Confusion for Three
Thursday 15 – Satuday 17 November
7.30pm
★★★★ “Electrifying…Jo’s choreography is a gift to watch.” Sara Caputo, Planet Arts
“Jo Lloyd’s practice seeks to find a language that refuses the limits of history and culture, of form and aesthetic.” Anny Mokotow
“The real audacity in this work lies in the creation of something in which purpose and structure is obscured, and yet the prevailing impression is of repetition and familiarity.”Jordan Beth Vincent
Showing for three nights only from November 15 – 17, leading Australian choreographer Jo Lloyd’s Confusion for Three is a thrilling dance encounter. Fusing Lloyd’s signature style of explosive physicality, music mixed live, and tour de force performances, it asks us to surrender to the state of confusion for ultimate revelation. PICA is partnering with STRUT Dance on the WA Premiere of this exciting contemporary dance work.
Dancers Rebecca Jensen, Shian Law and Jo Lloyd generate hypnotic tension as they negotiate a progressively unravelling system of choreography, based on a distinctive method created by Lloyd. Navigating their physical histories – from traces of folk dance to idiosyncratic body rhythms – the performers reveal a series of desperate encounters, in a destabilising flood of movement.
Set to music arranged live by composer Duane Morrison, each show is unique, centred around the dancers’ and musician’s improvisations and responses to each other.
The work grew out of a residency at Lucy Guerin Inc in 2013 where Lloyd found herself alone in a studio looking for inspiration and began falling through space. “I thought, I don’t know what this is. My body was purging out this vocabulary I didn’t understand,” Lloyd said.
Feeling that she was onto something, nevertheless, one of her notes to herself was the word “confusion”, and that became an enabling theme of the methodology of the movement. Exploring the idea with Shian Law and Rebecca Jensen, two dancers she has worked with for many years, she used different approaches to introduce them to what she had created, and they arrived at very similar points. Lloyd credits Law and Jensen, who will perform alongside her at PICA, as significant contributors to the work as a whole.
In the creation of Confusion for Three Lloyd deliberately avoided the comfort of familiarity. Her agenda was to “make what you don’t know how to make.” Rejecting known paths of choreography, Lloyd describes her Confusion method as developing the parameters and the scaffolding for the performance. “When we know these parameters, we know what could happen, but we don’t know what will happen. And then there’s that feedback between us, negotiating each other’s choices, leading and following. And being passive and active.”
“We draw on the histories of our bodies, the physical history of dance training, of our upbringing, our ancestry.” Lloyd has also introduced new dance vocabulary to the work following workshops with a krump artist, finding the intense, expressive and exaggerated street style was very compatible with the concerns of Confusion. The immediacy of personal experience, day to day experiences, moods, and chance moments all play a role in what happens in the creative process during the performance.
Confusion for Three is a show for lovers of dance, contemporary work, and choreography with high energy and explosive physicality. If you like a challenge, the curious and the unknown – this is for you! Three shows only – don’t miss the opportunity to embrace the confusion.
While in Perth, Jo Lloyd will work with Dramaturg Anny Mokotow on a two-week workshop for local artists, ‘Collaborations – A Room Full of Dramaturgs‘ focusing on the intersection of dance and dramaturgy. The workshop will conclude with a performance on November 22, presenting a new iteration of Confusion, unique to the participants and the context. This is an exceptional opportunity for dance artists to engage with two assured practitioners and be exposed to new practices, whilst investigating the dramaturgical role of the performer.
Presented by PICA and STRUT Dance
Dates: 15 – 17 November, 7.30pm
Tickets: Standard $35 | Member $26
Early Bird/Conc/Groups 6+ $22
Location: PICA Performance Space
Duration: 45 min
Recommended: Age 15+
Warning: Nudity
Media Enquiries
For all media enquiries please contact Tracy Routledge, Publicist via:
e: tracy@trpr.com.au ph: 0412 223 221
Events & Public Programs:
FREE Confusion for Three post show Q&A
Friday 16 November, 8.30 – 9pm
Jo Lloyd & Anny Mokotow Workshop
Collaborations – A Room of Dramaturgs
12 – 23 November
More info via the STRUT Dance website
FREE Workshop Showing
Thursday 22 Nov, 6.30 – 7.30pm
Middar Room, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia
Creative Team
Choreographer: Jo Lloyd
Performers: Rebecca Jensen, Shian Law & Jo Lloyd
Composer: Duane Morrison
Lighting Design: Jenny Hector
Touring history
June 2016, ISPA, The Malthouse
August 2015, Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
March 2015, Dance Massive Open Studio Program, Chunky Move
About Jo Lloyd
Jo Lloyd is a Melbourne based dance artist, working with choreography as a social encounter. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Lloyd has presented award-winning work nationally and internationally over the past fifteen years, including as part of the Biennale of Sydney, Dark MOFO in Hobart, Dance Massive and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Over 2016 Lloyd was Resident Director of Lucy Guerin Inc. Jo is a current a Resident Artist at The SUBSTATION, she recently received an Australia Council Dance Fellowship. She has taught extensively here and overseas at Jacobs Pillow, for Akram Khan, Bangarra, Dancenorth, ADT, RMIT, Melbourne.
About PICA
The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) is one of Australia’s leading centres for the development and presentation of contemporary art. Housed in a striking heritage building in the heart of Perth, Western Australia, PICA is the city’s focal point for those wishing to experience the best of Australian and international visual, performance and interdisciplinary art. PICA is both a producing and presenting institution that runs a year-round program of exhibitions, seasons in contemporary dance, theatre and performance and a range of interdisciplinary projects.
About STRUT Dance
STRUT Dance is the National Choreographic Centre based in Perth WA. An innovative new model that provides internationally benchmarked development, collaboration and performance opportunities for Australian independent dance artists and physical theatre practitioners. Usually quarantined to major dance organisations, these opportunities are now available to the independent sector exclusively through STRUT, with a particular focus on developing the local WA ecology with local, national and international programming.
