Fellowship awarded to Suzon Fuks

Suzon Fuks is an internationally recognised choreographer, director and multimedia artist. The focus of her work is to explore the integration and interaction of dance and moving image through performance, screen, installation and online work.

Born in Brussels, Suzon trained daily in dance, theatre and music at Lilian Lambert Academy and completed her Masters in Visual Arts at La Cambre, a school based on the philosophy of the Bauhaus, examining how different artistic disciplines inform each other. She moved to Australia in 1996 and has been co-artistic director of multimedia and performance company Igneous since its inception in 1997. Igneous has presented works such as Mirage, Liquid Skin, Fragmentation, Thanatonauts, The Hands Project and Body in Question.

Suzon¹s work has been shown in over fifty festivals throughout the world including Theater Der Welt, London Mime Festival, Hong Kong Festival, Singapore Festival, NOW Festival, Biennale Internationale de la Marionnette, Mimos and Dance on Camera.

Highly awarded, Suzon has won the 2008 Green Room Award for Outstanding Video-Scenography in Theatre, she was short-listed for the 2008 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance for Mirage.

Her screendance Fragmentation was nominated for the Australian Dance Award for Dance on film, a finalist in the ReelDance Awards and toured to 12 festivals and 25 venues worldwide.

Suzon Fuks was awarded an Australia Council two-year fellowship in 2009 to explore the frontiers of screendance* and networked performance**. Phase one will revolve around creating three new dance pieces specifically for the screen which integrates dance footage collected over the last 25 years around the world including some rare Indian dance forms. Phase two will involve in-depth research to create a networked performance to occur simultaneously in multiple spaces, using telecommunication to link people and place. This work will be physically generated through audience response and explore issues of flux and connection. Suzon will share her discoveries by maintaining a blog, attending international festivals, and presenting outcomes at the Igneous studio, Ausdance Queensland and as artist in residence at the Judith Wright Centre.

* Screendance, alternatively called 'videodance¹, is a genre made for the camera where movement is the primary expressive element in the work rather than dialogue (as in conventional narrative movies) or music (as in music videos). Screendance's definition is expanding to also include live performance, installation and the use of multiple and multi-dimensional screens.

** Networked performance is a performance event happening simultaneously in multiple spaces, including the Web, using telecommunication tools to link people and places.

Visit Suzon's blog http://suzonfuks.net/