Fiona Malone
Virginia Baxter
Ninian Donald The Obcell
photo Mark Gordon, Garry Barnes
Ninian Donald The Obcell
Fiona Malone’s career is a model of multi-skilling . She’s worked in Australia and Europe in all manner of dance forms from folkloric to dance theatre to movement research with an abiding interest in live multimedia performance. Before joining the Australian Dance Theatre in 2000, she toured Europe for 5 years with Belgian multimedia dance and technology company, Charleroi Dansers directed by Frederic Flamand. Last year, as well as being nominated in the Outstanding Female Dancer category at the Australian Dance Awards for her performance in the ADT’s The Age of Unbeauty, Fiona presented her site-specific work Bamboo Bathing at the Contemporary Art Centre of SA. Recently she spent a month in Birmingham as part of the DanceExchange program working with choreographers Henry Oguike and Akram Khan on the research and development of new ideas and movement.
This year Fiona was awarded an Australian Choreographic Centre fellowship to develop The Obcell, an interactive dance/theatre/multi-media performance addressing issues of human testing, manipulation and solitary confinement. The dancer wears the Diem Dance System, a new sensor-based technology designed for the use of dancers and composers at the Danish Institute of Electro-acoustic Music. Stage 1 of The Obcell was presented in the Risky Manoeuvres season at Canberra Theatre Centre earlier this year. In September, Stage 2 manifest as a collaboration between Malone and 4Bux:Progressive Arts, another multi-faceted Adelaide outfit. Performed by Ninian Donald with sound and technology by Peter Nielsen and dramaturgical input from director-designer Ross Ganf, early response suggests that while the themes of The Obcell need some refinement, the use of multimedia in live performance makes this a team to watch.
RealTime issue #57 Oct-Nov 2003 pg. 33
