Anne Scott Wilson

Title: Lift

Artist Statement

Lift emerged from reflecting on my own journey as a dancer, particularly in classical ballet. As we age, gravity's pull grows stronger, yet ballet trains the body to resist and momentarily transcend this force. The body retains the memory of these transcendent moments - even when listening to formative music, those sensations of flight can be reawakened. The tension between lasting embodied knowledge and physical change became the foundation for the piece.

Throughout development, I engaged in ongoing conversations with former Australian Ballet Principal artist Lisa Bolte. We discussed ballet not merely as technique, but as a lived experience that shapes identity and imagination across a lifetime.

Lisa brings something extraordinary to the work. Her years performing diverse character roles have given her movement remarkable depth and nuance - she conveys emotion and narrative through her entire being.

Lift is an interactive video and motion-capture installation that invites viewers to experience ballet's essential sensation: weightlessness. It reflects on how dance, like memory, remains in constant motion - flowing through time, through bodies, and through the lasting impressions it creates.

Reflection from Lisa Bolte

Working with Anne, whose creative ideas are so distinctive and evocative, invited me into a deeply collaborative process at a pivotal time in my life—when I had stepped away from my professional career with The Australian Ballet. It was a transition, and Anne’s vision offered me a new way to explore movement, stillness, and presence.

When I look at the video, I feel an endless, quiet sense of gratitude. The work holds space for stillness and reflection. it captures something both fragile and powerful in the passage of time.

When I first met Anne Scott Wilson, she was intent on creating art that embodied metamorphosis. From the beginning, she spoke of ideas and images that evoked the Dying Swan or a butterfly slowly disintegrating. There was beauty in the decay, in the waiting, in the tension between timelessness and fragility. Her ideas touched on the vulnerability of being, and of life itself.

It has captured the imagination, it holds a suspended moment that seems to go on forever, a poetic meditation on presence and impermanence.

Acknowledgements

Lisa Bolte, Former Principal Artist of The Australian Ballet, 1986-2002,2005-2007. Music composed and performed by Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswald of Clocked out Productions.  With thanks to Oskar Reuben, Louis Puli, Simeon Taylor of Deakin Motion Lab, Linda Oliveri and River Studios, Deakin University Faculty of Arts and Education, Melbourne City Council and Wyndham Council.