WAITINGGAME
1 8 T H - 2 3 R D O C T O B E R 2 0 2 2 , B L U E S T O N E C H U R C H A R T S S P A C E
ADANCEAGAINST DISILLUSIONMENT
Resilience and gentle hope – that which is cultivated everyday through small acts of humanity.
Waiting Game speaks to the joy, humour and tragedy within the minutiae of everyday life. It is simultaneously relentless and expectant; desolate yet dependent upon camaraderie and togetherness. The work embraces the need for connection in a world that seems so illogical.
It reflects experiences of anticipation, repetition and monotony that might transform ultimately into disillusionment. However, by reimagining these feelings, now familiar from long periods of isolation, Waiting Game aims to shift into spaciousness, clarity, and conversation. Join us as we dance away our disillusionment, and the joy of movement becomes a tool for resistance.
Waiting Game is the debut duet between choreographer/dancer Phaedra Brown and dancer Sarah Saxon. It was originally created in collaboration with original cast member turned artistic consultant Tamara Bouman.
PHAEDRABROWN
C H O RF
R M E
is an independent dancer, nd producer from Sydney. She works ion, site specific dance, film and ogy. Her practice draws on a collage m choreography, curating and public ertaking a Masters in Curating and ship at UNSW, and has completed a BFA nours from the VCA and a Certificate om Ev & Bow Dance Training Centre. CA she received the prestigious Dr Phillip Law Travel award (2019).
Phaedra’s performance highlights include Interchange Dance Project’s ‘Train Escape’ (2021,2022), Andrew Fraser and Victoria Punturere’s ‘Everything is Everything’ (2019), Stephanie Lake’s ‘Colossus’ (2018, 2019), Thalia Livingstone’s ‘Dark Points’ (2019), the National Gallery of Victoria’s ‘Triennial Extra’ Programme (2018) and the National Gallery of Victoria’s reconstruction of ‘Demon Machine’ (2017).
Phaedra’s choreographic work ‘Waiting Game’ premiered to a sold out season as part of March Dance Festival 2022 and is due to be presented as part of Melbourne Fringe in October 2022, supported by Maribyrnong City Council. Her work ‘A Small Spectacle’, appeared via livestream at the 2020 Melbourne Fringe Festival and the 2021 March Dance Festival in Sydney. Her 2018 work ‘Animinimalis’ was performed at Melbourne Fringe Festival before being re worked to appear at the Guild Theatre Fringe Festival Hub in 2019 and leading to an AusDance NSW DAIR residency in 2019.
In 2019 she co produced VCA student choreography season, ‘Student Works’ alongside Sarah Saxon, and in 2022 produced The House That Dan Built’s ‘Whispers and Roars’ Festival.
E O G R A P H E R / P E R
O
R
SARAHSAXON
P E R F O R M E R
Sarah Saxon is an independent choreographer, dancer, and dance film maker from Naarm/ Melbourne. She uses her own site-specific improvisation practices - HikeDance and MemoryDance alongside her writing practice to inform her choreographic and dance film work. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) with Honours from the Victorian College of the Arts (The University of Melbourne). While studying she received the Dr Phillip Law Travel scholarship which supported her artistic development internationally in 2022.
Sarah's short film Tomatoes & Oranges was screened by the Ian Potter Gallery in 2020. Her major choreographic work is the Inhabitance series which span live performance and dance films. She received support from Lucy Guerin Inc. & Temperance Hall in April 2022 for Inhabitance VI through the Out of Bounds programme. She has been awarded a choreographic residency at Lucy Guerin Inc. for December 2022 to develop her new solo work Please Be Still My Darling (working title).
Other performance highlights include Anouk Van Dijk’s Surge (2020), Prue Lang’s MTAFU (2019), Rebecca Jensen’s Blue Illusion (2018) and Linda Sastradipradja’s Sight Unseen (2020).
Sarah co produced VCA student choreography season, Student Works, alongside Phaedra Brown in 2019 and Lachlan Wolters in 2020. In 2020 she also co produced Grad Fest for the VCA’s graduating dance cohort in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.
OSCARSWEENEY
Oscar Sweeney is a composer with a background in both digital and acoustic writing. Oscar’s practice is spent between writing popular music, chamber works and most prominently film and media scoring.
Oscar completed his Bachelor of Music: Composition from the Sydney Conservatorium in 2019, under the tutelage of composers Michael Smetanin and Paul Stanhope. During this time his composition for brass quartet, Bragi’s Lament, was performed at the Verona Conservatorio (2017).
Oscar has composed for Phaedra Brown’s 2022 dance work ‘Waiting Game’, Moorambilla Voices’ 2020 Module series, creating accompanying music for Courtney Scheu’s yoga series and indigenous artist Frank Wright’s painting series. He has also worked as the composer and musical director of the 2018 Sydney University Commerce Revue and composed for Guy Mansfield’s 2018 short film ‘Swan Song.’
Oscar is also a vocalist and chorist performing in the Sydney Philharmonia with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis at the Sydney Opera House (2019), as a soloist at the Carols on Norton alongside the Leichhardt Espresso Chorus in (2016), and with the State Music Choir for His Majesty King Harold V of Norway in (2015).
C O M P O S E R
LACHLANWOLTERS
L I G H T I N G D E S I G N E R
From an early age, Lachlan has been building, jumping and throwing light on any ‘Stage’ he stumbled upon. Now Lachlan is an independent lighting and 3D designer based in Melbourne.
Lachlan holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts form the Victorian College of the Arts, specialising in Production design and Management.
Prior to his studies he assisted, worked for and performed in many various community and local performing arts groups; including the Young Australian Broadway Chorus, and many others across Canberra and Melbourne.
Prior to his studies he assisted, worked for and performed in many various community and local performing arts groups; including the Young Australian Broadway Chorus, and many others across Canberra and Melbourne.
Since then, Lachlan has lit and designed projected visuals for a variety of dance and contemporary theatre productions. These include lighting design for ‘Seeing Red’ (2019) by Ashleigh Dougan, presented at Melbourne Fringe Festival and ‘My Fretty Friend’(2020) by Babble Productions; and vision design for ‘Earthquakes in London’ (2020) directed by Sarah Goodes.
TAMARABOUMAN
A R T I S T I C C O N S U L T A N T / O R I G I N A L C A S T M E M B E R
Tamara Bouman has been performing as a professional dance artist since 2018. She is passionate about cross-cultural and crossdisciplinary collaboration and the body as a tool for communication.
Past performances include Stephanie Lake’s Colossus (2018, 2019, 2020), Sarah Aiken and Rebecca Jensen’s What Am I Supposed To Do? (WAISTD) (2019), Dream Cellscapes with Alice Weber (2021) Rebecca Jensen’s Sinkhole X (2022), Alisdair Macindoe’s A.I.D pop-up performance (2022) and Ngioka Bunda- Heath’s Bridge (2022).
Tamara has been also fortunate enough to work with artists Cloé Fournier, Phaedra Brown, Matt Cornell, Wendy Yu, Emily Flannery, and Daniel Riley on a wide range of creative developments.
She was a member of the 2021 Leg Up Program with Legs on the Wall. She is a current member of Sydney Dance Company.
Tamara choreographic work includes her 2021 work What Do I Do Today, a solo commissioned by Dance Maker’s Collective for their ‘Home Bodies’ series.
THANKYOU
The team of Waiting Game would like to thank friends of the show: Paul Brown, Christine Sammers, Aidan Bondfield, Sandra Theresa, Jason Pearce, Jazmyn Carter, Rachel Mackie, Hayley Does, Alex Dobson, Robyn Saxon & Gabriel Sinclair.
We would also like to thank everyone who has generously donated to our Australian Cultural Fund Campaign. To find out more and make a tax deductible donation to the show's future please email: phaedrajbrown@gmail.com
Hero image by Sandra Theresa, rehearsal images by Lachlan Wolters. This work was created and presented with support from Melbourne Fringe Festival and Maribyrnong City Council.
This work was created on the land of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation and is performed today on the land of the Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung people of the Kulin nation. We pay our deepest respects to the First Nations custodians of this land and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
