Biladurang in-theatre program

BRISBANE FESTIVAL AND ART SERIES HOTEL – THE JOHNSON PRESENT

j o e l b r ay ( A U S )

Brisbane Festival is an initiative of the Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council

BILADURANG

CREATOR’S NOTE

ART SERIES HOTEL – The Johnson, SPRING HILL 12 – 15 September

Biladurang began in a tumultuous time

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY

in my life. Having recently broken up with my long-term partner, I had also left Israel, the country I had called home for nearly a decade. But I hadn’t yet ‘landed’ anywhere.

In keeping with the spirit of reconciliation,

I was in this strange moment in life, travelling

we acknowledge the Traditional Owners of

between Israel, Europe and Australia, performing

Brisbane, the Turrubul and Jagara Yuggera

and undertaking creative residencies, visiting

Peoples, and recognise that this has always

old friends, but mostly just…floating.

been a place of creative expression. We wish to pay respect to their Elders – past, present and emerging – and acknowledge the

I found myself in a different hotel room every week, and so I began to write.

important role Aboriginal and Torres Strait

I found myself asking “Who am I?” Who am

Islander people continue to play within our

I as a dancer, my body carved with years

creative community.

of dancing other people’s material? Who am I as a Wiradjuri man, so many years away

BRISBANE FESTIVAL ARTISTIC Director’S Note Joel Bray is one of Australia’s best

from the beautiful Country of Western NSW that is my ancestral and spiritual home?

Who am I as a gay man rapidly approaching

contemporary dancers. But this is personal,

middle-age and suddenly single?

utterly on his terms, with the richness of his

What started off as scraps of writing scribbled

culture at the core. Festivals like to feel out

late at night in bland hotel rooms in Tel Aviv,

unusual venues and to offer artists platforms

on trains in Switzerland and in French cafes,

for risky invention, and this performance does

began to reveal themselves as a love-letter

both. Biladurang places us in an intimacy with

for home.

the artist that is rare. It’s to be treasured.

David Berthold

And since the writings were written in those strange nowhere-but-everywhere spaces that we call hotels, eerily familiar in their sameness, it made sense that the performance would also happen here. So welcome to my room, come up for a glass of bubbly… and a boogie.

Joel Bray

J O E L B R AY Creator/Performer A proud Wiradjuri man, Joel began dancing

Joel’s choreographic credits include works

at age 20, with traditional Aboriginal and

for PICA, the ArtRage Festival (Perth), The

Contemporary dance forms at NAISDA Dance

Albania International Dance Meeting, and

College, before graduating from WAAPA.

STRUT WA. In Israel he created works for

He has performed with Company CeDeCe

the Mixer Festival, Suzanne Dellal and the

(Portugal), Kolben Dance, Machol Shalem

IntimaDance Festival. His work for a children’s

Dance House, Yoram Karmi’s FRESCO Dance

audience, SPLASH, was commissioned by the

Company, Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor,

Israeli National Science Museum and had

and Roy Assaf.

an audience of more than 11,000. Biladurang

Joel is an ongoing performer with CHUNKY MOVE and has continued his collaboration

was awarded Best Performance at the 2017 Melbourne Fringe.

with Anouk van Dijk and Falk Richter with Safe Places at the Frankfurt Shauspielhaus.

Kate CARR Composer Kate has been investigating the intersections

Her work has been featured in The New

between sound, place, and emotionality

York Times, The Wire, The Quietus, and The

both as an artist and a curator since 2010.

Guardian. It has also been played on the radio

During this time she has ventured to tiny

on stations ranging from various channels

fishing villages in northern Iceland, explored

of the BBC, to independent stations in Estonia.

the flooded banks of the Seine in a nuclear

Her music can be found on the labels Helen

power plant town, recorded wildlife in South

Scarsdale (US), Rivertones (UK), Soft (France)

Africa, and in the wetlands of southern Mexico.

3Leaves (Hungary) Galaverna (Italy) as well as on her own label Flaming Pines.

CREATIVE TEAM

Brisbane Festival

Concept/Choreography/Performance Joel Bray Music composition Kate Carr

Chair Paul Spiro Deputy Chair Philip Bacon AM Artistic Director David Berthold Chief Executive Officer Charlie Cush

Special thanks to Daniel Santangeli, Dan Koop and the CHUNKY MOVE staff for all the invaluable help during the first development of this work.

D O N ’ t m i s s t h i s a lt o g e t h e r D A R I N G s h o w !

“Legs On The Wall blasts physical theatre into a new and triumphant dimension.”

The sun-herald

LEGS ON THE WALL (AUS)

BOOK NOW

26 – 29 September | BRISBANE POWERHOUSE