WORLD PREMIERE
COMPLEXITY OF BELONGING MELBOURNE FESTIVAL, BRISBANE FESTIVAL, CHUNKY MOVE AND MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY PRESENT
A PROJECT BY FALK RICHTER & ANOUK VAN DIJK
COMPLEXITY OF BELONGING
ANOUK VAN DIJK AND FALK RICHTER
Welcome to Complexity of Belonging, a “new human-installation project,” a world in which individual stories, the search for connection and belonging, cohere and dissolve in dynamic chain reactions. Choreographies of dislocation and neurosis, empowerment and vulnerability forge a contemporary exploration of fundamental aspects of our humanity. As this century gathers pace we find the theme of belonging is a potent one. The search for the “real self” is extraordinarily fluid. From choices around gender, sexual preference and nationality, to vicious categorisations that reinforce tribal enmity. From the struggle to assert the right to self-identify, to the resistance to imposed identity. These are the politics of inclusion and exclusion that, utterly dependent on context, can serve radically different ideologies, both tyrannical and utopian. In Complexity of Belonging, Van Dijk and Richter use the dense theoretical resources surrounding the concept of belonging – with its subsets of identification, identity and recognition – as a framework. But, as Richter says, “At its core, belonging is not a theoretical construct but rather an individual experience.” For Van Dijk, the questions, “Can I be myself?” and “What is forming who I am?” are the questions that bring theory into the physical realm. In what amounts to a political as well as artistic strategy, both bring the personal experiences of the individual performers to the fore. They construct spoken and physical texts that find their origins in the unique body and the eccentricities of personal history: in both the unity and fragmentation that “authentic” biography can provide. This material is then adapted and recontextualised so that it can also exist in a poetic space, a space of melodrama and tragedy, of the idealised and the epic. This project is at once the view of the outsider looking in on a strange land as well as an internal vision of the country as experienced by individual Australians. At times an investigation into the clichés surrounding identity, at others a deeply personal experience of gender-division, contemporary courtship rituals, surprising discoveries around race, and the plurality of our sub-cultural modes of behaviour. In Complexity of Belonging, triviality and profundity jostle in a kind of Comédie humaine, a panorama of human stories; from internet dating and long-distance relationships to the intimacy of bodies huddling together under a vast Australian sky. DANIEL SCHLUSSER, Melbourne 2014 Dramaturge and Translator
Although creative marriages in the arts are not uncommon, those between choreographers and writers are rare, and the one between Anouk van Dijk and Falk Richter is unique. Through their fifteenyear partnership they have created a distinct and detailed language that is equally physical and verbal, encompassing to the same degree meaning and musicality in text and movement. Upon her appointment as Artistic Director of Chunky Move, Van Dijk invited Richter to develop a new collaboration in Melbourne. Bringing together four organisations, Complexity of Belonging has been jointly commissioned by Chunky Move, Melbourne Theatre Company, Melbourne Festival and Brisbane Festival and is Richter and Van Dijk’s fifth joint creation. Their previous collaborations - Nothing Hurts (1999), a co-production with Kampnagel Hamburg and Springdance Festival (Netherlands), TRUST (2009) and PROTECT ME (2010), co-produced by anoukvandijk dc and Schaubühne Berlin, and Rausch (2012), co-produced by anoukvandijk dc and Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus - have been celebrated for seamlessly integration acting and dancing, movement and speech. They have been performed extensively in Europe and internationally, with both TRUST and Rausch playing at the prestigious Festival d’Avignon. The works explore political themes juxtaposed with intimate human relationships and commonly tap into the zeitgeist of global anxieties. The concept for each project begins from the same central question: what do we currently observe happening in our own relationships and in the broader social context? Together Richter and Van Dijk start to distil keywords as departure points, until often only one or two evocative words remain. This in turn, inspires individual responses that become the initial building blocks of the production. Once in the rehearsal room, Van Dijk and Richter’s process is dynamic, with text, choreography and direction developed simultaneously. Like two painters sharing a canvas, they work directly onto the stage, deploying improvisation and performers material alongside the authored texts and choreographic phrases. This richly organic, almost symbiotic, process results in an integrated form of physical and text performance languages – choreographic theatre.
COMPLEXITY OF BELONGING CONCEPT, DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY FALK RICHTER AND ANOUK VAN DIJK TEXT FALK RICHTER SET DESIGNER ROBERT COUSINS COSTUME DESIGNER MEL PAGE LIGHTING DESIGNER NIKLAS PAJANTI COMPOSER MALTE BECKENBACH DRAMATURGES NILS HAARMANN AND DANIEL SCHLUSSER TRANSLATOR DANIEL SCHLUSSER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GARY ABRAHAMS ASSISTANT TO THE CHOREOGRAPHER NIHARIKA SENAPATI PRODUCTION MANAGER MICHAEL CARR STAGE MANAGER BLAIR HART DEPUTY STAGE MANAGER ALICE FLEMING SOUND OPERATOR MARCO CHER-GIBARD PRODUCTION SERVICES MANAGER FRANK STOFFELS STAGING SUPERVISOR GRANT KENNELLY HEAD FLYMAN JAMES TUCKER SOUND SUPERVISOR TERRY MCKIBBIN LIGHTING SUPERVISOR JAMES CONWAY
WITH JOEL BRAY LAUREN LANGLOIS ALYA MANZART ELOISE MIGNON STEPHEN PHILLIPS JOSH PRICE KAREN SIBBING TARA SOH JAMES VU ANH PHAM For their creative input and sharing their personal perspectives of identity Falk Richter, Anouk van Dijk, Chunky Move, Melbourne Theatre Company, Brisbane Festival and Melbourne Festival gratefully acknowledge the cast – Joel Bray, Lauren Langlois, Alya Manzart, Eloise Mignon, Stephen Phillips, Josh Price, Karen Sibbing, Tara Soh and James Vu Anh Pham. SPECIAL THANKS Chunky Move, Melbourne Theatre Company, Brisbane Festival and Melbourne Festival would like to thank the following people and organisations for their support of Complexity of Belonging: Coproduction partners Théâtre National de Chaillot and Schaubühne Berlin Backdrop Image: Big Sky © Oliviu Lugojan-Ghenciu Lightbox image: Offices at nighttime © Kutt Niinepuu / Dreamstime.com Teaching and rehearsal support: Nina Wollny Waleed Aly, Stephen Armstrong, Rachael Azzopardi, Chloe Greaves, Jennifer Gulbransen, Hugh Hartshorne, Luke McKinnon, Martin Mischkulnig, Jerry Remkes, Michael Stevens and Megan Williams.
BIOGRAPHIES ANOUK VAN DIJK CONCEPT, DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY Anouk van Dijk is the Artistic Director of Chunky Move. She is a choreographer, director and the creator behind the movement system Countertechnique. Van Dijk premiered her debut work for Chunky Move, An Act of Now, at the iconic Sydney Myer Music Bowl as part of the 2012 Melbourne Festival. The production went on to win The Age Critics’ Award for Best New Australian Work. This was followed in 2013 by 247 Days (Dance Massive), the first installment of the 1:1:1 series – Embodiment – at ACCA, and gentle is the power at the 2014 SOLO Festival of Dance in Brisbane. Before relocating to Australia, Van Dijk had an extensive career in Europe, touring worldwide with her Dutch company anoukvandijk dc, performing at the world’s leading festivals and venues including Festival d’Avignon, Adelaide Festival, Sydney Opera House, MASS MoCA, Perth International Arts Festival, Dance Triennale Tokyo, American Dance Festival and Festival TransAmériques. Van Dijk’s long collaborative partnership with German writer and director Falk Richter has resulted in the creation of four critically acclaimed productions that have toured in Europe and internationally. In 2012 Van Dijk was awarded the Golden Swan (Gouden Zwaan) – the Netherlands’ most prestigious dance accolade – in recognition of her outstanding artistic and academic contribution to dance in her home country.
FALK RICHTER CONCEPT, TEXT, DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY Falk Richter is one of the most important German playwrights and directors of his generation. His plays have been translated into more than 25 languages and are produced all over the world. Apart from writing and directing his own plays, Richter has directed Shakespeare, Tschechow, Schiller, Brecht, and a number of contemporary writers such as Caryll Churchill, Harold Pinter, Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane, Jon Fosse, Mark Ravenhill, Lars Noren, Roland Schimmelpfennig, and operas by Tchaikovsky, Strauss and Weber, as well as by Hans Werner Henze, Jörg Widmann and Jörn Arnecke.
Richter has been director in residence at the Schaubühne in Berlin since 2000, and has also worked freelance at renowned theatres such as the Burgtheater in Vienna, Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Schauspielhaus Zurich, Salzburger Festspiele, Vienna States Opera, Ruhrtriennale, Theatre National Brussels, Royal National Theatre Oslo, Frankfurt Opera and Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin. Richter began collaborating with choreographer Anouk van Dijk over 15 years ago. Their shared fascination for each other’s multi-layered way of working has resulted in four collaborations that have toured extensively in Europe and internationally. Richter recently won the prestigious Friedrich-Luft Award for Best Theatrical Production in 2013 in the Berlin and Potsdam area for his inter-disciplinary production For the Disconnected Child, which brought together actors, dancers, musicians and opera singers.
JOEL BRAY PERFORMER Joel Bray has previously performed with Company CeDeCe, Kolben Dance, Sally Anne Freidland, Machol Shalem Dance House, Odelya Kuperberg and Yoram Karmi’s FRESCO Dance Company. His choreographic credits include works for PICA, ArtRage Festival (Perth), The Albania International Dance Meeting (Durres, Albania), the Mixer Festival (Ramat Gan, Israel), Dancers Create (Suzan Dellal Centre, Tel Aviv) and two works for children’s audience, SPLASH and Race to the Ark, commissioned by the Israeli National Science Museum. Bray began dancing at NAISDA Dance College, before graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2005.
LAUREN LANGLOIS PERFORMER Lauren Langlois has previously performed for Chunky Move in Antony Hamilton’s Keep Everything and Anouk van Dijk’s An Act of Now and 247 Days. She has also performed with Sydney Dance Company (LANDforms, 6 Breaths, We Unfold, The Land of Yes and The Land of No, Between Breath and Form), Australian Dance Theatre (G and Be Your Self ), and for choreographers Larissa McGowan, Lina Limosani, Jacapo Godani and Stephanie Lake. Langlois completed a full time course in classical ballet with Marie Walton-Mahon Dance Academy and studied contemporary dance at the New Zealand School of Dance.
ALYA MANZART PERFORMER
KAREN SIBBING PERFORMER
Alya Manzart has previously performed in Chunky Move’s An Act of Now and 247 Days. He has also performed with Opera Australia, Phillip Adams and 2ndToe Dance Collective. His dance film, Subliminal Mind, was selected for presentation at numerous film festivals including Reel Dance Artist Conference (Sydney), NEO/NOW Live and Online Film Festival (Estonia) and the Melbourne International Student Film Festival. He is currently collaborating in setting up Ferrous Wheel – a business dedicated to facilitate the creation of art. Manzart is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts.
After graduating, Karen Sibbing was selected to join the Red Stitch Actors Theatre graduate program. She is a collaborating artist of theatre company Fraught Outfit, for which she has appeared in several works, and a core member of The Daniel Schlusser Ensemble. Her other theatre credits include productions by La Mama Theatre, Four Larks Theatre, Malthouse Theatre and Malthouse Education and Neon Festival for Melbourne Theatre Company. She received the 2013 Green Room Award for Best Female Performer in Independent Theatre for her performance in Persona (Belvoir St Theatre / Malthouse Theatre / Theatre Works). Sibbing is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts.
ELOISE MIGNON PERFORMER Eloise Mignon has appeared with Melbourne Theatre Company in The Cherry Orchard, Return to Earth and The Grenade (co-produced with Sydney Theatre Company); with Belvoir St Theatre in Private Lives, Strange Interlude, Every Breath and The Wild Duck, which was also performed at Malthouse Theatre, the International Ibsen Festival in Oslo, Weiner Festwochen in Vienna and the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, and won several Helpmann Awards and Sydney Theatre Awards; and with the Black Lung Theatre Company in Rubeville. Mignon’s film and TV credits include lead roles in Legacy of the Silver Shadow, Silversun and Neighbours.
STEPHEN PHILLIPS PERFORMER Stephen Phillips has appeared with Melbourne Theatre Company in Realism, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Boy Gets Girl, Take Me Out, Les Liaison Dangereuses and Metamorphoses; with Bell Shakespeare in As You Like It and The Tempest, and The Odyssey for Malthouse Theatre. On television, he has appeared in Blue Heelers, Neighbours, Love Letters, Last Man Standing, City Homicide and Offspring, and was a regular cast member on Winners and Losers. Feature film credits include Disclosure, X, The Catalyst, Turkey Shoot Reloaded and The Killer Elite. Phillips is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts.
JOSH PRICE PERFORMER Josh Price is a core member of independent theatre company The Daniel Schlusser Ensemble for which he has performed in The Dollhouse, M+M (Melbourne Festival), Menagerie (Melbourne Theatre Company Neon Festival), Life is a Dream and Peer Gynt. For Malthouse Theatre, Price has appeared in The Good Person of Szechuan, The Dragon and The Histrionic (also Sydney Theatre Company). His other theatre credits include Elektra (Fraught Outfit), Delectable Shelter (Hayloft Project) and Margaret Fulton: Queen of the Dessert (Theatreworks/Present Tense). Price is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts.
TARA SOH PERFORMER Tara Soh has previously performed in Chunky Move’s 247 Days and Embodiment (1:1:1 series). Her other performance credits include works by Australian Dance Theatre and choreographers Antony Hamilton, Larissa McGowan, Lina Limosani and Daniel Jaber. Her performances in Be Your Self and Proximity (Australian Dance Theatre) saw her nominated for the Helpmann Award for Best Female Dancer in a Dance or Physical Theatre Work in 2010 and 2012 respectively. Soh trained in Classical Ballet at the Marie-Walton Mahon Dance Academy before studying at the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts.
JAMES VU ANH PHAM PERFORMER James Vu Anh Pham has previously performed for Chunky Move in Stephanie Lake’s AORTA and Anouk van Dijk’s An Act of Now, 247 Days, Embodiment (1:1:1 series) and gentle is the power. He recently received the 2014 Best Male Dancer in a Dance or Physical Theatre Work Helpmann Award for his performance in 247 Days. He has also worked with STEPS Youth Dance Company, Alice Lee Holland, Taane Mete, Taiaroa Royale, Ross McCormack and Maria Dabrowska. Vu Anh Pham trained in classical ballet at the Graduate College of Dance and in contemporary dance at the New Zealand School of Dance, and is a certified Countertechnique teacher.
ROBERT COUSINS SET DESIGNER Robert Cousins is a set, costume and production designer for theatre, dance, opera and film. Cousins has worked on numerous productions for Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir St Theatre, and other companies such as State Theatre Company of South Australia, Malthouse Theatre, Almeida Theatre and Brink Productions. For dance, he has collaborated with Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc and Shaun Parker & Company. Cousins has also production designed for the following films: Candy, Romulus, My Father, Balibo and Ruben Guthrie.
MEL PAGE COSTUME DESIGNER Mel Page is a costume and set designer. She has designed costumes for numerous productions at Belvoir St.Theatre (including Angels in America, Hamlet, The Government Inspector) and Sydney Theatre Company (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pygmalion, Vs. Macbeth) as well as Malthouse Theatre, The Hayloft Project and Stuck Pigs Squealing. Alongside her theatre work, Page has production designed the short films Great Acts Of Kindness and Hollow Bones, the web series One Step Closer to Home and costume designed the short film Baby Baby.
NIKLAS PAJANTI LIGHTING DESIGNER Niklas Pajanti is an award winning lighting designer working across a range of contemporary art and performance media. A long-time collaborator with Chunky Move and Melbourne Theatre Company, Pajanti has also worked with Malthouse Theatre, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir St Theatre, The Eleventh Hour, BalletLab, Brink Productions, Dancehouse, KAGE Physical Theatre, Not Yet It’s Difficult, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Adelaide Festival and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
MALTE BECKENBACH COMPOSER Malte Beckenbach is a resident composer at the Schaubühne in Berlin. He founded his own recordlabel for experimental electronic music in 1998 and released on labels such as Project Mooncircle, Tonkind, Kitty-Yo and B-Pitch. Beckenbach first collaborated with Falk Richter and Anouk van Dijk in 1999 on Nothing Hurts. He has also worked for theatres such as State Opera Berlin, Burgtheater Wien, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Festival D´Avignon, Theatro di Roma and National Theatre Oslo.
NILS HAARMANN DRAMATURGE Nils Haarmann is a dramaturge at the Schaubühne Theatre Berlin. Amongst others, he has collaborated with directors Rodrigo García, Friederike Heller, Katie Mitchell, Wajdi Mouawad and Falk Richter. During his studies, Haarmann held assistant dramaturge and assistant director positions at the Maxim Gorki Theatre, Berlin and Schauspiel Essen. In 2008 he was a visiting researcher at Columbia University and a fellow of the Robert Wilson Summer Program in New York. Haarmann holds a Master of Comparative Literature, Theatre, Film Studies and a Master of Arts from Université de Paris-X Nanterre and Paris-III-Sorbonne-Nouvelle.
DANIEL SCHLUSSER DRAMATURGE AND TRANSLATOR Daniel Schlusser is a director, dramaturge, performer and writer. He has directed over 40 productions for the stage, including works for major festivals, numerous premiere productions by both Australian and international writers, as well as classics from the Russian and European canon. Recently with The Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, he has created M+M (Theatre Works/Melbourne Festival), Menagerie (Melbourne Theatre Company Neon Festival), Ophelia doesn’t live here anymore (Chamber Made Opera/Bell Shakespeare’s Minds Eye), The Dollhouse (fortyfivedownstairs), Life is a Dream (The Store Room) and Poet #7 (Full Tilt at Arts Centre, Melbourne). Schlusser received the prestigious George Fairfax Memorial Fellowship in 2012.
GARY ABRAHAMS ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Gary Abrahams is a director, writer, dramaturge and actor. For Melbourne Theatre Company he has assistant directed All About My Mother, Songs for Nobodies, The Gift and Australia Day. His recent directing credits include many productions by Red Stitch Actors Theatre including ROAM, The Pride, Day One, A Hotel and Evening. For his own company, Dirty Pretty Theatre, Abrahams has directed Acts Of Deceit, Something Natural but Very Childish, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant and his own adaptation of Therese Raquin. Abrahams is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (Masters of Theatre Practice).
NIHARIKA SENAPATI ASSISTANT TO THE CHOREOGRAPHER Niharika Senapati has performed in Chunky Move’s An Act of Now, 247 Days, and Embodiment (1:1:1 series) and is choreographic assistant for Complexity of Belonging. She has also performed in Rachel Arianne Ogle’s work Precipice (Perth) and in Liesel Zink’s Fifteen (Next Wave Festival). She has worked with choreographers Dean Walsh, Matthew Morris, Sue Peacock and Xiaoxiong Zhang. Aside from performing, she is a certified Countertechnique and yoga teacher. Senapati is a graduate of the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts.
CHUNKY MOVE
MELBOURNE FESTIVAL
Victoria’s flagship contemporary dance company, Chunky Move constantly seeks to redefine what is or what can be contemporary dance in an everevolving Australian culture. Led by internationally acclaimed choreographer, Anouk van Dijk, Chunky Move’s multi-tiered programming initiatives underpin a vibrant dance culture in Melbourne, creating popular productions for presentations nationally and internationally. In addition to its main stage performances, Chunky Move runs an extensive program of performer and choreographic development initiatives.
Melbourne Festival is one of the world’s leading arts festivals, and Australia’s premier celebration of art and culture from around the world. Each Festival brings an unparalleled feast of dance, theatre, music, visual arts, multimedia and outdoor events from renowned and upcoming Australian and International companies and artists to Melbourne. Melbourne Festival exclusively debuts and premieres the finest local, national and international events, ensuring that Melbourne is the only place in Australia that many of them are seen. The 2014 Melbourne Festival includes almost 100 events; 15 world premieres; 21 Australian premieres; 6 specially commissioned works; features 1000 artists from 23 different countries and occupies more than 30 venues.
chunkymove.com.au
CHUNKY MOVE BOARD Peter Biggs CNZM Chair Jeremy Blackshaw Annie Dawson Anouk van Dijk Sue Donnelly Rhod Ellis-Jones
Rose Hiscock Jeff Khan Leigh O’Neill Margaret Parker Margaret Thompson
CHUNKY MOVE STAFF Artistic Director Anouk van Dijk Executive Producer Catherine Jones Business & Program Manager Hillary Coyne Production & Operations Manager Michael Carr Marketing & Development Manager Claire Wilcock Office & Program Coordinator Benjamin Ryan Production & Operations Coordinator Blair Hart Marketing & Development Coordinator Pauline Robert Finance Administrator Anne McDonald Class Coordinator Jo Lloyd Front of House Annabelle Balharry & Phoebe Robinson Publicity Miranda Brown Publicity
MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 10 – 26 October 2014 melbournefestival.com.au President The Hon Linda Dessau AM Deputy President Philip Cornish Treasurer Paul Kirk Secretary Louise Adler AM Directors Rob Brookman Sally Bruce Ian McDougall Simon Ryan Wai Tang Neil Waters David Whittle Creative Director Josephine Ridge Executive Director Katie McLeish
MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY Melbourne Theatre Company is one of Australia’s most successful and distinguished performing arts companies. For over sixty years, MTC has been enriching lives through the transformative power of the finest theatre imaginable. In addition to establishing the largest subscription base in the country and achieving an anuual box office income of $13.5m, MTC is committed to leading the way in creating and developing opportunities for artists from all backgrounds and at all stages of their careers. In 2015, a broad range of initiatives will cultivate connections with artists; NEON Festival of Independent Theatre, Women Directors’ Program, Secondments, MTC Connect, Cybec Electric Play Readings and Commissions. Melbourne Theatre Company is a department of University of Melbourne. MTC HEADQUARTERS 252 Sturt St Southbank VIC 3006 03 8688 0900 mtc.com.au
MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY BOARD OF MANAGEMENT Chairman Terry Moran Directors Lyndsey Cattermole AM Professor Barry Conyngham Professor Glyn Davis AC Jonathan Feder Gillian Franklin Ian Marshmann Martyn Myer AO Maureen Wheeler AO Adrian Collette AM Observer Artistic Director Brett Sheehy AO Executive Director Virginia Lovett
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, managed by the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc, Chunky Move, Melbourne Theatre Company, Melbourne Festival and Brisbane Festival.