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Mountain Ash Sleeping Woman is a new multidisciplinary performance work rooted in the historic town of Yarram (Gippsland) and inspired by the towering beauty and ecological significance of the Mountain Ash forests in Tarra Bulga National Park. Combining dance, song, storytelling, costume, projection, and sound, the work will explore themes of identity, belonging, ecology and the feminine — reflecting on the relationship between women, the land and community.
“Rochelle and her crew were friendly, highly professional and easy to work with. Liquid Skin operates like a well-oiled machine.” (Suzanne Earheart, Regional Arts Program Officer Yarra Ranges. Dance Here Festival 2016)
MORE ABOUT ROCHELLE’S CHOREOGRAPHIC APPROACH
Rochelle says, “I believe people long to be moved. They want to recognize something of themselves in the stories unfolding before them. My work doesn’t try to tell audiences what to think or feel. Instead, it creates space for them to connect in their own way—to remember, to question, to laugh, to grieve, or simply to experience something that stays with them after they leave”.
Rochelle’s performances combine movement, imagery, sound, and theatre to create layered, emotionally rich experiences. Rather than presenting a single meaning, she offers moments that invite curiosity and reflection.
For the viewer; each audience member brings their own history, imagination, and perspective, making every experience slightly different. While the work leaves room for personal interpretation, it always offers a way in—an emotional thread that audiences can follow.
For more about Rochelle click: http://www.liquidskin.com.au/about/artistic-director/
Rochelle will work together with two performers from her past (Melbourne) to help support both the development of the work, relationships with locals and Rochelle as a creator. Rochelle and these two performers will work closely with the local populace, to produce a work that speaks to the themes of Mountain, Ash, Sleeping and Woman.
As the Mountain Ash stands tall yet quietly yields to the rhythms of the natural world, so too do the voices of women reveal the quiet power of connection — to place, to body, to each other, and to something greater.
The collaboration will balance the community voices with the professional performers bringing a diversity of voices which is important to support ideation and brainstorming. Rochelle’s overarching vision supports the overall development, expression and outcomes of the project.
Rochelle’s work process is highly collaborative, utilising structured improvisation, & spontaneous play, thematic discourse & idiosyncratic physicalization. She draws from collaborators personal response to ideas, images & feelings. Rochelle starts with a strong context & narrative structure, and a well-developed choreographic sensibility.
Artist development & sustainability takes time & space to fully explore the thematic ideas & familiarise themselves with my creative process. Even with past experience of my process, myself, the dancers & artists will need time to identify the particular language of MASW, which will develop from the voices of Yarram and Tarra Bulga locals.
At the heart of Mountain Ash, Sleeping Woman lies the belief that the land holds stories — and so do the women who live and work upon it. This work seeks to gather and honour the voices of local women, whose lived experiences, memories, and wisdom are as vital as the roots of the forest itself. Their stories — of strength, loss, nurture, silence, and resilience — will thread through the work like pathways through the bush, grounding it in the real, the personal, and the profoundly feminine.
Through story, movement, and presence, Mountain Ash, Sleeping Woman becomes a shared act of remembering, reclaiming, and re-rooting.
INSPIRATION
MEDIA SELECTION: Includes URL links to work.
(1) The Faders – Melbourne Fringe Festival
“The Faders by Rochelle Carmichael is a really ambitious piece – eight dancers, HUGE, cavernous space at The Substation in Newport. This is Carmichael’s most complex work to date. It plays with ideas about desire for fame, celebrity and ideals about the future. There’s a fair bit of talking involved – which is usually a dicey proposition in contemporary dance, but here Carmichael manages to find a good balance of text and physical expression. Her dancers (mostly recent VCA dance graduates) are strong technicians and what some lack in vocal delivery they make up for in physical prowess.
The partnering and the choreographic formations shine. Carmichael is really good at curvacous, fluid, sometimes slightly aggressive groupings. (I think this comes from her time with Meryl Tankard…) A strong, earthy physicality permeates the whole piece. Also a highlight is Carmichael’s use of the ridiculously deep space – diagonals, lines, clusters, upstage, downstage – she finds a way to use it all.”
Stephanie Glickman http://dancereviewsmelbourne.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/dance-and-circus-in-2012-melbourne.html
“DO YOU want to be famous? Be careful what you wish for. In The Faders, choreographer Rochelle Carmichael explores the cult of celebrity and the perils of valuing one’s self-worth in the currency of public adoration. For a work that focuses on a generation that is familiar with the phenomenon of fame for being famous, The Faders is refreshingly old-fashioned in its use of highly physical and complex movement sequences and simple props.
The dancing is the star here, and Carmichael is at her best developing intricate partnering work. Although the use of text occasionally veers into heavy-handed earnestness, there is a sense of a clear purpose and structure with in the drama, which is mostly uncluttered and fully developed. With a vocabulary that suits the skills of these powerful dancers and the luxury of an enormous space in which to move, The Faders is Fringe at its finest.”
(Jordan Beth Vincent. The Age)
(2) Breathing Space – An evening length work (as part of a double bill) for Dancehouse, Melbourne
“Often the choreography is impressively original, kinesthetically rich and evocative.”
“The ingenious use of simple design features evokes imaginative responses…The suggestion of a twilight zone or dream space behind the transparent curtains is a major strategy and is highlighted by the use of inventive movement phrases.”
CROWD
“Rochelle Carmichael’s work is Fringe in budget only. If she had one-tenth of the time and money that Philippe Genty has to create a work, she’d be bigger than (Lion King Director) Julie Taymor.” (Chris Boyd, Herald Sun)
Crowd: Winner Australian Choreographic Award
(4) Out of No Thing (Short n Sweet, Melbourne and Sydney, Tour to Malaysia)
“Out of No Thing, the concluding work choreographed by Rochelle Carmichael was strong, powerful and dramatic. The cast wore simple yet elegant black costumes. Choreographically at times there were laser sharp movements, a frieze-like line at one point, some writhing, sculptural tableaux and some most unusual lifts. Mini duets and trios featured rolling floor work. Did I detect a possible Bonachela influence combined with Butoh ? One to watch out for.”
LYNNE LANCASTER http://www.sydneyartsguide.com.au/short-and-sweet-dance-company-d/#more-4401
(5) Plucked (nine short films) Nominated for Australian Dance Awards.
“For dramatic and expertly crafted film depicting and intimate reflection on life before death, and for a fascinating collaboration between dance, theatre, video and music artists.”
(Australian Dance Awards Panel)
(6) Other
REFERENCES AND REFEREES:
Scream Bloody Murder was a fantastic night out for me. It’s so satisfying and refreshing to see an experienced choreographer making emotionally and intellectually challenging work, rigorously developed. This doesn’t happen often enough in Australia. This work is unlike anything else I have seen in the dance community recently. It is a testament to Rochelle’s perseverance as an artist that she continues to make such advanced work under our currently debilitating conditions. So many choreographers are forced out of their careers before they get this good. Rochelle deserves funding to further explore this work and to expose it to a wider audience.
Reminiscent of Pina Bausch, this is a gripping exploration of relationships and psychological states conducted through movement, time, and space. Rochelle and her team made fantastic use of the Industrial School at the Abbotsford Convent, it fit aesthetically, but I would be thrilled to watch another iteration, perhaps longer, and in a different venue with more production support; a more advanced set design and access to more equipment for lighting and sound would lift this work to the next level.
Regards, Nik Pajanti.
Niklas Pajanti is a lighting designer with over 20 years experience working in contemporary dance and dance theatre. He is a Green Room Award Panel member in Dance Category, an Australia Council Peer Assessor, and a Fringe Award Panellist in the Dance and Physical Theatre category.
2) I have known Rochelle for many years and have long admired her work
as a physical theatre maker of high calibre as her CV and body of work so clearly reflects.
Rochelle is a choreographer and theatre maker whose often startlingly and affecting work successfully blurs and redefines many established boundaries surrounding contemporary dance and performance creation. I know Rochelle to be a deeply thoughtful and engaged practitioner and collaborator who has been able to draw together eclectic casts of performers from a range of experience and backgrounds. She is interested in communicating diversity and multiplicity though a mature and sophisticated physical process. Her casting reflects this aim, as does her choreographic
vocabulary and her documentation of this process. Her creative process is inextricable from her links to community and her evident desire to forge greater connection for the community.
In Scream Bloody Murder 2019 an audience relationship to the performers and performance space was created which was experimental, carefully considered and created an engagement with the content that was absorbing and original. The element of chance and choice in what was seen and received was an essential part of this experience; it left you feeling that you had witnessed something both shared and intensely personal at the same time. Rochelle gives people of all ages, ability and experience the opportunity to make meaningful performance connections with
audiences.
Rachel Burke
Lighting Designer B.Ed Sec, Assoc. IES
“I am writing to give feedback about Rochelle Carmichael’s work on the City of Maroondah Arts Incubator project BlockHead.
BlockHead was a four week project at ArtSpace, as part of the Maroondah’s Arts Incubator program at Realm in Ringwood. Rochelle was an inspired and inspiring leader of the project. She worked with a team of four dancers to develop the work, engaging with children aged 3 to 7 years and their families.
the outcome was a lively and captivating expereince through workshops, roaming performances and a formal presentation for local government arts officers. Rochelle worked collaboratively to adapt the work for the needs of the local community engaging with three groups of Burmese refugees a diability arts program and a range of visitors to ArtSpace.
BlockHead was a very successful project and evidence of Rochelle’s strong leadership skills and her ability to conceive, develop and implement effective arts project. I would be happy to answer any questions about the project and can be contacted on 0421 633 033.”
Rosemary Joy. Maroondah City Council: Artspace Realm Arts Activation. E: rosemary@aphids.net M: 0421 633 033
“Staff at the School of Dance appreciate your experience and knowledge and the importance of your role in student development. I want to thank you personally for your commitment to high artistic standards and your willingness to help both dance and production students to aspire to professionalism.”
Jenny Kinder VCA Head of Dance: jenny.kinder@unimelb.edu.au
INDUSTRY AWARDS
Finalist AICD Dance Creation 2014 Enter Question
Short Listed Australian Dance Awards Outstanding Achievement in Dance on Film/New Media Plucked (nine short films)
Winner The Australian Choreographic Competition CROWD (2014)
Winner The Australian Choreographic Competition Out of No Thing (2013)
Winner Short and Sweet Melbourne Outstanding Choreographic Award Out of No Thing (2013)
Winner Melbourne Fringe Movement Award (2004) for Aoroi
Nominated Artzmedia Antenna Award (2004) for Aoroi
Winner Dancehouse Choreographic Innovation Award (2000) Study at Ground Level
Nominated Greenmill Festival’s Young Choreographers Award (1997) The Plumbing of Venus Beneath the Surface of the Vanity Basin
Winner Peoples Choice Award at Dancehouse (1996) RUSH Slips Sex & Marbles
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