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Mindbox, Humatic, SEAM 2010
photo Jürgen Lösel
Mindbox, Humatic, SEAM 2010
seamlessly: action & image
SEAM explores the very latest in technological engagement with performance and the ways that the relationships between art, science and audience are being reconfigured, yielding innovation and “breaking down established distinctions between performer and audience, and between rehearsal and performance” (Press release). Comprising workshops, exhibits and a symposium, SEAM is a collaboration between Margie Medlin, director of Sydney’s Critical Path, Garth Paine of the University of Western Sydney’s VIPRE Lab (Virtual Interactive Performance Research Environment) and UTS.
SEAM 2010—Agency and Action, a public symposium at the Seymour Centre, will include a keynote address from Stelarc, the exhibition of his Articulated Head and other interactive installations. The impressive roster of presenters includes Ruth Gibson (UK), Frederic Bevilacqua (IRCAM, France), Volker Kulchmeister (Germany), Christian Ziegler (Germany), Simon Biggs (UK) and Sue Hawksley (UK), collectively representing some of the more important developments in the contemporary integration of technology and performance in their work with leading artists.
The organisers write that they wish to provide “a resource-rich, stimulating environment for local dancers, choreographers and media artists to interact with local and international leaders in the field of interactive technologies and allied arts disciplines. We want dancers and choreographers to take away with them a raft of new tools, new knowledge, philosophical and performance frameworks, contacts and possible future partnerships in the creation of new or more profound directions within their contemporary choreographic practice.” SEAM 2010—Action & Agency; Public Symposium, Seymour Centre, Oct 15, 16; for workshops and exhibitions see http://seam2010.blogspot.com/p/about-seam2010.html
glow fires again
Chunky Move’s Glow (RT78) has had a long, successful life touring the world, illuminating the possibilities of bringing together dance and interactive media: it now makes a welcome return to Sydney as part of SEAM 2010. This deeply engaging, visceral short work was the first of two Chunky Move collaborations with German interactive video artist Frieder Weiss [RT84]; the second was the full-length work Mortal Engine.
In Glow the audience peer deep down into the dark at a still form that suddenly convulses into life, scattering about it brimming light, staccato geometries and threatening shadows. What makes Glow, a disturbing evocation of evolution and emergence, doubly exciting is that the light is triggered and controlled by the dancer’s movements making light and movement eerily seamless. Chunky Move, Glow, Seymour Centre, Oct 13-16, http://sydney.edu.au/seymour/season/glow.shtml
dream realised: maricor & maricar
Among the the British Council’s five Realise Your Dream scholarship winners this year are Sydney-based designers Maricor and Maricar Malano, twin sisters who have worked for the agency Mathematics, “producing video clips for bands including Architecture in Helsinki for whom they hand-sewed scores of embroidered characters which were later animated” (press release). In the UK they hope to engage with Partizan Lab and Studio AKA and do short technical courses at Central St Martin’s College. As well as introductions, the scholarship provides air travel and $8,000 spending money. Other winners include Melbourne-based theatre maker Samara Hersch, Adelaide theatre director Geordie Brookman and Alice Gage, founding editor of Ampersand Magazine. www.britishcouncil.org
unbelievable yet true
Not In A Million Years is the title of the much anticipated new work from Sydney’s Force Majeure about “almost unbelievable—yet true—stories of people who have survived, endured and created extraordinary experiences during their life time.” Created by the company’s artistic leaders Kate Champion, Roz Hervey and Geoff Cobham, the work will be performed by Vincent Crowley, Sarah Jayne Howard, Elizabeth Ryan and Joshua Tyler. The stories have been plucked from around the world: a man wakes from a coma in Buffalo, USA; a NSW paraglider rides above a storm higher than Everest; in Mexico, “an unlikely athlete sets the greatest track and field record of all time”; and in Scotland a woman’s life is ruined by a lottery win. As ever with Force Majeure it will be through movement and innovative design that these stories will be powerfully realised. Force Majeure, Not In A Million Years, CarriageWorks, Sydney, Nov 17-27, carriageworks.com.au
bold, black, brilliant
That’s the title of the Ilbijerri Theatre Company’s retrospective exhibition, which is currently on display at the Bunjilika Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum. The exhibition marks the 20th anniversary of Ilbijerri, which was created by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists in Melbourne in response to seeing non-indigenous theatre companies telling Indigenous stories. From the breakthrough production of Jane Harrison’s Stolen, commissioned in 1992, to the upcoming world premiere of Jack Charles v The Crown (a collaboration between the actor and the playwright John Romeril) at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the company has toured nationally and internationally, finding resonance and critical acclaim with Indigenous and non-indigenous audiences alike.
The retrospective gives visitors a behind-the-scenes look at life in the theatre company through objects including sets, props and photography from Ilbijerri productions. It’s being displayed alongside From Little Things Big Things Grow, an exhibition about Aboriginal activism in Australia between 1920 and 1970.
20 Years: Bold. Black. Brilliant., curator Ben McKeown,?Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum, July 9-Oct 31; http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/
RealTime issue #99 Oct-Nov 2010 pg. 55
