Mimeisthai
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Phoebe Robinson
Screendance
Mimeisthai is a folio of two screendance works, filmed, directed and edited by Phoebe Robinson.
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Performers:
Rhys Ryan, Chloe Arnott, Oonagh Slater and Luke Fryer.
Music: Mathew Rolfe
ronnyquasar.bandcamp.com secrettowns.bandcamp.com
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/28b32ea59a066a1235e052470c4fd409ee2524c0fccfaae134e01bbcaaa7c8ef/ftb-floorplan-solos.jpg)
Performers:
Rhys Ryan, Chloe Arnott, Oonagh Slater and Luke Fryer.
Music: Mathew Rolfe
ronnyquasar.bandcamp.com secrettowns.bandcamp.com
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/aa6157f1b37f93334328e071d72ac6767a69f2798c0069b635a6cf98a1d27057/Robinson-P--Mimeisthai-.jpg)
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.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6909179f336cde039c43f0efe4217b244be24dc1d61a5bfb5d76d09da6d7ab15/Rhys-2.jpg)
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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