Two Faced Bastard

Michelle Heaven Michelle Heaven graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Dance in 1992 and Masters of Dance Performance in 2000. She has made extensive contributions as a performer and collaborator to both live theatre and film, working nationally and internationally with a number of great Australian choreographers and directors. Michelle creates her own work within the media of dance movement, puppetry and film. She is a Victorian Green Room Award recipient and Helpmann Award nominee. Michelle recently created Disagreeable Object with collaborators Brian Lucas, Ben Cobham and Bill McDonald. Currently Michelle is working with Chunky Move and KAGE.

Stephanie Lake Stephanie Lake is a Melbourne dancer, choreographer and teacher. She has danced for Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc. and BalletLab extensively since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2000 with tours taking her across Europe, the US and Asia. She was recipient of the Green Room Award for Best Emerging Dancer in 2000 and Trike, which she co-directed and won the Melbourne Festival Choice Award in the same year. She was nominated for Best Female Dancer at the Green Room Awards in 2008 and the Australian Dance Awards in 2003, both for her work with Lucy Guerin. She has also had acclaim as a choreographer with several commissions from Chunky Move (Three’s A Crowd, Arcade, Live Acts), The VCA and Stompin. She will perform in two new works by Chunky Move this year, Two Faced Bastard and I Like This.

Brian Lipson In the 1970s and 80s Brian was a key member of three of the most important experimental theatre companies in England, he subsequently acted regularly at Royal National Theatre, Old Vic, Royal Court, etc. Since moving to Melbourne nine years ago he has worked regularly at MTC, Playbox and Company B, as well as Eleventh Hour, Stuck Pigs Squealing and GoD Be IN MY MouTH. His solo show A Large Attendance in the Antechamber received wide acclaim at the Edinburgh, Sydney and Adelaide festivals and also toured the USA. The large scale theatre work which Brian wrote, designed and performed Berggasse 19 - The Apartments of Sigmund Freud had a sell out premiere season in the 2005 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts. Brian often appears on TV and teaches at the VCA. He has been nominated for 6 Green Room Awards and won 3 of them.

Byron Perry A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Byron has toured throughout Australia, Europe and America developing and performing roles with Douglas Wright, Leigh Warren, Nannette Hassall, Gideon Obarzanek (Chunky Move), Paul Selwyn Norton, Lucy Guerin Inc, Phillip Adams (Ballet Lab), Lloyd Newson (DV8 Physical Theatre), Kate Champion (Force Majeure), Antony Hamilton and Kate Denborough (Kage Physical Theatre). In 2006 he received an Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer and won Best Male Dancer at the Greenroom Awards for his years work. His choreographic work includes Punctuated Equilibrium and The Hayflick Limit for Chunky Move, Hest² for the Victorian College of the Arts, Breaks of Asia for The Studio at the Sydney Opera House, A Volume Problem for Tasdance and Goggle Box for which he was nominated for a Greenroom Award for best original choreography. He has also choreographed and performed in various projects for television and music videos.

Lee Serle Lee began dancing at age 11 and completed his training at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2003. In 2004 Lee began work with Chunky Move (Gideon Obarzanek) and Lucy Guerin inc, performing nationally and internationally with both companies. He has also performed in Neil Adams PHD research project Incarna, Kota Yamasaki’s Chamisa 4 Degrees in Japan and Melbourne, and three works for Lucy Guerin’s Pieces for Small Spaces choreographed by Antony Hamilton, Kyle Kremerskothen and most recently his own short work for the 2007 season. In 2008 Lee will continue with Chunky Move and Lucy Guerin Inc. premiering new works for both companies as well as a creative development with Shelley Lasica.

About Chunky Move Founded by Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek in 1995, Chunky Move has earned an enviable reputation for producing a distinct yet unpredictable brand of genre-defying dance performance. Chunky Move’s work constantly seeks to redefine what is or what can be contemporary dance within an everevolving Australian culture. The Company’s work is both diverse in form and content; to date the Company has created a number of works for the stage, site specific and new-media and installation work.

Presented by Melbourne International Arts Festival and Chunky Move

Funding Partners

Chunky Move is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria – Department of Premier Cabinet and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Major Partners Chunky Move’s multi-tiered programming initiatives foster and support a strong and vibrant dance culture in its home city of Melbourne and also creates critically acclaimed and popular larger productions for touring. Recent cities toured include: Sydney, Beijing, Shanghai, Dresden, New York, Vancouver, Edinburgh and Lisbon. in 2008 Chunky Move received Best Dance Work for Glow and Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production for Mortal Engine at the Live Performance Australia Helpmann Awards. Recent works include: Mortal Engine, Glow, I Want to Dance Better at Parties and Tense Dave. “Now Australia’s biggest and most successful contemporary dance export” 2008 Edinburgh International Festival

Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek Executive Producer Rachael Azzopardi Business & Program Manager Hillary Coyne Production & Operations Manager Chris Mercer Marketing & Sponsorship Manager Anna Slowiak Production Administrator Leonie Dixon Development Manager Zadia Lenders Office and Company Coordinator Kimberely Bettinson McCay Finance Administrator Anne MacDonald Class Coordinator Jo Lloyd Publicity Miranda Brown Publicity Board of Directors Stephen Armstrong (chair) Rachael Azzopardi, Jeremy Blackshaw, Dr Terry Cutler, Kate Crawford, Tracey Mills, Gideon Obarzanek, Margaret Parker, Katrina Sedgwick, Margaret Thompson. 111 Sturt St Southbank Vic 3006 T: +61 3 9645 5188 F: +61 3 9645 5199 www.chunkymove.com Chunky Move can also be found on MySpace & Facebook

creative communications

Supporting Partners

Production Partner

Special Thanks Chunky Move would like to thank the following people and organisations for their support of Two Faced Bastard: Melbourne International Arts Festival and staff, Major Festivals Initiative, Chunky Move board and staff, Chris Budgeon Photography, Miranda Brown and staff, Michael Carr, Richard Dinnen, Frog, Michael Kantor, LabX, Robert Menzies, Nova FM, Simon Obarzanek, Proud Mother Photography, RRR, Nick Roux, Sweet Design, Lucy Taylor, Ingrid Weisfelt, Susan Jones and Kelly Warner.

Next Chunky Move production

I Like This created by Byron Perry & Antony Hamilton 20-29 November 2008 Chunky Move Studios For more info visit www.chunkymove.com I Like This will be the first production as part of the Next Move Series, a series of performances created by the next generation of Australian dance makers and presented by Chunky Move.

created by gideon obarzanek and lucy guerin Design and Art Direction Sweet

Direction & Choreography Gideon Obarzanek and Lucy Guerin Set Design Ralph Myers LIGHTING DESIGN PHILIP LETHLEAN Costume Design Paula Levis Composer Darrin Verhagen Sound Designer/Operator Russell Goldsmith Additional Music Gerald Mair Production Manager Chris Mercer Project Production Manager Michael Carr Stage Manager Leonie Dixon Performers Vincent Crowley, Antony Hamilton, Michelle Heaven, Stephanie Lake, Brian Lipson, Byron Perry & Lee Serle

World Premiere 9 October 2008 Arts House, Meat Market. Season 8-12 October Duration: 1 Hour (no interval)

Biographies Director & Choreographer Gideon Obarzanek Gideon became interested in dance towards the end of high school and after graduating deferred science at university to study at the Australian Ballet School. He later 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. These have included commissions from the Australian Ballet Company, The Sydney Dance Company, Opera Australia and the Netherlands Dance Theatre.

A note from Gideon Obarzanek:

A note from Lucy Guerin:

The first time we met we talked about duality. We experimented with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, duplicitous acts of cruelty, performing in disguises. Choreography was focused on sole entities made from two or more bodies sometimes in harmony but often struggling with one another, irreconcilable elements bound together. Rather than the content however what emerged as more interesting was the act of transformation by the performers into other versions of themselves. As they stepped through the curtain in front of an audience they changed. The work shifted. It became more about the act of performing, the actor or dancer on stage doing their shtick, this is what we knew, this was our two-faced job.

Two Faced Bastard is for me an opportunity to discuss some of the elements of life and theatre that I find most compelling. It is in essence a dialogue, exploring two points of view and separating out some ideas that would perhaps normally be integrated within one work.

Gideon founded Chunky Move in 1995 and has been its Artistic Director to date. His works for the company have been diverse in form and content including stage productions, installations, site-specific works and film. These productions have been performed in many festivals and theatres around the world in the U.K, Europe, Asia and the Americas.

This piece revels in the discomfort we experience when expectations and theories don’t fit the real world. The performers are left exposed, caught out by a clash of realities, like opening a door that you think is leading outside and finding yourself in a broom closet. For performers, a common nightmare is somehow ending up on stage in a show and not knowing their lines; or having no idea of the steps of the dance they are in and desperately trying to fumble their way through.

Most recently, Gideon’s film, Dance Like Your Old Man, co-directed with Edwina Throsby won best short documentary at the 2007 Melbourne International Film Festival, 2008 Flickerfest International Short Film Festival and Best Film at the Cinedans Festival in Amsterdam. In collaboration with Lucy Guerin and Michael Kantor, Gideon has also received a New York Bessie award for outstanding choreography and creation for Chunky Move’s production of Tense Dave.

After years of performing and making shows we now wanted a better understanding of what we were doing, why we were doing it and who it was for? Opinions and experiences differed. One person saw the stage as a mysterious place that could not be fully understood or controlled by the performer, undermined by irrational dreads and desires. Another claimed that we could explain and understand this environment, a place where our actions are determined by rational motives. We looked into Kafka’s Trial and Orson Well’s 1962 film version with its extraordinary visualisations of labyrinthine surreal spaces inhabited by inscrutable characters. An argument began. Ego and pride became involved and it got interesting. Initially polar opposites, words and action burst through the curtain, colliding into each other, infecting, competing and destroying. Dance was dissected and killed by discussion and words were assaulted, mowed down by feverish dance. Their spilt blood mixed into mutant forms, words were danced and dance was spoken. The group fragmented and the stage became a battleground to be conquered, the audience to be won. We wanted to keep going until there was nothing left, but there was always something left, a spark of life after every death the work automatically rebooted itself after every crash. It was in perpetual motion, endless. At some point we are just going to have to stop.

The logistics of Two Faced Bastard are both exhilarating and daunting. Working on it is like a puzzle that keeps shifting, and as one piece falls into place, another no longer fits. But the thrill is being able to present one view while acknowledging its opposition. A dance involving pure movement can be shattered when its meaning is asked for in words. A theatrical text can seem futile when confronted with the physical energy and intricate complexity of a dance. The real and the fictitious, the onstage and the off stage, narrative stories and poetic interpretation, acting and dancing are all jostling for primacy. Words lose potency as actions gain momentum. Conclusions become more elusive as different arguments proliferate. We are forced to acknowledge that the idea of ‘black and white’ is a fiction and that all views are dependent on the existence of others. There is a point where we must agree to differ.

Director & Choreographer Lucy Guerin Lucy Guerin graduated from the Centre for Performing Arts in 1982 before joining the companies of Russell Dumas (Dance Exchange) and Nanette Hassall (Danceworks). She lived in New York from 1989 to 1996 where she danced with Tere O’Connor Dance, the Bebe Miller Company and Sara Rudner. Guerin has won many awards including the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award, a New York Dance and Performance Award (a ‘Bessie’) for choreography, the Prix d’auteur from the Rencontres Choregraphiques Internationales de Bagnolet, several Green Room Awards, a Helpmann Award and an Australian Dance Award. Guerin has also been commissioned by Chunky Move, Ros Warby, Woo Co (Denmark), Ricochet (UK), The Berlin Literature Festival (with poet Michael Lenz), JCDN/Hirano (Japan), Dance Works Rotterdam and Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project (USA) among others. Her works have toured throughout Europe, the US, Canada and Asia. In 2002 she established Lucy Guerin Inc. to support the creation and performance of new works which tour nationally and internationally.

Set Design Ralph Myers Ralph graduated from the NIDA design course in 2000. Since graduating he has designed productions including: Blackbird, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Kind of Alaska/Reunion, The Lost Echo Parts 1 and 2, Mother Courage, Boy Gets Girl, This Little Piggy, Far Away, The 7 Stages of Grieving, Endgame and Morph (Sydney Theatre Company); Wonderlands (Hothouse Theatre); Enlightenment, Cruel and Tender, Frozen and Dinner (Melbourne Theatre Company); Toy Symphony, Parramatta Girls Ray’s Tempest, The Spook, Conversations with the Dead and Fever (Company B); Othello (Bell Shakespeare Company); The Soldier’s Tale (Australian Chamber Orchestra / Bell Shakespeare Company); Dialogues of the Carmelites and The Marriage of Figaro (Sydney Conservatorium of Music); Sweet Phoebe (Griffin Theatre Company); Eora Crossing (Legs on the Wall); Tango and Inferno (Rock N’ Roll Circus) and Blue Heart (Siren Theatre Company).In 2005-6 Ralph was Design Associate at Sydney Theatre Company and he recently designed La Boheme (New Zealand Opera). Ralph won Best Set Design at the Sydney Theatre Awards in 2006 for A Kind of Alaska/Reunion.

LIGHTING Design Philip Lethlean A Melbourne based theatrical lighting designer Philip’s extensive experience includes staging and lighting theatrical works in International arts festivals throughout Australia and internationally in Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Belgium, Italy, China, Spain, Japan, South America, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Sweden and India. His lighting design portfolio also includes corporate theatre and events, public art installations, and private and architectural lighting commissions. A further area of experience is in providing lighting design for festival openings, events and site-specific locations, for both commercial and theatrical clients. Thus Philip was selected to design and light both of the major public Australian Centenary of Federation celebrations, Yeperenye, the indigenous celebration in Alice Springs and Peoplescape in Canberra. In 2005 Philip was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship.

Costume Design Paula Levis Paula studied fashion design at RMIT and completed a Graduate Diploma in Theatre Design at VCA. She has designed for numerous production companies including Victorian Opera, Danceworks, Tasdance, DanceNorth, Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre and La Mama. Recently she has designed costumes for Chunky Move (Mortal Engine, Glow, Singularity, I Want to Dance Better at Parties), Lucy Guerin (Structure & Sadness, Aether, Lost Air), Antony Hamilton (Blazeblue Oneline) and KAGE (Headlock, Nowhere Man), Costume/Concept Design for Australian Resident Company- World Expo, Japan. She was Design Assistant and Illustrator on the film Tom White and teaches design at RMIT.

Composer Darrin Verhagen Darrin has worked with Chunky Move (Singularity, Hydra, Closer), Lucy Guerin (Zero, Lost Air, On/Love Me), Australian Dance Theatre (Devolution , Held, Nothing, Vocabulary), and Sue Healey (Curiosities, Reading the Body, Niche, Fine Line Terrain). Darrin has scored productions for Playbox, Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, the Keene Taylor Theatre Project, Patricia Piccinini, Moira Finucane, and Daniel Schlusser. He has been nominated for a Green Room Award in 2003 for his Meat Party score and in 2008 for his opera Antidote. In 2005 he won the Green Room Award for his soundtrack to MTC’s Memory of Water. He has performed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2002), The Transmediale Festival (Berlin 2003), the Liquid Architecture, and Immersion Festivals in Melbourne, and recently mounted a Shinjuku Thief tour across Europe. Darrin lectures in Sound Design, and Technology Composition & Perception at RMIT Sound, School of Art.

Performers Vincent Crowley Born in 1966 in Walnut Creek, California. Vincent studied engineering and then spent a year prospecting for diamonds in Australia’s Northern Territory before studying acting at the University of Western Sydney. Since graduating in 1989 he has worked as both an actor and a dancer. He has been a member of the ensembles of Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre and TanzTheater Basel and has worked with Theater Basel, Schauspielhaus Koeln, Salzburger Festspiel, Steirischer Herbst, Fischhouse Productions in San Francisco, the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust and Force Majeur. Recently, he played one of the Wild Things in Spike Jonze’s film Where the Wild Things Are. In 2004, as part of Splintergroup he co-created Lawn for the TanzTages Festival in Berlin and in 2007 he created Heute: Raum Lumina for SchauspielKoeln.

Antony Hamilton Antony trained in dance in Sydney, Perth and New York. Since 1999 he has performed with the Australian Dance Theatre, KAGE PhysicalTheatre, Chunky Move and Lucy Guerin Inc. performing extensively throughout Australia and overseas. As choreographer, he has been commissioned to make works for Dancenorth, The Victorian College of the Arts and Stompin Youth Dance Company. He has also made numerous short works for ADT’s Ignition programs and Lucy Guerin Inc’s Pieces for Small Spaces season. He was the inaugural recipient of the Russell Page Fellowship in 2004, and winner of the Greenroom Award for Best Male Dancer in 2005. Other notable work includes collaborations with film director Kris Moyes for dance in music video and television. In 2008 Antony premiered his first full length work Blazeblue Oneline and has been commissioned together with Byron Perry by Chunky Move under the Next Move initiative to create a new full length work I Like This.