It’s a reimagining of the town hall clock: a new experimental digital artwork combining modern dance with one of our country’s oldest scientific collections will soon be an all-day reminder of the vital role bees play in our fragile ecosystem.

Conceived by award-winning artist Zanny Begg, the video artwork ‘Dancing With Bees’ will be permanently displayed on two large screens on the exterior of the Orange Civic Theatre.

Due to be installed early next year, the two large screens will display images of different bee species along with video of local dancers interpreting the movement of bees in what the artist describes as “a clock, but a clock with a difference.”

“The idea is to get people to think about time,” explains Zanny. “When we look at our watch or our phones, we think that's time, whereas really that's just a way in which we compartmentalise time and there is this other time, which is seasonal and sort of bigger than the modern human emphasis that we've laid on to time,” Zanny explained.

“So I've chosen 12 bees that will be the feature of this clock, one for each hour, and the idea is to get people – by engaging with the clock and finding ways to read the time through it, which won't be immediately apparent – to think about ‘deep time’.

“So the ‘hour-hand’ face of this clock is going to be the bees, but the ‘minute’ face of this clock is going to be dancers from the local Orange area who are going to evoke the colour and movement and look of the bees.”

Bees were chosen to feature given the district’s importance as a food-growing region, but also to highlight the remarkable insect collection held here in Orange by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI). Begun in 1890, the collection includes more than 450,000 pinned insect specimens and it’s where Zanny has found and selected the 12 bees — local to this area — to include in this art project.

Working with DPI’s Institute Director and Leader Plant Pathology Curation, Plant Biosecurity Research and Development Dr Jordan Bailey, the bees have been photographed at high resolution (focus stacking, or blending 150 separate images) to capture each in incredible detail.

“It will be really beautiful because bees are absolutely, stunningly beautiful at this sort of micro-scale,” Zanny said, “and we'll get people to think about really tiny things that are so important in our local environment and that maybe we just might pass over in a busy day.”

The next step in the project is to recruit local dancers, who will work with renowned choreographer Larissa McGowan to devise short dance sequences that will be filmed and displayed on one of the screens. 

“It's an open call… so people of any age or gender, any background or body type,” Zanny said. “We don't have anything in mind. We're just looking for people who love to move, basically.”

Orange Regional Gallery Director Brad Hammond said this is an amazing opportunity for local dancers to be part of a groundbreaking public art project.

“It's really great that the content for one of the screens is all coming from this local [insect] collection and references are local native bees and then the other great part is that young people who are interested in the arts, dancers will have this really rare opportunity to work with a great artist, a great choreographer, and a great costume designer and then they will really, literally, become the content of this really groundbreaking and I think really experimental, forward-thinking artwork,” he said.

“It's going to look aesthetic and fantastic on the building and… it will lend something to our civic square that's really interesting and fascinating, people will come to see it!

The project has been funded by Create NSW and the Australian Council for the Arts ($110,000), the NSW Government ($40,000) and Orange City Council ($23,000).

Any local dancers interested in applying can find more information on the Orange Regional Gallery website: www.orange.nsw.gov.au/gallery