RIVER WOMAN is an evocative dance film devised for television inspired by the rainbow serpent mythology, featuring a unique collaboration between Australian choreographer Bernadette Walong and award winning dance film-maker Michelle Mahrer.

In RIVER WOMAN Bernadette Walong personifies the spirit of the serpent who emerges from primordial nothingness birthing life. Textured images of the Australian landscape are layered with the choreography using contemporary digital composting techniques to create an evocative mythical world, visually capturing the living interconnection of land, spirit, body and myth. Walong’s organic forms interwoven with Australian landscape images captures the beauty and sensuality of the human form in movement.

Credits
Director/Writer Michelle Mahrer
Choreographer/Collaborator Bernadette Walong
Cinematography: Cordelia Beresford & Michelle Mahrer
Dancers: Bernadette Walong, Narelle Benjamin, Brett Daffy, Kristina Chan
Commissioned by ABCTV and funded by Australia Council and ABCTV

A short improvisational dance piece filmed in Super 8 featuring Australian choreographer and dancer Eva Karczag.

“Listening to myself and to my surroundings,
to the song that rises from this moment in which I am contained—
These dances rise up inside me and spin out beneath me,
And it’s as if I stand back, inside myself and observe
Available to constant change,
I can balance at the edge of the unknown,
And experience fearlessness.”
Eva Karczag

Credits
Director/Camera: Michelle Mahrer

In a featureless land, three dismayed characters struggle within the containment of video space. An award winning dance video created for television in collaboration with Alan Schacher and Gravity Feed Performance Group.

Credits
Director: Michelle Mahrer
Concept for television: Michelle Mahrer & Alan Schacher
Choreographed & performed by Gravity Feed: Alan Schacher, Denis Beaubois, Ari Ehrlich
Sound: Rik Rue
Produced by Moshe Rosenzweig for SBS TV

A whimsical gothic fairytale set in a strange timeless reality. A woman makes a meal while her husband and child lie asleep, their heads resting on a dusty dinner table. The meal preparation becomes a recipe for her own inner journey.

Credits
Writer/Director Michelle Mahrer
Producer: Nicole Ma
Cinematography: Lisa Rinzler
Production Design: Carol Wells
Composer: Antony Partos & Elena Kats-Chernin
Sound Design: Paul Healy, Andrew Lancaster

Cast: Arlo Duff, Bernd Naber, Angela Idealism
Produced with assistance by Australian Film Commission

An evocative dance film created for the camera where the choreography is created using a synthesis of dancing bodies in closeup, rhythmic editing and percussive sound. My first dance film and exploration of dancing with the camera and cinematic language.

Credits
Writer/Director: Michelle Mahrer
Dancers: Paul Saliba, Nina Veretennikova
Camera: Tom Cowan
Costumes: Peter Tully

Funded by The Australian Film Commission.

A short film based on the poem of the same name by Dorothy Hewitt that was created for a live theatre work by theatre director Kim Carpenter.

Credits
Dancers: Paul Saliba, Nina Veretennikova
Camera: Tom Cowan
Costumes: Peter Tully
Funded by the Australian Film Commission.