BIOGRAPHY:
Caitlin Dear is an artist working through choreography, performance, academia and practice-based research who is currently based between Melbourne (Australia) and 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.
Caitlin has a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Dance) which she completed between DOCH, Stockholm University of the Arts (Sweden) and Deakin University (Australia).
ARTIST MISSION STATEMENT:
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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 work to speak inclusively to broad audiences
PRESENTATION OF WORK:
Dancing Affordances
2020, Dancehouse, Melbourne
Tree Time
2020, c3 contemporary art space, Melbourne
2019, Inter Arts Center, Malmö
2018, Index Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm
Sensory Studies
2019, No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne
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
Programmed Responses
2016, First Run program, Lucy Guerin Inc, Melbourne
2016, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Schoolhouse Studios, Melbourne
ACADEMIC/DIDACTIC:
Presented at conference Working With The Vegetal III held at Stockholm University of the Arts, Sweden, 2019
Presented at research symposium Interference Lab #8 hosted by Inter Arts Center and Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University, Sweden 2019
Taught professional training classes for Danscentrum, Sweden 2019
Taught professional training classes for Höjden Hus, Sweden 2019
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
Lead a workshop for Test{ing} Club- a group for artistic practice exchange and collaboration, Melbourne, 2017
DISCOURSE/DEVELOPMENT PLATFORMS:
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.
She is also 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".
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.
PERFORMANCE HISTORY:
2020 (Melbourne, Australia):
Dancing Affordances by Caitlin Dear, part of Submerge Festival, Dancehouse
2018 (Stockholm, Sweden):
Meaning - Nothingness by Caitlin Dear (in progress performance), Weld
Splendour by Stina Nyberg, remounted for DOCH (Department of Dance and Circus), Stockholm University of the Arts
Borrowed Landscape by Heine Avdal and Yukiko Shinozaki, presented site specifically at supermarket ICA Maxi Lindhagen, for DOCH (Department of Dance and Circus), Stockholm University of the Arts
2017 (Melbourne, Australia):
Tim Collins Speaks by Geoffrey Watson, performance lecture commissioned for the Dance Speaks program, Counihan Gallery
The Infirmary by Triage Live Art Collective, Punctum Inc.
Qualia by Caitlin Dear, Testing Grounds and The Owl and Cat Theatre
Untitled Performance by Natalie Abbott, MPavilion
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
Social Studies: Epic Theatre by Shian Law, Dancehouse
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
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
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