A Sun Dance is a durational performance involving dance, sound, light, and costume that traces the passage of sun across the museum throughout a day. At its core, the work is the relations between dancer, sunlight, and architecture, and is structured in three cycles: morning, midday and afternoon. The work is performed by an ensemble of 4-5 dancers and a musician. The performers are often positioned in direct sunlight, near a window or a skylight, and also roam individually and collectively across the museum. The adaptable format of the work allows for live decision making about the choreographic material, including who does what and how the material unfolds. The choreographic phrases and practices are mainly slow and meditative, and the music is sparse. The work’s overall affect is calm, with occasional, more dynamic, playful elements.

The Performance Manual is like a practical encyclopedia for A Sun Dance. Rather than presenting a set of fixed rules or instructions, the manual is more like a memory that aims to support the storage, preservation and retrieval of information for the performance, without the expectation of a flawless process. The analogy of supporting the work, not capturing it, is important to understanding the manual’s function. The manual is a hopeful way of sustaining the knowledge, skills and practices of the work, and framing a flexible ‘window’ around A Sun Dance to allow for future interpretation of the work without constraining it. Importantly, the manual has future performers and museum curators and conservators in mind.Accordingly, I consider the format, content, sequencing and tone ‘live’ and adaptable and I welcome feedback and thoughts from those who use it. The manual comprises text descriptions, video tutorials, written and drawn scores, images, and links to many resources that document and contextualise A Sun Dance. This information has been arranged to introduce the work from components to overall constructions, aiming to speak to future performers, and museum workers, for any site. It is intended as a reasonable archive – respectful of the capacity of future performers to reproduce the work, recognising their subjectivity and agency. In the longer term, I imagine the manual as an offering to future performers, institutions and collection carers to make decisions necessary to present the work, and an acknowledgement that through the transmission of the work, change is constant. Beyond a performance, A Sun Dance is also a constellation of relationships, developed within a woman and queer-led collaborative and socially supportive culture of care for the present and future. The quality of the relationship of the team is key to the work. Consider this a letter of invitation to expand the constellation of A Sun Dance, and permission to be involved in decisions, in my absence, and guided by my view, instincts and intuitions for the future of the work that I will attempt to communicate throughout this manual.

The Performance Manual has been created and collated from practical experience making A Sun Dance with the constellation of people who brought the work into being. It was developed over two years 2022-2024 from a series of notes drawing on conversations, collaborative and solo studio practice, and observations, as well as drawings, photography, video, and audio recordings during the making of the work. Some of the materials, including the video tutorials, were purpose-made for the transmission of the work, after the work’s completion, while other materials including the written and drawn scores were refined and clarified from working versions during the development. The Performance Manual is a clearly subjective endeavour that centres my viewpoint as the artist and author of A Sun Dance, along with significant contributions, knowledges and experience from collaborators Ivey Wawn, Angela Goh (choreographers/dancers), Megan Alice Clune (composer/musician), and Leah Giblin (costume designer) and many others involved in the development and premiere of the work (see Acknowledgements). My approach to manual making has been informed by conversations from September 2022 – December 2023 with archivist Louise Curham regarding my intentions for this manual to support an open-ended, generative approach to the longevity of the work.

As a cheerful offer to future performers, curators and conservators, the manual supports the presentation of future performances of A Sun Dance. The content has been crafted and collated for those involved in the work’s care, presentation and performance, and is not intended for public viewing. The entire manual is available to access for those below, specifically: Dancers – will find information about choreographic materials in 2 – Choreography and compositional sequencing of these materials in 3 – Cycles. Dancers will also find vocal scores in 4 – Music Musicians – will find written scores and information on instrumentation in 4 – Music and may reference the overall composition of the work in 3 – Cycles Specialist Installers – including choreographer/dancers and composer/musicians who may be engaged to remap A Sun Dance to new scenarios when the original artist, choreographers and composer are not available, will find guiding principles for adapting the cycles and sequences of material to different architectural and seasonal conditions in 5 – Installation. Seed Dancers – who have performed in A Sun Dance previously, might also reference 2 – Choreography and 3 – Cycles depending on adaptations to new sites, or time elapsed from their previous performance, or as a support in their body to body transmission in rehearsal with new dancers. Curators – will find 5 - Installation and 3 – Cycles useful when presenting A Sun Dance in new scenarios. When the original artist, choreographers and composer are not available, this part of the manual may guide decisions around the spatial and temporal translation of the work to new sites. Conservators – may find the entire manual helpful in their work to understand the conditions to support the future liveness of the work. 6 – Costume will be particularly useful for the cleaning, storage, repair, remake of the costumes as needed after use during performances. Dancers, musicians, curators, conservators etc – The Resources section collates links to documentation, essays, recorded panel discussions, artist talks, interviews, reviews and reflections on A Sun Dance as a way of providing further information on the conceptual underpinnings, development process, insights and intentions that contextualise the work. The Glossary provides insights into the lexicon of A Sun Dance and the unique vocabulary used in the development and performance of the work. Glossary terms are hyperlinked throughout. Acknowledgements credit the wide network of valued and appreciated contributors who have helped shape both A Sun Dance and this manual in its experimental attempt to sustain the work over time.

It is imagined that the manual might be a first reference point for future performers to learn the materials of A Sun Dance (dancers, see 2 – Choreography; musician, see 4 – Music). The manual materials can be accessed remotely, or in studio, independently and/or collectively for future casts of A Sun Dance. In addition to the manual, preparation for presentation will also include group rehearsal on site at the museum or gallery (and in studio where possible) to support familiarity with the work and the conditions of its presentation. It is suggested that each cast for each activation should include at least one Seed Dancer who has previously performed the work to support continuity of body to body transmission of the material, and to socialise living knowledges, experiences and culture of the work with new performers during group rehearsal. For future presentations of the performance in different scenarios, museum workers may also find the manual useful to reference alongside other conversation documentation including Performance Specification Sheet, Run Sheet, Activation Report, Activation Histories, and Family Trees of the Performance.