Program
Support
Information
Temperance Movement #3
Geoffrey Watson &
Tony Yap
Provocation Series
DATE & TIME
Wednesday 16 September, 6:30pm
LOCATION
Temperance Hall, Main Hall
199 Napier Street
South Melbourne
ACCESSIBILITY
Wheelchair accessible
TICKETS
Pay as you can here
How are you negotiating practice in this time?
Inspired by the hall’s history of housing meetings of the Emerald Hill Total Abstinence Society, where public testimony was employed to convert others to the movement, Temperance Movement is a new initiative held across four weeks at Temperance Hall that supports choreographers to present new ideas.
Held weekly across September, each iteration of Temperance Movement invites two artists to share their current preoccupations in a supportive, in-progress format — one artist is invited to do so through movement, the other, through speech.
Curated by Dr. Brooke Stamp, the series draws on the history of Temperance Hall as a site of public meetings, where speeches, debates, and personal testimonies were used to persuade and mobilise audiences. Reframed within a contemporary choreographic context, Temperance Movement adopts this structure as a way to create space for critical reflection, articulation, and dialogue around choreographic practice.
Positioned between a showing and a forum, each evening offers a platform for artists to test ideas publicly and to contribute to a broader conversation around the conditions, languages, and preoccupations of contemporary movement-based practice.
FACILITATOR Dr. Brooke Stamp
SPEAKER Geoffrey Watson
MOVER Tony Yap
Geoffrey Watson is an artist whose practice is rooted in dance but frequently wanders into other disciplines and art forms like a stray cat looking for something to eat.
Tony Yap, born in Malaysia, is an accomplished dancer, director, choreographer and visual artist with over three decades of intercultural performance practice. He was a principal performer with IRAA Theatre (1989–1996) and is Founding Artistic Director of Tony Yap Company (est. 1993 as Mixed Company) and Founding Creative Director of Melaka Arts and Performance Festival (MAP Fest).
His practice is grounded in psychophysical research, Asian shamanistic trance dance, Butoh, and psychovocal experimentation, and is shaped by ongoing intercultural collaborations across Australia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and beyond. Tony has received numerous awards and nominations, including a Green Room Award for Best Male Dancer, two AsiaLink Residencies in Indonesia, a Dance Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts, and nominations for the Australian Dance Awards. His PhD research at the Centre for Ideas, University of Melbourne — Trance-Forming Dance — underpins his theoretical framework of the Five Pillars of Trance Focal Modes.