Dancing is a foundation of attraction and flirtation across the animal world. As part of their work, The Beast With Two Backs, performance artists Paul and Gideon have begun to examine the mating calls, dances of attraction and flirtatious body language of various animals, including humans, birds and even rhinoceros! They invite you to join them in their research by participating in a physical, fun and play-filled workshop that leads to discovering new qualities of movement and becoming your own sexy beast. You’ll get a chance to flirt with other new animals in the room and find ways to attract and pursue using primal sounds and expressive movement. In using dance and theatre to access the non-verbal animal-body, the anthropomorphic, character-play and the metamorphic we might release apprehension, gender norms, the intellectual brain or ourselves into a more wild state for play.

Paul Walker is a Sydney based artist working within the realms of dance, performance, installation and drawing. His solo performance practice explores the body as a site for queering personal and collective stories, through symbolism and ritual. Paul has presented solo work at Queer Nu Werk (PACT), Down / Under Space, The Nest Creative Space, Intersect Art Space, STACKS PROJECTS, Tatwerk Berlin, SEAM Symposium (Critical Path), Dance Meets Music II and Day for Night for Liveworks at Performance Space.

Gideon Payten-Griffiths is a chameleonic artist, performer, curator and facilitator spanning theatre, dance, music, live-art, film, installation and bodywork, finding a centre in the body as a material and emotional landscape and in searching for the compassionate, liminal space between things. His work manifests in a range of forms, contexts and collaborations including with Sydney Festival, Sydney Biennale, Peats Ridge Festival, Next Wave, Sydney Opera House, Performance Space, MCA Australia, KW Institute Berlin, PACT, The History Council of NSW, Sydney Living Museums, Strings Attached, DeQuincey Co. and Ninefold.