KCA Development Diary: Amrita Hepi

In 2020, the eight commissioned artists of the Keir Choreographic Award share their Development Diaries with us. Works will be developed all over Australia, with the four finalists performing at Carriageworks in the finale season, 12-14 March.

In this diary we follow Melbourne-based artist Amrita Hepi.

 

3 Mar 2020

Amrita Hepi presents her work ‘Rinse’ in Melbourne at Dancehouse for the 2020 Keir Choreographic Award Semi Final.

24 Feb 2020

Amrita shares the details of her work for KCA 2020, Rinse.

What is it about the beginning that remains intoxicating? The persistent lust for the initial thrill of a romance, scene, cannon, theory, relationship, meal, country — the opening lines. This work explores the romance of beginnings and what happens when the inertia takes over. Rinse questions whether being on the brink of extinction, or endings, has intensified the seduction of the past. The fraught idolisation of the singular narrative under the grip of hegemony. Through recreating an entropic origin myth on stage, Rinse travels from end to end, positioning personal narratives in relation to dance, art, feminism, cannons, the void, desires, popular culture and colonial history. An intimate solo based on a dynamic improvisational score, Rinse is a continuation of Hepi’s fascination with hybridity under empire and contemporary dance’s preoccupation with the neutral body.

 

Amrita Hepi is a Choreographer and Dancer from Bundjulung (AUS) and Ngapuhi (NZ) territories. Her practice at present is interested in forms of historical fiction and hybridity – especially those that arise under empire. In 2019 she was a commissioned artist for The National: New Australian art 2019 and the recipient of the danceWEB scholarship. In 2018 she was the recipient of the people’s choice award for the Keir Choreographic Award.

See an image gallery of Amrita Hepi’s previous works below.