Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum is a research project that spanned three years and brought together artists, researchers and institutions into dialogue about best practice to support the choreographer and the museum, and to sustain momentum in theory and practice around dance and the visual arts.

Precarious Movements was awarded an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant of nearly $400,000 over three years from 2021 to 2024 worth double this amount including in-kind support from partner organisations University New South Wales (UNSW), National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Tate, Art Gallery New South Wales (AGNSW) and Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) and independent artist Shelley Lasica.

Against the backdrop of intermedial experiments in the mid-twentieth century, the twenty-first century has seen dance and choreography appear more frequently in art galleries and museums. This is forecast to accelerate, propelled by curatorial inquiries and critical developments associated with a reinvention of the museum. However, processes and protocols concerning performance conditions specific to choreography, curatorial practices, acquisitions, collection, conservation and theory have lagged behind. The project addressed this problem, and its principal aims were to:

• Articulate best practice in the life cycle of choreographic work when it enters the museum and gallery.
• Model best practice in commissioning, curating, conserving, presenting and interpreting choreographic work in the museum and gallery context.
• Develop new critical understandings of dance and the art institution to support further development in the field.

Precarious Movements puts artists and creative practice at the centre of its inquiry, engaging their knowledge and experience as primary research, and supports dancers and choreographers as important end users.

The outputs from the project include:

• A sector resource for choreographic works in the museum
• The anthology book, Precarious Movements, published by NGV in 2024
• Six commissioned creative case studies by Shelley Lasica, Riana Head-Toussaint, Rochelle Haley, Victoria Hunt, Atlanta Eke and Amrita Hepi
• Three workshops
• Precarious Movements: Conversations
• Extensive data on artist and artworker experiences in the field through 50 interviews undertaken 2020-2024
• Research forums and a reading group with the associate researchers

Acknowledgements

Precarious Movements was led by the University of New South Wales. MUMA was a partner investigator on the project.

For full details on the project, the project team and research outputs please visit the UNSW Sydney website.

^{Image: Shelley Lasica, WHEN I AM NOT THERE 2022, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, 16–27 August 2022. Photo: Jacqui Shelton}