Premiere Of 'Heirloom' By Mature Artists Dance Experience

Premiere of ‘Heirloom’ by Mature Artists Dance Experience

By Tasmanian Times

Posted on 30 August 2022

In Heirloom, choreographer and artist Grace Pundyk adorns MADEn heads with her unique flower headpieces to weave a story of history and mourning and the honouring of ancestors.

Part dance, part theatre, Heirloom draws inspiration from the eastern European tradition of the flower headdress, while paying homage to the little-known story of the thousands of women deported to Soviet Siberia in the 1940s. A work born of tragedy, yes, but this poignant work is, above all, a celebration – of herstories and inheritance, grandmothers and the ephemeral wild, and those invisible threads that move and shape us no matter how seemingly distant and unknown.

Heirloom is MADE’s major work for 2022, showcases 12 performers from the MADE Ensemble and will be presented from 2 – 4 September at the Hobart Town Hall Ballroom.

MADE is an arts organisation that seeks to create works for audiences by building pathways between the mature non-professional dancer and the professional artist to create engaging, quality dance/theatre productions for global audiences in non-traditional performance spaces.

MADE is based at SOHO Arts in South Hobart. Each year MADE commissions, develops and presents at least one new original performance work for community participants aged 50 or over. Participants in productions and classes are based throughout Hobart and Southern Tasmania. MADE is a celebration of movement, artform and wisdom.

Grace Pundyk (Director/Choreographer)

Pundyk was born in Melbourne and lived for some time in Hobart. While she was here, she performed with MADE. She is an artist, curator, author, playwright, performer and scholar. A recent exhibition of her work has been held called Heirloom, which comprises mixed-media and textile-based works celebrating the ideas of inheritance, of grandmothers, and the invisible threads that move and shape us. The exhibition draws inspiration from the traditional eastern European flower headdresses made and worn by women and each piece uses vintage linen ‘Australiana’ textiles, specifically made in Poland, Japanese linen and/or silk thread, and natural materials. Heirloom was first exhibited at the University of Warsaw, Poland in 2019, and as part of a group exhibition at the ACU Melbourne Gallery in Fitzroy in 2019. In May 2021, the work appeared in a solo exhibition in the Arts Lounge in Melbourne and in April 2022 at the Embroiders’ Guild in Sydney.

You can see more about MADE https://www.madecompany.com.au/ and Grace Pundyk https://www.gracepundyk.com/heirloom.