Strasbourg 1518 – Auckland Arts Festival 2021

Strasbourg 1518 BORDERLINE ARTS ENSEMBLE

ASB WATERFRONT THEATRE

19–20 March 2021

CREDITS

Strasbourg 1518 Borderline Arts Ensemble CREATI V E T EAM

CAS T

Director & Choreographer Lucy Marinkovich

Death Michael Parmenter

Production Manager Vicki Cooksley

Script Writer Lucien Johnson

The Maiden Lucy Marinkovich

Stage Manager Sam Tippet

Composer & Sound Designer Lucien Johnson

The Rational Man Nick Blake

LX Operator Haami Hawkins

The Musician Lucien Johnson

Audio Operator Brooke Patterson

The Choreomaniacs Hannah Tasker-Poland Sean MacDonald Katie Rudd Xin Ji Eliza Sanders Emmanuel Reynaud

Mechanist/Flyman Roydon Christenson

Lighting Design Marcus McShane Set Design Meg Rollandi Production Design Lucy Marinkovich Costume Design Lucy Marinkovich Shelia Horton Lauren Hooper

Production Photography Jocelyn Janon Philip Merry Vanessa Rushton

1hr 15mins no interval Contains nudity, loud noises & strobe lighting

SUPPORTED BY

WITH SUPPORT FROM Platinum Patron Friedlander Foundation

Strasbourg 1518 was commissioned by the New Zealand Festival and has been supported by Creative New Zealand, Wellington City Council, Wallace Arts Trust, Wellesley Studios and the Wellington Community Trust.

Image credits: Alex Efimoff (cover); Vanessa Rushton Photography (opposite)

Lucy and Lucien would like to acknowledge the artistic contributions of Borderline’s cast, collaborators and designers in the creation of Strasbourg 1518.

ARTISTS’ STATEMENT Historically, acts of rebellion can generally be placed into two camps. The bloodthirsty, violent lacerations of the French or Bolshevik revolutions, full of acts of revenge, fear and oppression, from which a nation state can take decades, if not centuries, to recover.

Alternatively, and subsequently championed by media and authorities for whom it is in reality much less of a direct threat, the art of passive resistance, of sit-ins and hunger strikes, which take decades if not centuries to succeed and require the complicity of popular opinion.

The story of Strasbourg 1518 represents a third method, one which is neither violent nor passive in outlook.

When Frau Troffea walked out of her home in 1518 and began to dance it was an act of rebellion. However unconscious it may have been, it was a political gesture, rallying against the oppression of the poor, the disease and the hunger, the violence of the patriarchy, against working-class women in particular. But it was also an act of artistic expression. Art, which began as an act of political uprising but then became something even more powerful as the trance took hold of the city. Art as exploration. Art as self-realisation. Art as a communion with others and with nature. Art as regeneration.

Many have researched and written about the ‘dancing plagues’. They have focussed on the events as a form of ‘disease’, ‘hysteria’, and ‘psychogenic illness’ which even took the lives of some, it is said. They have sought rational explanations to explain away the mystery of the phenomena. Few, if any, have attempted to see what the dance was from inside. Our aim with this piece is to begin to show this story. In a time of similar societal distress and multiple looming crises, it is clear that politicians do not have the power to be as transformational as they would like. Like Frau Troffea, our revolution begins with art.

Lucy Marinkovich & Lucien Johnson

Image credit: Vanessa Rushton Photography

Image credits (clockwise from top-left): Vanessa Rushton Photography; Philip Merry (x3)

Image credits (clockwise from top-left): Jocelyn Janon (x3); Caroline Bindon

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Lucy Marinkovich Director & Choreographer

Lucien Johnson Writer & Composer

Lucy Marinkovich is a New Zealand-based contemporary dancer and choreographer. As a performer, she has worked with New Zealand’s elite contemporary dance companies such as Footnote Dance Company, New Zealand Dance Company and Movement of the Human, and was a dance educator for the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

Lucien Johnson has been described as “a saxophonist and composer of rare excellence and mettle” (Wellington Jazz Festival). His iconoclastic musical style is distinctive for its lack of adherence to existing formulas and defiance of genre categorisation.

Her dancing has been described by critics as “mesmerising... completely captivating. She attacks her role with incredible energy, focus and a real presence” (Theatreview). Her choreographic work, notably the dance-theatre productions she has created with her company Borderline Arts Ensemble, investigate the realm of the subconscious, positioning the performer as an intermediary between dreams and reality.

Image credits: Jocelyn Janon

Although rooted in the free jazz of the 1960s and 70s, Lucien has forged an intuitive path through the European free improvisation scene through to research into various African musical genres alongside fully composed piano music and composition for theatre and dance. As saxophonist or composer, Johnson typically takes a post-impressionist approach to sonic exploration, which is often underpinned by an affinity for rhythms derived from various traditional sources.

Michael Parmenter Dancer

Borderline Arts Ensemble Company

Michael Parmenter is one of New Zealand’s leading dancers and choreographers. During the 80s he studied in New York with Erick Hawkins and in Japan with Butoh dancer Min Tanaka, and was a member of the company Stephen Petronio and Dancers 1983–84.

The Borderline Arts Ensemble is a dance theatre company based in Wellington, New Zealand. Formally established in 2015 by Artistic Director Lucy Marinkovich to facilitate her choreographic work, the group’s primary mediums are contemporary dance and performance art works. Borderline’s projects have been presented in New Zealand in festivals, galleries, shipping containers and site-responsive contexts, and internationally in Spain, Singapore, Malaysia and Croatia.

He has choreographed consistently for 30 years in New Zealand and internationally. His works span the spectrum from innovative solo works to large-scale opera-house productions.

He directed his Commotion Company from 1990–2008 and has choreographed numerous works for Footnote Dance Company and the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

Over the past decades Parmenter has taught at Toi Whakaari/ The New Zealand Drama School, the New Zealand School of Dance, and at the UNITEC School of Performing and Screen Arts where he was Adjunct Professor in Dance 2010–11. In addition to being a leading teacher of contemporary dance technique, Parmenter has recently been developing the partner-improvisation forms PILOTING and TACTICS.

In 2017 Borderline’s first evening-length work Lobsters premiered at Circa Theatre and was nominated for five Wellington Theatre Awards. Lobsters won Best Ensemble Performance, Best Sound Designer: Lucien Johnson; and the Campion Award for Most Outstanding Performance: Carmel McGlone.

In 2018, Borderline artists Lucy Marinkovich and composer Lucien Johnson were awarded the prestigious Harriet Friedlander New York Residency from The Arts Foundation.

Borderline’s latest work Strasbourg 1518 premiered in the 2020 New Zealand Festival of the Arts, at Wellington’s Circa Theatre.

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Artist & Logistics Manager Megan Andrews

Patron The Governor General, Her Excellency The Right Honourable Dame Patsy Reddy,

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