TRANSFORMING GROUND

Graphic design by Que FK <3

Workshop Description:

TRANSFORMING GROUND and the entanglements of space, time and place. 

We are our inheritance. We are our perspectives. We are our imaginations. We are bearers of time and relationship. We come into being in the space between.

This workshop will gather us together in a process of intersubjective dialogue, exchange and physical practice. Our physical practice will be rooted in BodyWeather; working with the body as energetic potential within a sensory field. BodyWeather cultivates a conscious relation to states of change, porous and permeating. BodyWeather considers the body as a constantly changing environment within a greater environment. We will sharpen our sense to these finely tuned processes and cycles. 

We will witness and keep watch. We will honour the different perspectives in the space, understanding that each position reveals the possibility of new knowledge. We will inhabit multiplicities at once.

BODYWEATHER is a broad-base training that proposes a practical strategy to the mind and to the body. It is not just for 'professional dancers' or 'performance practitioners' alone but is an open investigation that can be relevant for anyone interested in exploring the body and physical presence. 

The term and philosophical basis for BODYWEATHER was founded by farmer/dancer Min Tanaka and his MAI-JUKU performance group in Japan. Drawing from Eastern, Western and Oceanic movement lineages, martial arts, and experimental theatre practice, it is a comprehensive training and performance practice that develops a conscious relation to states of change inside and outside the body. The training draws from FOUR main areas of the practice, which vary between high-energy work and quiet, meditative explorations. 

BODYWEATHER - detailed information about key components of the practice:

1. MB (Muscle><Bone, Mind><Body): a dynamic rhythmic workout that includes movement to develop strength, flexibility, endurance and a strong physical grounding. As an awareness training it tunes into internal and external rhythms, physical and energetic expansion, and trains the imagination in preparation for performance. 

2. MANIPULATIONS: a series of precise forms that focus on stretching, alignment, and extending the body's internal and external parameters through breath, touch and giving weight. 

3. GROUNDWORK: a wide variety of investigations to develop sensorial focus, sensitivity and scope of expression. 

4. IMAGEWORK: an exploration of how images arise in and around us, and how the body can be danced by these images and by the imagination. 

What to bring:

Warm loose comfortable clothing, notebook and writing materials, yoga mat, water bottle, change of clothes, and any other materials or devices used for personal research and gathering. Closer to the event, more information will be provided with regards to how to prepare for the creative research sessions.  

FACILITATOR BIO:

Victoria Hunt is an Australian-born Māori interdisciplinary performance artist with ancestral affiliations to Te Arawa, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Kahungunu and Pākehā (Irish, Scottish, English, Finnish). Grounded in mātauranga Māori, BodyWeather philosophy and IndigiQueer resurgence, Hunt traverses the politics of rematriation, inserting bodies into frameworks of power for future ancestors.

A dancer, choreographer, director, dramaturg, photographer and filmmaker, Hunt examines Indigenous epistemologies within diasporic concepts of identity and belonging. Central to her practice is an ongoing relationship with Hinemihi o Te Ao Tawhito, an ancestral meeting house whose displacement from Aotearoa to England has become a catalyst for deep creative research into identity and cultural continuity. She works with long-time collaborators James Brown (composer), Boris Bagattini (visual design, projection, body adornment), Fausto Brusamolino (lighting), Mathew Stegh (costume) and Rosie Belvie (performer). Together, their works have received Helpmann, Australian Dance, Green Room and SMAC nominations and awards and have toured across six continents.

Hunt is a 2025 Creative Australia Dance Fellow and artist-in-residence at Carriageworks, Eora (Sydney). Their latest work, KŌIWI, commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, gave form to a “protector” entity and is currently touring.

Her short film TAKE won the Mana Whenua Award at the Wairoa Māori Film Festival and Best Achievement in Indigenous Filmmaking at Sydney Film Festival. In Juan Francisco Salazar’s feature COSMOGRAPHIES (2024), the sequel to Nightfall on GAiA (2014), Hunt is a Māori astrophysicist confronting extractivism and plans to colonise the Moon and Mars.

Hunt was a founding member of Sydney BodyWeather company De Quincey Co. (2000–2024), Rex Cramphorn Theatre Fellow (2016) and Research Assistant with the Australian Space Agency at Western Sydney University (2021–2024) and holds First Class Honours in Performance Studies from UNSW (2017). They co-founded Weather Beings, a 2Spirit collective with Métis Singing Thunderbird artist Moe Clark (Tio’tia:ke/Montréal).

Hunt’s practice is intercultural, intergenerational and committed to the full sovereignty of Indigenous knowledge.

https://victoriahunt.com.au

Requirements:

You do not need to be a trained dancer or performer. 

We do ask you to be ready to invest your energy into this co-creative experience, with curiosity, and a willingness to engage, relate, move, and be moved. 

We want this to be an offering of a resource and tool to navigate rupture, collapse, calamity, repair; a tool for relational restoration - both within, across and around. An offering for research, calibration and nourishment.

You are invited because you are engaged in cultural knowledge reclamation through your practices. You are engaged in research, activism, ceremony, community arts, the landback movement. Your people have lived through attempted genocide, and may be living through it now. You engage in difficult questions and know we are all impacted by white supremacist colonization. You are willing to confront your patterns and move through challenges to stay connected. You believe we deserve better than fascism, and are at least willing to stay open to the possibility that we can build something better together.

Access Needs + Payment Options:

There is a small amount of confirmed Access Funds, and more may become available before the workshop begins. Please let us know in the application form about any barriers you face and we will let you know if we can support you. Please indicate if you are interested to attend but cannot commit without a financial stipend.

If you are in a financially stable position, please consider donating towards the Access Fund. These funds will support other applicants who face barriers to participation. 

Access support is prioritized for low income participants who are BIPOC, queer/trans, 2Spirit, disabled, and/or parents. 

Cost to Participate:

Morning class drop-in: $20

Week 1 (Tues - Sat): $200

Full 11 days (Week 1: Tues - Sat, Week 2: Mon - Sat): $400

Sliding scale and subsidized spots are available, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Application Response Time:

There are limited spots, and intake for Expressions of Interest closes November 1st, 2026.

All applications will be reviewed and responded to in early November with a link to register for morning classes or the workshop cohort.

We look forward to meeting you.

Maarsii cho + Tēnā koe i tō wātea mai

Thank you for your time

<3