Category: dance

Virginia Kennard has taught across a range of disciplines and genres since the age of 14. She recently taught AJDA senior level jazz dance syllabus at Impact Dance and Stage School, Ōtautahi, and jazz dance and improvisation techniques for NASDA.

Her first role was assisting Paula Hunt in teaching Pre-Primary ballet students, aged 4-6. She was a mathematics tutor to Year 11 students during her final year at high school. Virginia taught mathematics and social studies on and off for the Victoria University of Wellington Centre for Continuing Education between 2001 and 2009.

Virginia is a contemporary dance, jazztastic aerobics, improvisation, and Muscle and Bone tutor for Movement Art Practice from 2019 to the present where she also manages a community workshop program. Virginia taught contemporary dance technique and contact improvisation in Glasgow through Dance House between 2010 and 2011, contemporary dance and improvisation as part of the Wellington Freelance Dance Collective between 2011 and 2013, and dance at Standouts Drama, Dance, and Singing in Te Whanganui-a-Tara between 2013 and 2016.

A particular teaching highlight was Jazztastic Dance Aerobics during the 2020 and 2021 NZ Lockdown via Zoom (see featured image).

Other classes and genres taught include Contact Improvisation, Improvisation, Burlesque, Stretching for Dancers, Classical Ballet, Choreography for Actors, Pilates, Yoga, plus How to do your Taxes as a self-employed NZ-based arts contractor.

if you cut out your eyes with scissors
do you think you would still dream?
…the politics of being seen
naked
i am lying in wait
i am laying out the bait
…Salome would just chop of Herod’s dick to add to her holy head collection

Headless Women is an in-process performance research project that began at the Arts Village Rotorua Open Studios Project during Summer 2019/20 and will tour Aotearoa in 2023.

A development workshop was held at Impact Dance Studio in Ōtautahi, Summer 2021 with Chloe Summerhayes, Georgia Giesen, Denesa Chan, Hannah Blumhardt, Natalie Carroll, and Jess Quaid.

Writing that came from the residency here

Response to the workshop showing by Dr Erin Harrington here

Short film from the 2021 workshop by Natalie Kittow here

Music composed by Madison van Staden of Moody V and the Menstrual Cycle

Images taken by Natalie Kittow, Fern King, and Natalie Carroll

We are not interested in your cis-heteronormative, patriarchal, mono-amorous, state-sanctioned, government-regulated, court-conferred notions of forever love.

We are interested in lasagne love, dogging in car parks, lesbian banter, vegan whipped cream, child-bearing hips, and our own kind of queer wedded bliss.

Blood, blood, blood ran down her legs
And i just couldn’t be more happy for her

BIG QUEER ANTI-WEDDING
Devised, designed, written, composed, installed, constructed,
performed, created and choreographed by
Alexis Lilly Denman, Alice Boulton-Breeze, Amy Mauvan, Chlöe Hall, Cieran Reed, Florence Simms, Jessica Mae Ivison, Kate Stonestreet, Nicole Murmann, and Virginia Kennard
Tech’d, managed, baked and dressed by
Jaye Kearney, Jazmine Webb, Adam Sas-Skowronski,
and Abby Morley
Featuring an original soundscore by
Marika Pratley and Chris Wratt (New Zealand

MA Performance, Artist Project Major module
Leeds Beckett University
12noon, Wednesday 6th September 2017
Leeds Music Hub, Leeds, UK

MY  MATRIMONIAL BODY BELONGS TO ME
Performed by Virginia Kennard and Amy Mauvan
WOMAN SRSLY, curated by Grace Nicol Dance
7.30pm, Friday 27th October 2017
The CentrE17, London, UK

Performed by Virginia Kennard, Alice Boulton-Breeze, Florence Simms, and Cieran Reed
Queering Ritual, organised by School of the Art Institute of Chicago and York St John University
Saturday 4th November 2017
York St John, York, UK

WHAT’S YOUR BRIDE PRICE
Performed by Virginia Kennard
S.A.M.P.L.E. curated by Alana Yee
8.30pm, Wednesday 19th July 2017
Paper Dress Vintage, London, UK

Performed by Virginia Kennard
Mother’s Bloomers, curated by Mother’s Ruin
7.30pm, Thursday 16th November 2017
ARC: Stockton, County Durham, UK

THE BLOODY BRIDE
Performed by Virginia Kennard
Tease, directed by Jeremy Haxton/Lost Cow Performances
Friday 21st November 2014
In Good Company, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

Widening the Cycle exhibition
Curated by Jen Lewis/Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
4-6 June 2015
Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Photography by Filippo Gasparini

Performed by Virginia Kennard, Marika Pratley, and Chris Wratt
you occupy my body by looking
Saturday 20th June 2015
Toi Pōneke Gallery, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

#notyourgoodqueer
#RedShoesNoKnickers
#yearoftheho2017
#againstequality

_____________________________________________________________

Photography credits

Exhibition and performance season over 17 days

Looking in to look out. Looking back.
Performance trace, collected materials, lipstick lists, naked drawings, invented instruments, and selfies; all part of this performance installation delving into how we look – at bodies, at women, at ourselves.
 
Thursday 4 – Saturday 20 June 2015
Toi Pōneke Gallery, Abel Smith Street
Te Aro, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

Photo credits:
  • Fern King, Noisy Femmes and their Sexist Microphone [featured image]
  • Kristy McCormick Art and Imagery, The Bloody Bride
  • Kowhai Montgomery, Drumming and Dancing
  • Virginia Kennard, workshop session
  • Virginia Kennard, Hannah paints me
  • Virginia Kennard, Spinster Ladies Party with Colour in a Cunt
  • Pipi Ayesha-Evans, Please Ask First
  • Virginia Kennard, The Awakening by Natalie J. Cheetham
  • Erica Sklenars, I’m not your toy
  • Aurynn Shaw, Notes on Looking 2.0
  • Kowhai Montgomery, i’m selling shoes obviously

CONTACT

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© Copyright Virginia Kennard 2016