MAP host artists in Christchurch to support their practice and
provide platforms to engage their research with the public and their peers.
For Expressions of Interest Please Email:
2016 Artist in Residence: Emma Murray
February - April 2106
MAP are proud to host Christchurch-born and swiss-based dance artist, Emma Murray from February 2016.
With thanks to Prohelvetia Switzerland and YAA! - Young Associated Artists & Christchurch Creative Communities.
Emma Murray's Residency has been completed, here is what she had to say about the experience:
"I first contacted Julia Harvie at MAP due to a trip home to Christchurch I was planning, and the desire to reconnect with the local dance scene after years of being away.
It was through a trawl of the website I first became aware of MAP, and was at once interested, and somewhat surprised it existed at all.
It was clear from the visuals and language of the site, not to mention the opportunities for research, and the calibre of the regular and visiting tutors on offer - that this was an organization that reflected my own interests, and the aims of similar organizations here in Europe.It was something I wanted to be a part of!
My initial queries to Julia, about the prospect of meeting, with a view to finding out more about MAP were met with genuine enthusiasm and an invitation to come teach.
My involvement with MAP took some imagination and went through several stages of planning, in a relatively short space of time. Julia and I continued regular email contact, shaping what became a residency to develop and research work at Pigeon Bay, with two Movement Labs, weekly classes, and the opportunity to present work at both Sawtooth Studios and the EXCHANGE during my time in Christchurch.
I am very thankful to Julia for her support, patience and energy in making it happen at all.
MAP places value on research and experimentation. It exists to ask questions of dance and the world around us, and ultimately, supports creative process as a means of ensuring the longevity and quality of art and artists, if not lives.
In an increasingly capitalist and commercially driven world these are not particularly popular values. They require vision and power to keep alive. They require people like Julia Harvie and spaces like MAP. It’s Julia’s own keen sense of questioning, drive and appetite for choreography and new forms that invites us to experience MAP as a place to activate and practice these values. A place to develop our own interests and, through movement, think.
From my first day teaching, a small but committed group of participants, I felt like I was in the right place. From the Judson Church-esque space on Durham street, and tourist dancers from Spain, France, and Germany dropping in for class, to the questions and opportunity for exchange made possible by the participants.
Exchanges like these benefit everyone who chooses to contribute. The chance to share some of my own experience of living and working in Switzerland for the past 15 years forced me to articulate and expose a body of work and knowledge I’ve been accumulating, almost without knowing it.
Through the work of MAP, Christchurch artists, and those interested in dance have a unique opportunity to engage with national and international artists working across disciplines, with skills and experience to stimulate and provoke their own".
BIOGRAPHY
Emma Murray is a dancer/choreographer living in Bern, Switzerland. She danced as a soloist with the Royal New Zealand Ballet from the age of 19 before moving to Europe in 1997. She then danced with the Konzert Theater Bern for 8 years, leaving in 2008 to establish herself as a Swiss based choreographer and performer. As well as performing
and producing her own work she continues to teach, act and assist in choreographic and theater projects throughout Switzerland.
She was appointed Associated Artist at the Dampfzentrale Bern from 2013-2015 where her work is regularly co-produced. Since 2013, and in recognition of her emerging presence in both national and international settings, she has been the recipient of
support from the City of Bern and ProHelvetia Switzerland, to aid in the distribution and artistic development of her work.
Murray’s interest in creative practices led to the launch of WORKING SESSIONS in 2014, an exchange based research platform which facilitates the collaboration and curation of artists, working across disciplines in performance, choreography, writing and music. It has seen her work alongside diverse artists such as Wendy Houstoun, Simone Aughterlony, Martin Schick, Jacob Wren, Nicole Seiler, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Jessica
Huber, Julian Satorius, Marysia Stoklosa and Simon Lenski.
As a result, Murray sees artistic process as a practice that archives at the same time as doing, and can be seen, not separate to, but interwoven into performance itself. Her performance work includes; My Body is an Island (2008), You Should Have Seen Me(2009), naturalcauses (2010), MADE TO ORDER (2011), This is the Beginning (2012), the way you look tonight (2014). The works endeavours to find physical translations that
embody and expose the more absurd contradictions of being human.
Emma Murray is a dancer/choreographer living in Bern, Switzerland. She danced as a soloist with the Royal New Zealand Ballet from the age of 19 before moving to Europe in 1997. She then danced with the Konzert Theater Bern for 8 years, leaving in 2008 to establish herself as a Swiss based choreographer and performer. As well as performing
and producing her own work she continues to teach, act and assist in choreographic and theater projects throughout Switzerland.
She was appointed Associated Artist at the Dampfzentrale Bern from 2013-2015 where her work is regularly co-produced. Since 2013, and in recognition of her emerging presence in both national and international settings, she has been the recipient of
support from the City of Bern and ProHelvetia Switzerland, to aid in the distribution and artistic development of her work.
Murray’s interest in creative practices led to the launch of WORKING SESSIONS in 2014, an exchange based research platform which facilitates the collaboration and curation of artists, working across disciplines in performance, choreography, writing and music. It has seen her work alongside diverse artists such as Wendy Houstoun, Simone Aughterlony, Martin Schick, Jacob Wren, Nicole Seiler, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Jessica
Huber, Julian Satorius, Marysia Stoklosa and Simon Lenski.
As a result, Murray sees artistic process as a practice that archives at the same time as doing, and can be seen, not separate to, but interwoven into performance itself. Her performance work includes; My Body is an Island (2008), You Should Have Seen Me(2009), naturalcauses (2010), MADE TO ORDER (2011), This is the Beginning (2012), the way you look tonight (2014). The works endeavours to find physical translations that
embody and expose the more absurd contradictions of being human.