JULIET BURNETT and the collective of Kasekten Project
Juliet Burnett, is an independent choreographer and dancer from the Gold Coast Region, Australia who was our Artist in Residence at Studio Plesungan for two weeks during 2023.
The residency program is to support Juliet Burnett’s research for her collective project entitled Kasekten. The project is seeking the relationship between the exercise of true power that has effects in the real world and causing irreverseble change. The piece is researching the passing of time/circularity of time: “the characteristic of time cannot be separated from the great efforts exerted by Javanese people in maintaining their harmonious relations with the universe”. It will rewrite ancient stories and rituals in a new story of power. It focuses on woman as protagonist and changing nature of womens’ bodies reflected in changes of the earth and sky – metamorphosis of matter. Kasekten is a collective work of Juliet Burnett, Karina Utomo, Michaela Gleave, Rama Parwata and Jaya Parwata.
We would like to encourage Juliet Burnett and her collaborators in this project by fasilitating space as well as to connect them with experts and artists regarding their focus research.
We encouraged the collective of Kasekten Project by fasilitating space as well as to connect them with experts and artists regarding their focus research.
During their stay in Solo, the collective has shared a workshop session for young artists from Solo and has given an open artist talk.
Juliet Burnett is an Indonesian-Australian dancer, choreographer and founder-director of A__PART, connecting Indonesian and Australian artists and communities. She is one of Australia’s most recognised dancers after her years at The Australian Ballet (2003-2015) and guesting with Chunky Move and West Australian Ballet; then from 2016-2022 she forged a career in Europe as dancer at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in Belgium under Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s direction, also guesting with Dutch National Ballet. In 2015 she began working occasionally in her mother’s country of Indonesia, including performing contemporary and classical work, master classes for local dancers and community workshops for marginalised children. Juliet has been trained in her grandmother’s art of Javanese classical dance, and other traditional Javanese dances and art forms such as the martial art of Silat. As a choreographer she co-created a dance film ‘Letting Blood’ for Dark Mofo (2016), choreographed and performed in music clips for Melbourne band Cool Explosions (2018) and Icelandic artist Gyda Valtysdottir (2021), and a dance theatre work ‘in situ’ (2019) for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, featuring actor-dancer Victor Polster and gamelan music by Will Guthrie, currently in pre-production for a short film adaptation. Her credits as producer include two short films ‘NATAPTEDI’ (2021) and ‘Sweating Rocks’ (2021) for A__PART, ‘Letting Blood’ (2016), ‘in situ’ (2019) and now as director and producer for the new work ‘Kasekten’ (2023). In her practice Juliet explores a hybrid of Javanese dance and arts with Western classical and contemporary forms, navigating the confluence of dance, theatre and music. In 2022 Juliet returns to Australia, basing herself in Yugambeh-Kombumerri country (Gold Coast), to continue work as a freelance dancer and choreographer and to lead A__PART into the future.
