Precipice Art Lab
A meeting and sharing of artists from across the regions in 2021
Darwin is a city surrounded by ocean and desert, producing art that is on the precipice geographically and culturally. Precipice Arts Lab, produced by local independent company ACCOMPLICE invites artists from across Australia “on the precipice” of artforms, ideas, methodologies and identities. Independent artists will come together online and where possible on Larrakia country for a curated program to learn, interrogate and connect. This arts lab will occur prior to and during the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) in August 2021.
Precipice is born out of a desire to foster genuine artist to artist links. Precipice artists will be interested in:
Bolstering the voices of First Nations and regional artists
Learning, sharing and interrogating practice with a group of diverse peers
Creating and investigating new ways of working in collaboration with people and place
Fostering networks of peers across geographic divides.
Meet the Precipice Artists
Jessica Devereux
Jessica Devereux is a passionate dance artist, choreographer and performer born in Kalgoorlie, WA and now resides in Darwin on Larrakia land. Known for her warmth, skill and reflexivity when it comes to collaborative learning and working, Jess nely traverses between small-scale intimate create processes to large-scale community and participatory works. She is drawn to projects that are inclusive, joyous and seek to make a lasting social impact. Currently a Dance Animateur for Tracks Dance Company, Jess is greatly experienced in working across cultures, art forms and worlds; regional, remote and metropolitan. Floating seamlessly between Tracks and her independent practice, Jess is adept at inviting dance lovers of all experiences and abilities to participate in the arts.
Caiti Baker
Multifaceted musician and artist Caiti Baker sings because she needs to, dances because she has to and does everything else because she wants to. Song writing, recording, producing, vocal engineering, dancing, graphic designing, video producing, editing, touring, performing, collaborating, mentoring, networking and bad-joke-telling all make up the “ings” Caiti feels she is “born to do”. From winning an ARIA Award for graphic design; a couple of National Live Music Awards and multiple genre AIR Awards – it would seem that the industry acknowledges this birthright. Signed to independent record label Settle Down Records in Darwin, NT, Caiti continues to create music with long-time collaborator James Mangohig aka Kuya James and collaborates with a collective of local artists to expand her artistic visions. After releasing the concept album “Mary of the North” mid 2020, Caiti is gearing up to press go on her next single “Mellow” on September 3, 2021. The end
Liesel Zink
Liesel Zink is an award-winning, socially-engaged choreographer who creates large-scale contemporary performance works in public-space and uses her creative process as an opportunity for artistic, cultural and intergenerational exchange. Liesel has developed and presented independent work around Australia, Asia and Eastern Europe. She received the 2017 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance for her public space project ‘The Stance’ which has been presented in eleven cities around Australia and overseas engaging over 80 performers between the ages of 8 and 72 years of age. Further independent projects include ‘Granite’ (Australia/Hong Kong) ‘We and the Uncertain’ (Ukraine 2019), ‘ Awesome; a state of wonder and fear’ (World Science Festival 2021), ‘Our New’ (IMA Gallery 2020), ‘Inter’ (Flowstate 2018), ‘fifteen’ (Next Wave 2012, Brisbane Festival 2012). Liesel is currently an Associate Artist with Force Majeure. She also engages with others in her capacity as a producer, provocateur and dramaturge.
Matthew van Roden
Matthew van Roden is an artist of the in-between. Their research involves interrogating the space between apparent binaries as locations for queer creative praxis. Material/discursive; inside/outside; male/female; analogue/digital: van Roden explores the gaps and slippages between these seemingly oppositional points. Their work is made manifest in the overlap of boundaries; on ambiguous surfaces and thresholds of meaning.
Ryan Williams
Ryan Williams is a recorder & ocarina player, improviser, interdisciplinary-performance maker & arts producer based in Naarm/Melbourne. His creative practice focuses on composing and improvising new music, and creating exploratory & transdisciplinary projects through skill-sharing collaborations with artists and communities. Ryan performs and creates within improvisatory & exploratory music, site-specic/installation contexts, traditional music from Eastern Europe, Japan, Ireland and the U.S, western art music & jazz, popular folk music, and video game music. He has performed at major Australian and international festivals including Falls Festival, Setouchi Triennale (Japan), Antwerp Fringe Festival (Belgium), Woodford Folk Festival, and regularly performs with leading arts companies, including Sydney Symphony Orchestra, ELISION Ensemble & Snu Puppets.
David Fischer / Day Knows
Que Film had humble beginnings 5 years ago by videographer David (Day) Fischer as a means to create music video content for a growing music scene in Brisbane, particularly within the Hip Hop landscape. Within those 5 years David has collaborated on all aspects of content creation with some of Australia's biggest staples such as Allday and up and comers such as Camouage Rose, Order Sixty6 and many more. By networking with like-minded creatives in diverse backgrounds Que Film expanded from the music video realm and began working in the corporate and commercial space. This led to an interest in projects based within the community. Whether it be statewide projects such as the 2017 'Stop the Hurting – End Domestic Violence' campaign to more grass roots endeavours with the RADF in the 2021 'Sidetracks' music project, David continues to foster the importance of visual representation for all people in Australia.
Matthew Day
Matthew Day is interested in the potential of choreography to imagine unorthodox relationships and propose new ways of being human. Utilizing a minimalist approach, Day works with duration and repetition, approaching the body as a site of infinite potential and choreography as a field of energetic intensity and exchange. Day's work is invested in the proliferate potential of choreography to contribute unique forms of knowledge to cultural discourse and enable affective experiences. He engages with visual arts practices to challenge traditional notions of image, object and body. Raised in Sydney, Matthew was a teenage ballroom dancing champion. He went on to study Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Western Sydney and at the Victorian College of the Arts. Day has been artist in residence, and presented his work extensively in Australia and Europe. He has just completed a Masters of Choreography at the DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam.
Nick Yates:
I am a saxophone & clarinet player, improviser, composer and teacher with extensive performance experience across a broad range of musical aesthetics. My primary interests are in contemporary classical music, jazz and improvised art music, and cross-cultural collaborations. I hold a B.Mus (Hons - Performance) & M.Mus (Performance/Teaching) from the University of Melbourne, and a Grad Dip Ed. (Secondary – Classroom & Instrumental Music) from ACU. Since moving from Melbourne to Darwin in 2018, significant projects include forming Whistling Kite New Music, which debuted to sold out audiences at Darwin Festival 2020; performing and recording with The Djäri Project, (Netanela Mizrahi & Jason Guwanbal Gurriwiwi), winner of the 2020 APRA AMCOS Art Music Award for Excellence in Music Education, and nominee for the 2021 NIMA Indigenous Language Award; and forming jazz combo The Changes, who are now one of Darwin's most active and in-demand jazz groups.