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Zendra Giraudo , Eliza Smith

Conference on Hope

Conference on Hope

Conference on Hope is a new experiment in dance theatre, co-created by Zendra Giraudo and Eliza Smith with mentorship from Dr Renee Newman and Dr Emma Fishwick. The project blends performance lecture, AV, dance, poetry and imagery to tell the story of a single unwieldy and metamorphic day, narrated by an astronaut who becomes both story and storyteller. Giraudo and Smith will use their residency at PICA to explore the form of a performance-lecture and experiment with representing the concept of failure.

About the artists

Zendra Giraudo (they/them) is an emerging movement-based performer and maker, currently situated in Boorloo/Perth. They graduated from WAAPA with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance (2021) and Honours in Performance Making (2022). Zendra works across improvised and choreographed movement and contemporary theatre, while developing their craft through visual, tactile and multimedia artforms. They aspire to make felt, imagined worlds in their work through playful, collaborative, improvisational and anticolonial practice. Zendra was in the PAWA award-winning ensemble for The Complete Show of Water Skiing (2022). In 2023 they danced in Co3’s Architect of the Invisible and Laura Boyne’s Subliminal Drift. Zendra was also the co-creator and performer for WHITESNAKE3000 (dir. Joe Paradise Lui) which was presented with The Blue Room Theatre (2023) and Co3 (2024). They completed online research residency [CP]³ 2024 with Singaporean dance company Dance Nucleus, supported by STRUT Dance.

Eliza Smith (she/they) is a queer, neurodivergent writer, director and performance artist who grew up on the beaches of Walyalup and now works out of Boorloo. Influenced by José Esteban Muñoz and Jill Dolan, their work draws on a queer practice of futurity, or the steadfast belief that performances can step outside of linear time to touch utopian futures and shared desire. Eliza studied at WAAPA, completing her Bachelor of Arts in Dance (2021) and First Class Honours in Performance Making (2024). Through a utopian practice-as-research approach, Eliza is interested in the entangled desires of multiple species and stories. Their storytelling maps a collective hope and grief which is ecological, entangled and interdependent. Eliza’s professional credits include writing and directing Everything Flickers and directing Much Stuff in The Blue Room’s annual 2023 season. They were also a co-devisor, intern and stage manager on WHITESNAKE3000 (dir. Joe Paradise Lui) for the 2023 Summer Nights season.