Remnants of us: Collective dance-making as multi-art form praxis

The Australian dance theatre collective, Remnant Dance, was established with a vision to ‘create, make, connect’ through artistic practice and performances. Remnant Dancers have generated unexpected social networking and community development whilst exploring connectivity through dance in the collective environment. In particular, during 2015/2016, Remnant Dance ventured into ambitious creative territory by inviting 22 artists from the fields of music, contemporary dance, and visual/multi-media arts to collaborate in response to fragments of literary texts, matched with wines. The project, winery psalms–the mixed half-dozen, generated six short, multi-art form pieces which were installed/performed on site at a winery, inviting audiences to experience viscerally a sensory connection through visual, aural and kinaesthetic (wine-tasting/responding to site-specific installations) mediums. An innovative venture for Australian artists and audiences, the collaborations extended creative practices that consider how artwork is seen as a commodity for consumption, challenging audience engagement with (assumed) boundaries that constitute performing art works.