Sally Smart
Geometric Dance #1 (The Artist's Ballet), 2021
mixed media on paper
76 x 56 cm
83 x 63 cm (exhibition frame)
83 x 63 cm (exhibition frame)
The framework for Choreographies (The Artist's Ballet) took place in 2019 when Smart was commissioned to create a work responding to the Australian expatriate and relative, the artist Bessie Davidson,...
The framework for Choreographies (The Artist's Ballet) took place in 2019 when Smart was
commissioned to create a work responding to the Australian expatriate and relative, the artist Bessie
Davidson, for an exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery. Smart made a dance film titled The Artist's
Ballet, an interdisciplinary project, with dancers Jo Lloyd and Deanne Butterworth.
"In considering the life of Davidson I have included Margaret Preston and their decade-long
relationship through a tumultuous time in human history. The dance performance embodies timeless
themes and psychological tensions for these women, grappling with the avant-garde in art and life,
at a traumatic period in human history (war, isolation, gender and modernity). The dance
performance creates a contemporary lived presence and connection to the art and lives of women
artists."
The exhibition was severely interrupted by the Pandemic’s restrictions. Smart went on to
develop The Artist's Ballet through the lockdown of 2020 to create a new work, a tableau of curtains,
film, and moving elements. This new work was shown on exhibition in The National 2021: New
Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art curated by Rachel Kent.
"I am interested in 20th Century dance histories at the intersection of dance and visual art - recently
explored in The Artist’ Ballet' through scenography based on images of a Pina Bausch experimental
dance work; Robert Rauschenberg assemblage structures and costumes; along with reimagining
and reframing Paris based early avant-garde experimental dance of the Ballets Russes. My
commitment to avant-garde histories and legacies is reflected in this new work."
commissioned to create a work responding to the Australian expatriate and relative, the artist Bessie
Davidson, for an exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery. Smart made a dance film titled The Artist's
Ballet, an interdisciplinary project, with dancers Jo Lloyd and Deanne Butterworth.
"In considering the life of Davidson I have included Margaret Preston and their decade-long
relationship through a tumultuous time in human history. The dance performance embodies timeless
themes and psychological tensions for these women, grappling with the avant-garde in art and life,
at a traumatic period in human history (war, isolation, gender and modernity). The dance
performance creates a contemporary lived presence and connection to the art and lives of women
artists."
The exhibition was severely interrupted by the Pandemic’s restrictions. Smart went on to
develop The Artist's Ballet through the lockdown of 2020 to create a new work, a tableau of curtains,
film, and moving elements. This new work was shown on exhibition in The National 2021: New
Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art curated by Rachel Kent.
"I am interested in 20th Century dance histories at the intersection of dance and visual art - recently
explored in The Artist’ Ballet' through scenography based on images of a Pina Bausch experimental
dance work; Robert Rauschenberg assemblage structures and costumes; along with reimagining
and reframing Paris based early avant-garde experimental dance of the Ballets Russes. My
commitment to avant-garde histories and legacies is reflected in this new work."
