The work of Shelley Lasica reveals a sustained exploration of dance, movement, and the varying contexts in which they can occur.
WHEN I AM NOT THERE
has been produced to accompany a performance exhibition reflecting on forty years of Lasica’s choreographic practice. Held at Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (15–27 August 2022),
is the first Australian survey of its kind. Centring on a new ensemble work that Melbourne-based Lasica has developed with a team of ten other artists—Lydia Connolly-Hiatt, Luke Fryer, Timothy Harvey, Rebecca Jensen, Megan Payne, Lisa Radford, Lana Šprajcer, Oliver Savariego, François Tétaz, and Colby Vexler—it also presents components from Lasica’s archive of earlier works, including costuming, objects, soundscapes, and text. Consolidating ideas and experiments that Lasica has developed throughout her career,
contributes to discussions around choreography in the gallery space and activates the tension between what it means ‘to perform’ and ‘to exhibit.’ Edited by the project’s curator, Hannah Mathews, in conversation with Lasica, this monograph is the first to be published on an Australian choreographer.