BIOGRAPHY:

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Caitlin Dear is an artist working through choreography, performance, academia and practice-based research who is based currently in Naarm/Melbourne (Australia) and previously in Stockholm (Sweden). Engendering a sense of clinical wonder and focused multiplicity, her works encourage audiences to ponder philosophical problems from an embodied perspective, with a scientific sensibility.

 

Informed by her research practices, she works choreographically with movement, attention, text, sensory stimulation and relations to create performances and live works. Through immersive or participatory elements, she engages audiences with the inquiries of her work first-hand.  

Investigating the fluidity and relationality of experience, and looking towards semantic multiplicity, Caitlin is busy exploring how the nature of perceptual experience affects the way we communicate/interpret meaning, and interact with the world. She is also compelled to interrogate the notion of ‘nature’; often working in dialogue with vegetal species.

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EDUCATION:

 

Caitlin has a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Dance) which she completed between DOCH, Stockholm University of the Arts (Sweden) and Deakin University (Australia).

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Currently, Caitlin is being supported by Dancehouse to complete a training program in Climate Action Skills and by Think Tank Dance Assembly to be trained in Cultural Safety in a Disability Context.

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She has also undertaken studies in visual art/theory, meditation and yoga. Additionally, she is an avid reader of non-fiction books and peer-reviewed journal articles on wide-ranging subjects within the Arts, Philosophy and Science.

ARTIST MISSION STATEMENT:

 

  • I want to exist in dialogue with philosophical and scientific work

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  • I want to engage people with their perceptions and subjectivity to engender reconsideration and criticality

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  • I want to create live art where the power structures between audience, performer, author and work are malleable

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  • I want my live works to speak inclusively to broad audiences

PRESENTATION OF WORK:

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Dancing Affordances

2020, Dancehouse, Melbourne

 

Tree Time

2020, c3 contemporary art space, Melbourne

2019, Inter Arts Center, Malmö    

2018, Index Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm

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Sensory Studies

2019, No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne

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Meaning - Nothingness (in-process performance)

2018, produced by INSISTER SPACE, Weld, Stockholm 

  

Qualia

2017, Platform Festival, The Owl and Cat Theatre, Melbourne

2017, within festival Size Doesn’t Matter (really), Testing Grounds, Melbourne

2016, within double bill Perceiving in Action, Testing Grounds, Melbourne

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Programmed Responses

2016, First Run program, Lucy Guerin Inc, Melbourne

2016, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Schoolhouse Studios, Melbourne    

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ACADEMIC/DIDACTIC:

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Presented at conference Working With The Vegetal III, held at Stockholm University of the Arts, Sweden, 2019      

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Presented at research symposium Interference Lab #8 hosted by Inter Arts Center and Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University, Sweden 2019

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Taught professional training classes for Danscentrum, Sweden 2019

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Taught professional training classes for Höjden Hus, Sweden 2019

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Presented at conference Working With The Vegetal held at Stockholm University of the Arts, Sweden, 2018

 

Facilitated an ‘open reading space’ at Index Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, 2018

Facilitated a research workshop for POSSE- a dancing/reading group, Sweden, 2018

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Lead a workshop for Test{ing} Club- a group for artistic practice exchange and collaboration, Melbourne, 2017

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DISCOURSE/DEVELOPMENT PLATFORMS:

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This year, Caitlin initiated a new program at Dancehouse called On The Table, a weekly event for artistic exchange and collaborative working which she co-runs with Ebony Muller. Expanding beyond traditional in-process showing formats, artists are asked to share their work, inviting others to partake in their explorations; putting something ‘on the table’ for everyone attending to examine together. 

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Since 2017, Caitlin has been a member of Insister Space, Stockholm-based organisation and network who "work with artistic practices as a base for organization and mobilizes itself towards a dancefield made of support and common engagement in art instead of an increasingly individualized workforce". 

 

Interested in platforms for artistic exchanges, with Jessica Matheson, Caitlin initiated Test{ing} club - regular 'malleable meetings' that ran during 2017, providing an informal space for people of all (un)artistic backgrounds to exchange, collaborate, challenge, propose, critique, test, expand discourse, support each other, practice together- do together.

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Whilst studying at Deakin University, she initiated and directed a co-curricular education program, inviting guest artists from varying disciplines to teach workshops focusing on research, performance making or socially engaged practices. Participants were aided in relating information to their own work and in forming interdisciplinary and collaborative relationships with peers. 

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SUPPORT OF CAITLIN'S PRACTICE:

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Dancehouse (Melbourne) through their Emerging Choreographers Program & Space Grants

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Testing Grounds (Melbourne) through support in developing and presenting performances

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Punctum Inc. (Castlemaine, Aust.) through the mentorship of Artistic Director Jude Anderson

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Inter Arts Center (Malomö, Sweden) through a research residency 


INSISTER SPACE (Stockholm, Sweden) by providing a supportive/cirtically-engaged peer network

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Independent dance artist James Batchelor through his mentorship

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PERFORMANCE HISTORY:

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2020 (Melbourne, Australia):

 

Dancing Affordances by Caitlin Dear, part of Submerge Festival, Dancehouse

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2018 (Stockholm, Sweden):

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Meaning - Nothingness by Caitlin Dear (in progress performance), Weld

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Splendour by Stina Nyberg, remounted for DOCH (Department of Dance and Circus), Stockholm University of the Arts

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Borrowed Landscape by Heine Avdal and Yukiko Shinozaki, presented site specifically at supermarket ICA Maxi Lindhagen, for Stockholm University of the Arts

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2017 (Melbourne, Australia):

 

Tim Collins Speaks by Geoffrey Watson, performance lecture commissioned for the Dance Speaks program, Counihan Gallery

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The Infirmary by Triage Live Art Collective, Punctum Inc. 

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Qualia by Caitlin Dear, Testing Grounds and The Owl and Cat Theatre

 

Untitled Performance by Natalie Abbott, MPavilion

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2016 (Melbourne, Australia):

 

Re-Vault by Jonathan Sinatra, M47 Festival, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art & Batman Park

 

Wrapped by Hiromi Tango, Melbourne Festival Public Art Biennale, Queen Vic Markets

 

The Sequel by Leah Landau, Dancehouse

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Social Studies: Epic Theatre by Shian Law, Dancehouse

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Trilogy by Nic Green, Arts House

 

Untitled Performance by Ashlee Barton and Caitlin Dear, commissioned by Alexandra Chambers as a part of exhibition Celestial Bodies, The Oratory, Abbotsford Convent

 

NOW. by Kaitlyn McConnell, as part of the programme Signature, Studio 221

 

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2015 (Melbourne, Australia):

 

Bells and Whistles by Shaun Mcleod and Never Arriving by Olivia Millard, as a part of double bill Move to Go for Deakin University, Studio B

 

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2013 & 2012 (various locations):

 

Couched by Kynan Hughes and Scratch the Surface by Alice Lee Holland and James O’Hara as a part of the triple bill Threefold for STEPS, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

 

Scratch the Surface by James O’Hara, Alice Lee Holland and Ruth Osborne for STEPS & Quantum Leap, TNUA theatre, Taipei, Taiwan
 

Try Hard by Alice Lee Holland and Adam Wheeler for STEPS, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, Perth, Australia