Ashleigh Musk
2023
Performance
Mparntwe, Australia
Ashleigh Musk is a dancer, choreographer, dramaturg, and community arts facilitator based on unceded Arrernte Country (Mparntwe/Alice Springs) in the Northern Territory (Australia). Her work explores alternate futures to spark conversations around our co-existence with the more-than-human world and our responsibilities in the ecological crisis we have created. Often using industrial materials which are activated in experimental ways, complex relationships are revealed through the handling of these junk-like objects with radical care and tenderness.
BIO
Musk’s work reimagines the apocalyptic narrative, by conceiving spaces for hope and presenting alternate futures for survival centered around co-existence with the more-than-human world. The work is interactive, asking audiences to participate and engage in the construction/deconstruction of its landscapes. By laying architectural and ecological concepts and philosophies into the body, it looks at the innate conflict of our existence in natural and built environments. Often using industrial materials which are activated in experimental ways, complex relationships are revealed through the handling of these junk-like objects with radical care and tenderness.
STATEMENT
How can we make the outdoors a space of belonging?
By bringing our artistic practices into closer proximity to ecological sites, we make the experience of the outdoors more accessible, creating new languages to understand biodiversity & urgency. We build upon scientific ways of seeing to create more inclusive forms of belonging with ecology, generating a complex & diverse network of collective relations and realities. We start with dramaturgy and 'queering' its methodology; a process of moving beyond traditional structures to adopt ‘fluid’ characteristics. With this thinking, we explore what happens when we weave verbatim & embodied experiences to share in decentralized ways through conversation & exploration of the body; making our practices more kindred to ecosystems, timescales, seasons & species. We are active practitioners in the environmental movement & create more equitable outcomes for the longevity of artistic practices, by researching new ways of communicating their transformations in relationship with ecological spaces.
Musk’s Fellowship is in partnership with Pierce Eldridge.