dance (Lens)’ 2021 at Dancehouse Inc, and an earlier incarnation of this film was a four-channel gallery installation (8min loop), presented at Kings Artist Run Initiative (Naarm/Melbourne, Australia) in 2020.

Mimeisthai I 


Mimeisthai II


Mimeisthai I and II are cine-choreographic explorations of Walter Benjamin’s 1933 concept of the 'mimetic faculty'. As a generic skill, the mimetic faculty refers to an ability to perceive and/or reproduce similarity, without necessarily implying sameness. This skill is possessed by all living things and finds expression on various levels, from the biological to the behavioural; such as in reproduction or camouflage, to the myriad ways that creatures communicate. In 'Mimeisthai' movements are shared, transformed and repeated between performers both on and off-screen, and then amplified across multiple frames. Also drawing inspiration from Benjamin's concepts of the 'optical unconscious' and the 'citationality of gesture', this work explores the duplication, repetition, and layering of movements, inspired by early motion study experiments by pioneers like Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey. By reflecting on film's origins as a tool for studying motion and its modern digital transformation, this work engages in a form of mimetic play.

Artist Biography


Phoebe Robinson



2022


Phoebe Robinson has an established practice as a dancer, teacher, choreographer and filmmaker. A graduate of the WA Academy of Performing Arts, and post-graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Phoebe has performed in works by Sandra Parker, Rosalind Crisp, Lucy Guerin, Judith Walton, Joanna Pollitt, Frances D’Ath, Neil Adams and Kota Yamazaki. As the inaugural Housemate Resident at Dancehouse in 2008, her solo work Only Leone was nominated for an Australian Dance Award. In 2014 she was commissioned to perform a self-devised solo in Melbourne Now, ‘February Solo Series’ curated by Antony Hamilton, at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Phoebe completed her PhD at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne in 2022. Phoebe has published essays on dance, including ‘45 Degrees’ (2018), co-written with Judith Walton for Flow: Interior, Landscape and Architecture in the Era of Liquid Modernity, edited by Penny Sparke et al, and ‘Learn to Unlearn’ (2018) for Runway Experimental Art Magazine Issue #36 DANCE, edited by Lizzie Thomson.

Phoebe is an experienced teacher and assessor of undergraduate and post-graduate levels at Deakin University and the Victorian College of the Arts. 

Curriculum Vitae


 Study


Doctor of Philosophy (Dance), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne    2022
Master of Fine Arts (Choreography), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne        2014
Critical Path (Sydney) exchange residency at SODA, Uferstudios, Universität der Künste, Berlin     2011
Post Graduate Diploma in Performance Creation (Choreography), Victorian College of the Arts       2010
Advanced Diploma in Performing Arts (dance) at WA Academy of  Performing Arts       1997 - 2000
                          

Commissions


Writing and film making for Archiving the Future with Rosalind Crisp     2022 - Ongoing
        ‘Dabstraction’ with students at the Victorian College of the Arts      2016
‘Situation on Stage’ with students at the Victorian College of the Arts     2015
‘Collective Cadence’ with Deakin University students in Bachelor of Creative Arts (Dance)     2014
‘Untitled Solo’ at the National Gallery of Victoria for Melbourne Now       2014
‘Mass Ornament’ with students at the Victorian College of the Arts        2012
‘Walking Down a Sideways Street’ with  students at Deakin University      2009
'Fake Dance' at Folk Dancing! Campbelltown Arts Centre, curated by Jane McKernan       2009
‘Only Leone’ presented at Dancehouse as part of the Housemate Residency Program      2008
‘Only Leone’ presented in the East Coast Exchange at Critical Path, Sydney         2008

Self devised solos and duets


‘Creature of Habit’ solo performance, Southbank       2013
‘Iris’ solo performance, Southbank       2010
‘Half Finished World’ collaboration with Julia Robinson and Felicity Mangan, Bus Gallery      2006
‘Emperor’s New Guns‘ solo performance, with Felicity Mangan    2006 Next Wave Festival      2006
‘Quiet Listening Exercises’ with Julia Robinson and Felicity Mangan, 2004 Next Wave Festival       2004
‘The Futurist’ solo work for Bodyworks Festival curated by Helen Herbertson       2003


Performances


‘A Tiny Festival of Practice’ with Rosalind Crisp and Andrew Morrish at Omeo Studio, Orbost     2022
‘Lehte’ choreographed by Judith Walton, Heide II Gallery, Heide Museum of Modern Art      2014
‘The Recording’ choreographed by Sandra Parker, for Dance Massive at Dancehouse       2013
‘Transit’ solo performance, at Melbourne International Arts Festival (2012) and Faits D’hiver, Paris       2013
‘Sur le Traces du Wombat’ choreographed by Rosalind Crisp, ‘June Events’ festival, Atelier de Paris       2011
‘The Very Still’ solo performance, choreographed by Sandra Parker, Southbank    2009
‘Structural Adjustments’ choreographed by Judith Walton at Arts House, Meat Market     2008
    ‘The View From Here’ choreographed by Sandra Parker APAC, Joyce Soho, New York     2007
'Structural Adjustments' choreographed by Jude Walton, Meat Market, North Melbourne      2007
‘Still’ by Sandra Parker, AG Ideas conference, Hamer Hall, Victorian Arts Centre      2006
‘Chamisa 4’ choreographed by Kota Yamazaki, Kyoto Performing Arts Centre, Japan       2006
‘The View From Here’ choreographed by Sandra Parker, Sophiensaale Berlin      2005
‘Incarna’ choreographed by Neil Adams, Victorian College of the Arts       2005
‘The Point Hotel’ choreographed by Sandra Parker, Gasworks        2004

Awards and nominations


Melbourne Research Scholarship (PhD)     2016 - 2021
Australian Postgraduate Award (MA)      2012 - 2014
Dr Phillip Law Travelling Scholarship (Dance) Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne     2012
Critical Path Responsive Program Grant to attend Universität der Künste Berlin MA SODA program     2011
Ian Potter Cultural Trust travel scholarship to extend my residency at SODA      2011
Endowment Award for Artistic Merit, from Victorian College of the Arts      2010
Housemate Residency at Dancehouse      2008
Australian Dance Award nomination ‘Outstanding Achievement in Choreography’     2008
Arts Project Grant from City of Melbourne, to present 'Half Finished World' at Bus Gallery       2006
Choreographic Residency at the Australian Choreographic Centre, Canberra       2004
Young Artist Grant from City of Melbourne to present 'Quiet Listening Exercises' at Bus Gallery       2004
Kick Start Grant from Next Wave Festival to develop 'Quiet Listening Exercises'       2003
Green Room Award nomination ‘Best Female Dancer’ in 'Symptomatic', by Sandra Parker       2003
Innovation of Form award for choreography at Dancehouse       2002

Professional Development


Workshop with Deborah Hay, at Dancehouse, Carlton       2014
Advanced Lab with Rosalind Crisp, Orbost, Victoria       2013
Workshop intensive with Deborah Hay, Atelier de Paris, Paris       2012
Workshop in Body Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Ufer Studios, Berlin       2011
Skinner Releasing Technique with Wendy Smith at Studio 202       2009
Choreolab with Xavier Le Roy, at Chunky Move       2007
National Laboratory with Rosalind Crisp at Dancehouse       2007
Choreolab with Damien Jalet and Erna Ómarsdóttir, at Chunky Move       2007
Classes in Klein Technique with Susan Klein in New York        2007
National Laboratory with Rosalind Crisp at Critical Path, Sydney       2004


Teaching Experience


Contemporary Dance Technique Deakin University Bachelor of Creative Arts (Dance)        2014
Choreography and performance VCA, School of Dance       2012
Contemporary Dance Technique Deakin University Bachelor of Creative Arts (Dance)       2009
 Open Professional Contemporary Dance   Chunky Move Dance Company      2009
Improvisation workshops Dancehouse Spring Intensive       2009
Open Professional contemporary Dance  Chunky Move Dance Company       2007
Open Professional Contemporary Dance Technique Dance Works Dance Company       2005
Public classes in Contemporary Dance Technique Dancehouse       2004


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