Sarah Ann Aiken

I have been incredibly fortunate to be supported by you, my incredible creative community, mentors, support networks, friends, audiences and strangers. The support and encouragement I have had has allowed me to develop my practice. This year, I have some amazing opportunities to take my work further and take some vital steps toward sustaining my practice into the future, I am taking my work national (SARAH AIKEN(tools for personal expansion) tours to Metro Arts, Brisbane) and my practice international (Sarah Aiken goes to DanceWEB, ImPulsTanz, Austria). 

But to do this I need your support.

To sweeten the deal and show how much love I have for my support networks, I have rustled up some dreamy rewards. Generous support from my community and collaborators means I have some treats from my local faves. Auction Rooms/Counter (coffee of dreams) give a free coffee to the first 30 people who pledge! then we have limited edition rewards from Rock Steady Records (nicest record store in town), Therefore and Body Werk Massage plus your name as a song, my hometown as a holiday and so much more. Take your time, keep scrolling and find the reward for you.

    PLUS EVERY SINGLE DONATION WILL BE DOUBLED!!

I have been selected by Creative Partnerships Australia to be part of their Match Lab program to match dollar for dollar, funds raised for my work. This opportunity is an incredible chance to take my work further and for you to help multiply its influence exponentially.

My work is just one thread in the rich ecosystem of the independent arts, a community vital for interigating, imagining and redefining our world. Your support will make a real impact to my work, my collaborators and the community I am a part of. We all work with such limited resources and each artist is so deserving of support, so I know just how valuable your support is and promise to stretch every dollar as far as possible. 

Supporting independent artists is such an important investment into the arts, and in a time where things without financial value are valued less and less, it means the world to me, my collaborators and community, to have your support.

The plan:

First up, I have the amazing opportunity to take up a place in the DanceWEB scholarship program at ImPulsTanz in Vienna, Austria. This highly competitive program gives around 60 artists from around the word the chance to spend 5 weeks together participating in workshops, research projects, seeing performances and working, being and thinking together, in the frame of Europe’s premier dance festival ImPulsTanz. 

This experience will invigerate and challenge me in so many ways, setting me up for the redevelopment and touring of SARAH AIKEN (tools for personal expansion), a work I made last year for the Keir Choreographic Award. The work will tour to Metro Arts, Brisbane and allow me to expose the work to new audiences and give me the skills and experience to take my work around the country and maybe even the world.

This is a work about me, but not about me at all. Together with incredible performers Emily Robinson and Claire Leske, sound designer Daniel Arnott and Lx designer Amy Lever-Davidson, this work looks at how we perpetuate ourselves through our actions, ideas, through digital platforms and through other people, and what, without support, retracts as we reach out. What is compromised to make sure you remember my name.

Then- the future: each of these opportunities are providing me and my team with incredible experiences and skills to keep making work and show it as broadly as possible, making sure that the independent arts, and especially work made and performed by women, has a space in our culture, is valued and is seen. 

MORE details

DANCEWEB

The Danceweb Scholarship Program is a 5-week training program taking place from July-August, alongside ImPulsTanz - Europe's premier International Dance Festival.

The Program accepts around 65 young professional dancers and choreographers from around the world and provides the opportunity to take part in an intense multinational further training program. Danceweb focuses on "the exchange of ideas and knowledge, not limited by national borders, on concentrated further training, on meeting with internationally renowned artists gathering at ImPulsTanz with the aim to orient the career of the participants."

The scholarship allows selected participants access to unlimited ImPulsTanz workshops, research projects and performances, ensuring an intensive, broad and relevant period of study.

Travelling internationally is the only way to have such an in-depth study and exposure to the international dance community; to access and feed off the vast amounts of artistic practice, thought and analysis produced by the rich creative community. Contemporary dance in Australia, though growing and very rich, is far smaller so it’s important for me to continue my education abroad, enriching my practice and in turn, the dance industry at home.

and

SARAH AIKEN (tools for personal expansion) is a study into social, digital & physical means of expanding the self. Existing simultaneously between digital & physical formats; I augment & expand my self, engaging the performers and audience to do my bidding, extending my ability to act on the world through every platform and making sure everyone remembers my name.

It is about personal power, about attempts to be heard and seen, to take up space and allow identity to expand beyond physical limitation but also, considering finite resources, the compromises that facilitate these expansions.

SARAH AIKEN looks at how we live in the world, the versions of ourselves we curate, our output, achievements and the versions that others hold of us; how much we control these variants, and how much they shape us. The work critiques the gendered occupation of space and the worship of progress, development and continual growth, observing what retracts as we reach further.

Considering environmental, social and emotional repercussions of a culture driven by reach, progress & personal branding, the work holds within it the tension between ambition, empowerment and sustainability.

The opportunity to tour this work is a vital step in building an arts practice that is sustainable and responsive to audiences and arts communities around the country. Images: 1. Gregory Lorenzutti 2. and 3. Sarah Aiken

Every dollar raised will be matched by Creative Partnerships Australia, so the more you pledge, the more they will fork out.

Funds raised will go direct toward project costs, developing and rehearsing the work as well as supporting our tour to Brisbane in September, as well as contributing to danceWEB, primarily:

-Collaborating artist fees- My work involves other people, and i couldnt do it without them. Like any high calibre professional, they need an income. Artist fees cover rehearsal and performance fees for Claire, Emily, Daniel and Amy.

-Flights and accomodation Brisbane. We spend every dollar wisely. We'll fly Tiger and sleep in bunk beds unless we beat our target then its upgrades for everyone.

-Production managment and operation. This will make sure we've got someone at the Brisbane end who knows the space and the town, making sure everything is ready to go once we arrive.

-Lighting and audio visual hires. This is a pretty basic show really, but it does need a white floor, a nice projector and some lights

-Materials and costume. Patch ups and remakes. 

-Rehearsal space (melbourne)

-Documentation. This is vital for keeping the work alive beyond the season as well as future presentation opportunities.

-A contribution toward danceWEB scholarship costs (2/3rds of the program costs are covered by the festival leaving 1/3rd to be covered by the participant, around $3000, as well as flights and living expenses for 5 weeks)

PIE CHART

With my talented and experienced team i have no doubts that this project will be excellent, however art is hard and there are always challenges. 

Working interstate means working outside of my networks, and in unfamiliar spaces, to counter the difficulties this brings up, I am working closely with Metro Arts Brisbane as well as a Brisbane based production manager, to make sure details in production and marketing are accounted for.