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Joseph Lau
About
Joseph makes work that addresses personal and embodied histories, geopolitical histories, economic theories and events, score making, responsiveness and image construction. Much of Joseph’s work has occurred in public or non-traditional performance spaces.
Joseph identifies as being born a migrant - born in Singapore of Malaysian citizenship to Chinese Malaysian parents. Joseph migrated to Papua New Guinea and Australia in his youth and then as an adult with a 15-year career in Australia found his way to the UK.
Recent Works & Commissions
‘Viva... ’ (‘Dance Channels’ EU commission presented at festivals in Spain, Italy and in the UK)
‘Deeper Than All Roses’ (FascinatE multimedia project between BBC, Technicolour, University of Salford and EU partners)
Recipient of the inaugural Moving Dance Forward Associate (Dance Manchester and MDI in partnership with the Unity Theatre, Contact, The Lowry and University of Salford)
Various performance works with Dance students University of Salford
‘Abandoned Things’, 2010 TURN Prize work winning work
Working as part of the new movement and dance collective Out of the Blue Productions in partnership with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and eu-art-network (presented at MediaCityUK, Teatro La Fenice, Bridgewater Hall and Austrian Cultural Forum)
ATOM Choreographic Series #3 (Bulgaria)
Solo work, ‘The Age Of Ledger’ (a dystopian work exploring the social and ethical consequences caused by a market-based globalised economy and their effects on the psychology, behaviour and attitudes of individuals, presented at venues and festivals in the UK and Australia).
Current Work In Developoment
‘Elephants’, a geo-poetic performance meditation responding to a contemplation on spiralling dialogues. This work encompasses the industrialised exploitation of resources, the economies and communities they create, damage and loss, choice, and the human species dependence on land and the earth’s complex ecosystem for survival, sacrifice, and our climate crisis.
‘Vessels in Motion’, a project based on the ‘Body as Vessel’ that rose from his Developing Your Creative Practice project where he was mentored by Tony Yap, a South East Asian dance practitioner whose work is centred on South East Asian dance practices including trance, psycho-geography and psycho-physical dance and theatre.
'They Gather'
Joseph is a Co-Creator/ Co-Choreographer/ Co-Producer/Co-Writer/Co-Director of ‘They Gather’, an independent international multi-modal project creating gatherings of people, action, music, sound and dance in public, festival, cultural, digital and personal spaces. ‘They Gather’ has been programmed to date by Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance (AUS), Lowry (#LoveLowry digital programme, UK), The Place and Chisenhale Dance’s digital festival ‘How Do We Tune Into Sensation’ (UK), Kaatsbaan (USA), Modern Body Laboratory (NL), Rewire international music festival (NL), Cinekid Festival (NL), and Amare (NL).
Performer
Work in the UK and internationally includes: imitating the dog (‘Zero Hour’), Boris Charmatz, ‘Sea Change’ (Manchester International Festival), Roman Liubyi and Babylon’13 in ‘Iron Butterflies’ (a hybrid documentary about the downing of flight MH17), Opera Queensland, Buzz Dance Theatre, Dancenorth Australia, Willi Dorner (‘Bodies In Urban Spaces’), Slunglow (‘They Only Come at Night’), Barking Gecko (‘Hidden Dragons’), Bridget Fiske (‘Inner Terra’, ‘Never The Foxes’, Because of Gravity’, ‘YES Move. NO Move. (Moved?)’) and more.
Producer
In addition to his ongoing work with Project Auske, Joseph was the UK Producer of ‘The Correspondents’ (a partnership project with Ukrainian film NGO Babylon’13 supported by the European Union under the House of Europe), and a Producer on Manchester Dance Consortium choreographic development programmes.
Facilitator & Trainer
Joseph has an extensive history facilitating education, community and professional training contexts. Joseph has been a sessional lecturer at University of Salford. He has worked on acclaimed grassroots youth dance projects, such as STRIDE - a dance project for young men in Greater Manchester realised via a partnership between Company Chameleon and Dance Manchester, amongst many other projects and engagements.
Education
After completing a Bachelor of Commerce and qualifying as a Chartered Accountant (Australia & New Zealand), Joseph undertook a Bachelor of Arts (Dance) at Queensland University of Technology.
Advocacy
This dual knowledge of commerce and dance supports Joseph to take on roles in arts and cultural leadership, predominantly spearheading artist-led initiatives.
Current: hÅb (Advisory Committee Member)
Prior: Manchester Dance Consortium (Strategic Group Member), Company Chameleon (Board Member), Ausdance Queensland (Treasurer), Critical Mass - Brisbane artist-led initiative (Committee Member) and Expressions Dance Company (Treasurer).
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