Glow

Glow_Cover_v4:Layout 1

15/9/06

1:03 PM

Page 1

Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek founded Chunky Move in 1995. Since then the company has created many dance productions performing at numerous cities and festivals around the world.

Concept and Choreography Gideon Obarzanek Executive Producer Vivia Hickman Concept and Interactive System Design Frieder Weiß Dancers Kristy Ayre/Sara Black Lina Limosani (Understudy) Original Music and Sound Design Luke Smiles (motion laboratories) Costume Design Paula Levis Costume Supervisor Natalie Boyle Production and Operations Manager Donna Aston Multimedia Operator Byron Scullin Director’s Notes Frieder and I first met at the Monaco Dance Forum at the end of 2004 and discussed the use of a data projector for lighting a moving body. In late 2005 in Australia we tested various relationships between a moving body and motion graphics using an infrared camera tracking system.

Now, with a better understanding of the system’s capabilities, its possible applications and further potential, the dancers and I have attempted in the movement to create a type of “biotech fiction”, shifting the body into other imaginary sensual and grotesque creature states. The relationship of the digital pixel environment to the performer varies from being an illustrative extended motion of their movement, a visual expression of internal states, and also a self-contained animated habitat.

In Glow, light and moving graphics are not prerendered video playback but rather images constantly generated by various algorithms responding to movement. In most conventional works employing projection lighting, the dancer’s position and timing have to be completely fixed to the space and timeline of the video playback. Their role is reduced to the difficult chore of making every performance an exact facsimile of the original. In Glow, the machine sees the performer and responds to their actions, unlocking them from a relationship of restriction and tedium.

Gideon originally studied at the Australian Ballet School and danced with the Queensland Ballet and the Sydney Dance Company before working as an independent performer and choreographer with various dance companies and independent projects within Australia and abroad.

Most recently Gideon has received a New York Bessie award for Outstanding Choreography/Creation for Tense Dave and two Melbourne Green Room Awards for Original Choreography and Concept and Realisation for I Want to Dance Better at Parties.

In 1999 he received a Mo award for best choreography for Bonehead and the Prime Minister’s Young Creative Fellowship in 1996.

Concept and Interactive System Design Frieder Weiß Frieder is a specialist in real-time computing and interactive computer systems in performance art. As Co-director of the Palindrome Intermedia Performance Group he has developed technologies and concepts for using digital systems for dance since 1995. With Palindrome he developed a number of award-winning performances and installation projects. He is the author of EyeCon and Kalypso video motion sensing programs especially designed for use with dance, music and computer art. This software is now used by numerous artists around the world.

Weiß has designed miniaturised portable devices to allow the individual muscle contractions of a dancer's body to control other media. One system makes dancer’s heartbeats control media such as the tempo of the music. He is teaching media-technology at the University of Applied Sciences in Nürnberg, University of the Arts in Bern and the University Centre in Doncaster, UK. In recent years he has collaborated in installation and performance projects with Phase-7 in Berlin, Leine und Roebana in Amsterdam, Helga Pogatschar, Cesc Gelabert in Munich, Prof. Wilfried Jentzsch in Dresden and most recently with the Australian dancer Emily Fernandez, with whom he has created a number of interactive works.

In co-operation with the Goethe-Institut Melbourne

These notes are available for download at www.chunkymove.com

Dancers Kristy Ayre Kristy learnt to dance in Lismore and Sydney before graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Dance in 2001. Kristy joined Chunky Move in 2002 and has performed nationally and internationally with the company for the past four years.

She has appeared in I Want to Dance Better at Parties (for which she was nominated a Green Room Award), Tense Dave, Crowds, Wanted: ballet for a contemporary democracy, Prue Lang’s Infinite Temporal Series and Kim Itoh’s Butterfly and Me. In 2005 she performed with Lucy Guerin Inc. in Love Me and in Shelley Lasica’s Play in a Room.

Kristy teaches regularly for Chunky Move’s public dance class program and Sydney schools workshop program.

Sara Black Raised in Canberra, Sara was a 2002 member of the Australian Choreographic Centre’s Quantum Leap youth dance company. In 2005 she completed her Bachelor of Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts.

During this time she worked with choreographers such as Brett Daffy, Neil Adams, Anna Smith, Sandra Parker, Leigh Warren, Paulina Quinteros and Rebecca Hilton. Sara has worked with Neil Adams in his 2004 AICD competition winner Vapour Trail along with his PHD performance season Incarna.

As a choreographer Sara has made short works for three Hot to Trot seasons at the ACC. Tunnel Visioned (2005) is her first short film, which was presented at the Dancehouse Danceflicks program in 2006.

Her short work Parental Guidance Recommended premiered at Dancehouse’s Graduate Showcase in 2005 and was reworked to tour Malaysia in June 2006. Glow is Sara’s first work with Chunky Move.

Lina Limosani (understudy) Lina began her dance training at the Box Hill College of Tafe, Melbourne, before travelling to the UK where she undertook a years professional training at the Thamesdown Dance Studios, Swindon College.

On returning to Australia, she graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1999.

Lina was a member of Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) from 2000-2005, where she performed in Garry Stewart’s Birdbrain, The Age of Unbeauty, Nothing, Plastic Space, Attention Deficit Therapy and Held. Lina has toured extensively nationally and internationally with the company. In 2003, she was awarded the Emerging Artist award by the Adelaide Critics Circle for her works in ADT’s in-house choreographic seasons of Ignition, and has recently gone on to create her own works independently.

In 2004 Lina was nominated for a Green Room award for her performance in The Age of Unbeauty at the Melbourne Festival. She also featured in Anton’s dance film When You’re Alone, which was a finalist in the 2004 ReelDance International Dance on Screen Awards. Since leaving the company Lina has worked with artists including Narelle Benjamin, Lucy Guerin and Troy Mundy.

Music and Sound Design Luke Smiles (motion laboratories) Luke started dance training at the Miranda Kalgovas Ballet School, later completing a Bachelor of Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts. Apart from being a founding member of Chunky Move he has also performed with Vis-a-Vis Dance Canberra, The One Extra Dance Company, Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre and Thwack.

Working under the name motion laboratories, Luke’s music work includes composition/sound design for Chunky Move including Corrupted 2, All The Better To Eat You With, Live Acts, Flexible and Wanted.

His other composition credits include soundtracks for NDT1, Australian Dance Theatre, West Australian Ballet, Dance Party Performance Group, Stompin and Ox. Costume Designer Paula Levis Paula studied fashion design at RMIT and completed a Graduate Diploma in Theatre Design at VCA in 2001. She has worked with numerous production companies including Melbourne Theatre Company, Playbox, Bell Shakespeare Company, Red Stitch Actors Theatre, Theatre in Decay and La Mama.

Recently she has designed costumes for Chunky Move (Singularity, I Want to Dance Better at Parties), Lucy Guerin (Aether, Lost Air), Danceworks (Murray Anderson Road), Rebecca Hilton (Historia) and sets and costumes for KAGE (Headlock, Nowhere Man, The Day the World Turned Upside Down). She was Design Assistant on the film Tom White and the comedy series SkitHouse.

Paula has also worked as Illustrator and Design Assistant to Peter Corrigan on numerous theatrical projects directed by Barrie Kosky.

Production and Operations Manager Donna Aston Donna’s career in production and stage management spans 15 years taking her all over Australia and to the UK & USA. Her diverse experience covers theatre, dance, opera, contemporary music and festival production including Sarah Cathcarts’ Walking on Sticks, Tiger Country (Melbourne International Festival), Chamber Made Opera’s Medea, Improvement: Don Leaves Linda (Melbourne International Festival), Tresno (Sydney Festival), The Two Executioners, Wide Sargasso Sea, Fresh Ghosts and Matricide The Musical.

Donna has also worked on Voice, Jam & Videotape (Adelaide Festival), Artists Services’ Mum’s The Word, Dance Works & Stompin Youth Dance Co’s Distance, the inaugural Big West Festival and The Ghost Wife.

Donna joined Chunky Move in March 2000.

Multimedia Operator Byron Scullin Since 1993 Byron has worked mostly in the area of sound and music in various capacities. Recently he has written music & sound for KAGE Physical Theatre and ABC TV, produced music with All India Radio and Midnight Juggernauts and has also worked in a technical capacity on films such as Wolf Creek and The Hard Word. Byron is currently working as an independent producer (from Audrey Studios) and mastering engineer (at Deluxe Mastering). He is also currently lecturing in studio recording and production at RMIT University. He has previously co-designed and operated multi-media systems for Arena Theatre (with Pete Brundle & Daniel Crooks). Glow will be Byron’s twelfth production with Chunky Move.

Additional Music Ben Frost Thank you Anna, Chris, Matt and Rom from Icon.Inc, Naomi Van Dyke, Renate Elsaesser from Goethe, special thanks to Carlee Mellow, Greg Ginger from Outlook Communications, Clearlight Shows, ACCA, Prostage, Huishan Ouyang, Arts House, Moonlight Projects, Experimenta, Loop, Melbourne International Arts Festival, The Vibe.

Dance and Movement Classes Chunky Move runs a range of public dance classes most weeknights and Saturday mornings. Aimed at complete beginners to intermediate levels of experience, each class is run on a casual basis so you can join us when the mood takes you. Choose from Ballet, Pilates, Funk, Funk/Hip-Hop and Contemporary. Check out our website for details (www.chunkymove.com) or pick up a timetable from our foyer.

111 Sturt Street Southbank Vic 3006 Tel: 03 9645 5188 Email: info@chunkymove.com.au Web: www.chunkymove.com Personnel Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek Executive Producer Vivia Hickman Production and Operations Manager Donna Aston Marketing and Development Manager Paul Myers Assistant Producer Kate Steele Administrator Susan Jones Class Coordinator Jo Lloyd Board of Directors Stephen Armstrong Julian Burnside QC (Chair) Louisa Coppel Vivia Hickman Elizabeth Ann Macgregor

Tracey Mills Gideon Obarzanek Margaret Parker Katrina Sedgwick Simon Westcott