FREE PROGRAM PROUDLY MADE POSSIBLE BY
ABOUT AN HOUR PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH CARRIAGEWORKS
CARRIAGEWORKS | 16–19 JANUARY
Welcome to Sydney Festival’s About an Hour series, presented in association with Carriageworks. With 50 performances of nine different works, both free and ticketed, dive in, pick and choose and create your own mini Festival line-up!
EVENT
VENUE
FROM
Thu 9
Fri 10
Sat 11
Sun 12 Mon 13 Tue 14 Wed 15 Thu 16
ALL TICKETS $35 AND UNDER Carriageworks BULLET Bay 20 CATCH
Fri 17
6pm
Sat 18
4pm, 9pm
Sun 19 Mon 20 UNTIL
1.30pm, 7.30pm 9pm
CADAVRE EXQUIS
Carriageworks Bay 17
FORKLIFT
Carriageworks Bay 17
7pm
GUDIRR GUDIRR
Carriageworks Bay 20
7.30pm 8.30pm 1.30pm, 6.30pm 6.30pm
HIS MUSIC BURNS
Carriageworks Bay 17
9.30pm 11.30am 11.30am
I, MALVOLIO
Carriageworks Track 8
THE PIPER
Carriageworks Bay 20
THE REDUX PROJECT FREE aMOMENT
CHANCE
6.30pm 4.30pm, 4.30pm, 9.30pm 9.30pm
2pm, 2pm, 7.30pm 7.30pm
7.30pm 6pm, 9pm
2pm, 10pm
2pm, 8.30pm
11am, 2.30pm
11am
11am, 4pm
Carriageworks Track 8
5pm, 7pm
6pm
Carriageworks Track 12
6–10pm 1.30–
Carriageworks
8 Jan, 11am 2pm (p)
11am
11am, 11am 2.30pm
11am
11am
1–5pm
4.30pm, 5–8pm
10am– 10am– 10am– 10am– 10am– 10am– 10am– 10am– 10am– 10am– 10am– Until 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 23 Mar
SYDNEY FESTIVAL IN ASSOCIATION WITH CARRIAGEWORKS PRESENTS
THE PIPER MY DARLING PATRICIA WORLD PREMIERE | AUSTRALIA CARRIAGEWORKS BAY 20 8–19 JANUARY | 60MINS Created by My Darling Patricia, Clare Britton Halcyon Macleod & Sam Routledge Producer Marguerite Pepper The Voice Clare Grant The Bear Ghenoa Gela The Mayor Anthony Ahern Lone Rat & Puppeteer Michelle Robin Anderson Puppeteer/ASM Solomon Thomas Original Concept Sam Routledge Writer & Director Halcyon Macleod Designer Clare Britton Video/Animations Samuel James Sound/Music Phil Downing Lighting Design Richard Manner Production Manager Mark Mitchell Dramaturg Janice Muller Bear Costume Bryony Anderson Secondment Grant Moxom
Photo: Joshua Morris.
CREATOR’S NOTE
MY DARLING PATRICIA
In this adaptation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, we wanted to frame the story as an allegory for humanity’s estranged relationship with the forces of nature. This is inspired by the stories and plays Ted Hughes wrote for children. Hughes believed that as children we have an instinctive understanding of the value of the natural world and that, as we get older, this understanding is lost unless we remind ourselves of it through encounters with the ‘Wild’. In his stories and plays a child with a mysterious illness is miraculously healed by an encounter with a wild animal, or a child’s wisdom saves a whole society from destruction.
Founded in Sydney by four women in 2004, My Darling Patricia (MDP) creates original, interdisciplinary Australian theatre through a collaborative process led by Artistic Directors Halcyon Macleod and Clare Britton. The company creates work that pushes the boundaries of contemporary Australian theatre and invites audiences to step inside their inventive, highly visual storytelling style.
In The Piper our Piper is a Bear – a dancer with a rebel soul. The Mayor is a political leader with an identity crisis, battling with a seriously opinionated conscience. The town’s population and its rats are played by some of you – as if simultaneously you are in a school play and a silent disco – spoken to directly by The Piper, hearing her side of the story for the first time. We hope that children and adults enjoy this work together. My Darling Patricia
Front: Carriageworks, photo Prudence Upton.
FORKLIFT KAGE WORLD PREMIERE | AUSTRALIA CARRIAGEWORKS BAY 17 16–19 JANUARY | 55MINS
Director Kate Denborough Composer Jethro Woodward Design Concept Bluebottle Costume Design Julie Renton Production Manager Carmel Duffy Technical Manager Mark Middleton Risk Manager Bill Coleby Performer Henna Kaikula Performer Amy Macpherson Performer Nicci Wilks Producer Simone Schinkel FORKLIFT has been developed in residence at CIRKO, Helsinki, at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Brisbane as part of their Fresh Ground artist-in-residence initiative, made possible through Arts Queensland and sponsored by Toyota Material Handling. FORKLIFT has also been supported by Arts Centre Melbourne, the City of Melbourne, the City of Yarra, the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria, the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, Arts Promotion Centre Finland and the Besen Family Foundation.
Photo: Justin Bernhaut
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
ABOUT KAGE
FORKLIFT is about the anti-stereotype, throwing caution to the wind and discovering something luminous where you least expect it.
Since the Company’s performance debut in 1997, KAGE has propelled dance-theatre into fresh territory, claiming numerous awards, winning recognition and building new audiences along the way.
It has been an intensely focused and exhilarating experience developing this work together with the cast and creative team. I feel fortunate to have been able to collaborate with such great artists and am very grateful to Henna Kaikula, Nicci Wilks and Amy Macpherson for their heroic sense of humour, sense of adventure and their willingness to explore and commit to such unfamiliar performance territory. The performers appear to move irreverently around the cold and unforgiving metal machine but the level of danger and risk involved requires caution and vigilance at all times. It has been mind-boggling to work with such extremes of delicacy and stability. We developed a large part of the work at CIRKO – Center for New Circus in Helsinki, which is the hometown of performer Henna Kaikula. It has been a long and involved process from the first time I placed a key in a forklift ignition three years ago and we are thrilled to be premiering FORKLIFT at Sydney Festival.
More than dance. Not quite theatre. Not circus, or poems or dreams, but like these ... KAGE strikes out for new ground: innovating and reconceiving dance to draw humor, humanity and pathos from the physicality of human bodies. In 2014, KAGE will present two world premieres, collaborate with over 30 different artists, and perform in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Finland and extensively throughout the UK. We are also proud to continue our association with ambassadors Lisa Gorman and Eddie Perfect. KAGE.com.au
SYDNEY FESTIVAL AND CARRIAGEWORKS PRESENT
GUDIRR GUDIRR
MARRUGEKU | AUSTRALIA CARRIAGEWORKS BAY 20 16–19 JANUARY | 60MINS Concept, Performer & Co-choreographer Dalisa Pigram Director & Co-Choreographer Koen Augustijnen Set Designer & Video Artist Vernon Ah Kee Costume Designer Stephen Curtis Composer & Sound Designer Sam Serruys Singer & Songwriter Stephen Pigram Lighting Designer Matthew Marshall Concept & Cultural Adviser Patrick Dodson Dramaturge & Creative Producer Rachael Swain Video Production Sam James Rigging Designer Joey Ruigrok Van Der Werven Production Management Andrew Meadows Sound & Video Production & Operation Ella Wufong MARRUGEKU Co-Artistic Directors Dalisa Pigram & Rachael Swain Company Manager (Broome) Sandi Woo Company Manager (Sydney) Phil Sharp Sound & Video Production & Operation Ella Wufong
Photo: Heidrun Löhr
CREATOR’S NOTE When someone looks at me or at anyone they begin to make a story for that person. My story is influenced by many things, my movement language is influenced by practices like Malaysian martial arts (Silat), gymnastics, memories of traditional movements and a focus on observing animal movements and behaviours – all these inform my style of moving. It’s a bit like the way I look, a type of mongrel breed! The place where I was born and bred also influences all that I do and the concerns for my community and culture are always present in my work. In Broome, the people I know are proud of their mixed cultural heritage. This is a reflection of our rich and unique history. However at times I find myself concerned for the younger generation who sometimes struggle to find their place in contemporary life. Koen Augustijnen’s task-based choreographic process has helped me to explore these ideas. He draws out a physical essence that sometimes surprises even the performer! In the scene called ‘The Tide is Turning’, I explore the point in my memory where
it felt like my community was changing. I interpret this time through a range of ‘movement channels’ inspired by different characters, whom I introduce from the inside out. The audience see what’s inside of me, the issues that are my inspirations and concerns, expressed through these characters, until they are left with just a person before them with a story. The tide is turning for my community in many ways today, with the urgency to keep language and culture alive, and the high suicide rate. In one month in 2010, seven young people killed themselves, the youngest was 13 years old. We explore this devastating issue affecting the Kimberley region and my community in Gudirr Gudirr. Dalisa Pigram
Gudirr Gudirr is produced by Stalker Theatre and cocommissioned by the City of Melbourne through Arts House (AUS), Theater Im Pfalzbau, Ludwigshafen (DEU) and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg (LUX). Gudirr Gudirr was funded by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts the Shire of Broome, Western Australia
BULLET CATCH
THE ARCHES AND ROB DRUMMOND AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVE | UK CARRIAGEWORKS BAY 20 17–20 JANUARY | 75MINS Photo: Niall Walker
Writer, Performer & Co-Director Rob Drummond
Co-Director David Overend
Arches Artistic Director Jackie Wylie
Production and Stage Manager Deanne Jones
Stage Designer Francis Gallop
Sound Designer Ross Ramsay
Lighting Designer Simon Hayes Special thanks to all the staff and management at the Arches, Glasgow. Bullet Catch is supported by Made In Scotland.
ROB DRUMMOND
THE ARCHES
Rob Drummond is an award-winning playwright, performer, director and theatre maker based in Glasgow, Scotland. His wide-ranging work includes the critically acclaimed Rob Drummond: WRESTLING, which took place in a ring at The Arches (2011, Glasgow) and involved five months professional wrestling training, and a modern retelling of The Passion, which premiered in George Square, Glasgow in 2011. His other recent projects include The Riot of Spring (Tramway, Behaviour Festival, 2013, Glasgow), a response to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, where he worked with a choreographer as part of The Arches and the National Theatre of Scotland’s Auteurs Project, and Quiz Show for the Traverse Theatre (Edinburgh). Bullet Catch was first performed at The Arches’s Behaviour Festival in 2009 and was a huge hit at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, winning both a Herald Angel Award and a Total Theatre Award. Rob studied English at the University of Glasgow.
The Arches, one of Europe’s leading cultural venues, is both an arts receiving and production house with an international reputation as an exciting hub of ground-breaking creativity. Housed within seven Grade- A listed Victorian railway arches in Glasgow’s city centre, the venue presents a yearround program of theatre, performance, dance, visual art, live music and club nights. The programming team employs calculated risk-taking in all of its creative decisions, nurturing emergent talent and rewarding bold approaches with a supportive environment for further innovation – showcased each autumn at Arches LIVE, a two-week long celebration of new, Scottish, contemporary performance talent. Alongside local artists, the last few years have seen world-class international artists and companies such as The TEAM, Derevo, Ann Liv Young, Mammalian Diving Reflex, Ontroerend Goed, Akhe, Taylor Mac and Tim Crouch perform in the venue as part of its annual Behaviour Festival of live performance. The Arches regularly takes work to the Edinburgh Fringe and has won numerous awards there, including several Fringe Firsts, Herald Angels and Total Theatre Awards. thearches.co.uk
HIS MUSIC BURNS ... PAS À PAS – NULLE PART ... (GYÖRGY KURTÁG) INTO THE LITTLE HILL (GEORGE BENJAMIN)
SYDNEY CHAMBER OPERA | AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
CARRIAGEWORKS BAY 17 17–19 JANUARY | 60MINS Conductor Jack Symonds Director Sarah Giles Designer Katren Wood Lighting Designer Matt Cox Production Manager Tim Burns Assistant Director Pierce Wilcox
Violas James Wannan Heather Lloyd
... PAS À PAS-NULLE PART ...
Cellos Mee Na Lojewski Thomas Rann
György Kurtág/Samuel Beckett (1993–1998/2002)
Double Bass Steven Adler Flute Jane Duncan Basset Horns Peter Smith Natascha Briger Contrabass Clarinet Susan Newsome
Stage Manager Danielle Maas Cornets Simon Wolnizer Artistic Director Colin Grisdale Sydney Chamber Opera Trombone Louis Garrick Matthew Harrison Baritone Mitchell Riley Soprano Ellen Winhall
Cimbalom/ Percussion Rebecca Lagos
Percussion solo (Kurtág) Mezzo Soprano Timothy Brigden Emily Edmonds Violins Rebecca Gill Kelly Tang
Photo: Samuel Hodge
Kurtág is one of the most significant modern Hungarian composers. His cycles of hyper-compressed songs are a continuation of Anton Webern’s asceticism and a broad-church, magpie-like plunder of the history of Western music. ...pas à pas paradoxically exploits an extravagance of percussion against the monochrome backdrop of a string trio often playing with mutes that almost eliminate their sound. Kurtág says he makes ‘music out of almost nothing’ and Samuel Beckett defined post-WWII European theatre by using the tiniest scraps – a tree, a dustbin, a mouth – in order to peer into nothingness itself. Kurtág was inevitably drawn to the poems Beckett called Mirlitonnades, fragmentary thoughts and images Beckett scrawled on bits of paper between 1977 and 1980. Kurtág sets these alongside Beckett’s translations of the desolate epigrams Maximes et pensées, written by French thinker Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort in the 1700s.
INTO THE LITTLE HILL George Benjamin/Martin Crimp (2006) George Benjamin is one of music’s master harmonists. Creating the unearthly music for The Pied Piper of Hamelin spurred Benjamin to compose his most darkly beautiful score, operating on a sonic continuum from the smoothest pair of basset horns to the acid clang of the Hungarian cimbalom. Taking his teacher Olivier Messiaen’s blocks of sound colour into the 21st century, his ability to magically suspend reality made him a natural fit for opera, but he first had to find the perfect librettist in Martin Crimp, whose plays echo Benjamin’s oscillations between scarcity and onslaught. Crimp’s fascination with the psychic distress underneath contemporary existence, conveyed in sparse, elliptical dialogue, is synonymous with British playwriting at the close of the 20th century. Many of Crimp’s familiar themes re-emerge here: political violence, urban discontent and the purity of children in a compromised world.
CADAVRE EXQUIS KASSYS THE NETHERLANDS AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVE
CARRIAGEWORKS BAY 17 17–19 JANUARY | 75MINS
Photo: Mette van der Sijs
Directors Liesbeth Gritter (Kassys), Pavol Liška & Kelly Copper (Nature Theater of Oklahoma), Tim Crouch and Nicole Beutler (NB Projects)
Performers Esther Snelder (Kassys), Hannah Ringham (Tim Crouch), Jarid Rychtarik (Nature Theater of Oklahoma) and Bas van Rijnsoever (Nicole Beutler)
Artistic Assistant / Coordinator Mette van der Sijs
Lighting Designer Adriaan Beukema
Technician Peter Misschaert Cadavre Exquis was produced by Kunstencentrum Vooruit in Gent, Kunstencentrum BUDA in Kortrijk, Culturgest in Lissabon, Mousonturm in Frankfurt and Züricher Theaterspektakel Festival in Zürich. Made possible by VSBFonds and Performing Arts Fund NL.
Kassys in collaboration with Nature Theater of Oklahoma (US), Tim Crouch (UK) and Nicole Beutler (DE/ NL).
The following rules were observed in the making of this theatre experiment:
Four international theatre companies daringly adapt the surrealist method of Cadavre Exquis for the stage. The concept of this quirky experiment is like the old parlour game of consequences: each of the five acts starts with the final image of the previous act and the director has no knowledge of the context of how that scene was arrived at. Everything must be reimagined from scratch, creating a rapid journey through pathos and innocence via various visual jokes that are performed by four pleasingly naive characters (who seem almost as surprised by the twists and turns of the production as the audience).
1. E ach director made an act of up to 15-minutes duration. 2. A s a starting point, each director only saw the last 60 seconds of the previous act. 3. E ach director brought in one performer. 4. E ach director then worked with these four performers for two weeks. 5. T o prevent influencing the developing work during the rehearsal period, the performers had a ‘pledge of secrecy’ about the previous acts. 6. E verything was permitted. The set could be changed or even destroyed, extras could be added, a dance performance could suddenly become a film or the other way around, as long as there was a reaction on the last minute of the previous act.
I, MALVOLIO TIM CROUCH UK
CARRIAGEWORKS TRACK 8 16–19 JANUARY | 60MINS
Photo: Matthew Andrew
Written & Performed by Tim Crouch
Directed by Andy Smith & Karl James
Designed by Graeme Gilmour
Design Assistance by Emma Wreyford & Lucy Bradridge
Administrative Producer Lisa Wolfe Co-commissioned by Brighton Festival and Singapore Arts Festival. I, Malvolio premiered in May 2010 at Dorothy Stringer High School, Brighton. I, Malvolio is dedicated to the memory of Graeme Gilmour.
CREATOR’S NOTE I, Malvolio is the fourth in a series of solo plays I’ve written looking at things through the eyes of Shakespeare’s lesser characters. The series started with I, Caliban in 2003. Then came I, Peaseblossom and I, Banquo. In 2012, I wrote and directed I, Cinna (The Poet) to run alongside a production of Julius Caesar by the RSC. These plays were all written for young audiences, although, from the outset, I, Malvolio was designed to span the age range. Brighton Festival commissioned a late-night adult version of the play which, in the end, turned out to be very similar to the child-friendly version. The work responds to the people in the room. If they are more mature in their philosophical and scatological tastes, then the piece changes accordingly. And if they are adults, it changes again... I’ve been a bit obsessed with Malvolio ever since I played him in a production
of Twelfth Night in New York in 2001. As a character he resonates around ideas of order and anarchy, cruelty and compassion, around the vulnerability of love and the tragic consequences of self-delusion. I like the irony that he is a theatre-hating puritan stuck inside a play – prone to all the random chaos an audience can inflict on a performer. He fits well for a teenage audience – an audience that is all too aware of the pitfalls of repression, the agonies of misunderstanding and the tyrannies of discipline. The intention is that each character tells the story of the Shakespeare play they come from. Twelfth Night is a fiendish maze of plot. Rather than trying to explain every twist and turn, I have let Malvolio run a little free. He would hate me for it. Tim Crouch, 2013
PERFORMANCE SPACE IN ASSOCIATION WITH SYDNEY FESTIVAL PRESENTS
THE REDUX PROJECT AUSSIE MEGA REDUX RICHARD DEDOMENICI | UK CARRIAGEWORKS TRACK 8 18–19 JANUARY | 60MINS
Photo: Jessica Richardson
Artist Richard DeDomenici
Producers Tanja Farman & Bec Dean
Production Manager Emma Bedford
Technical Manager Aaron Clarke
Venue Coordinator Alison Murphy-Oates
Volunteers Coordinator Tulleah Pearce
Marketing & Communications Nic Dorward
Lead Extras Jackson Davis, Rosie Dennis, Emma-Maye Gibson, Irving Gregory, Julie-Anne Long, Aaron Manhattan
NOTES ON THE WORK “My fakes have often received better reviews than the originals” (Richard Dedomenici) Richard DeDomenici’s The Redux Project is an ongoing series of cinematic appropriations that successfully and hilariously subvert Hollywood conventions. For Redux, the UK-based artist travels the globe reshooting scenes of iconic films, shotby-shot in their original locations using members of the resident community, low-level civil disobedience and very little else. During his two-week residency in Sydney for Aussie Mega Redux, DeDomenici turns his lens on the city and reshoots four of our dearly held cinema classics in a fast and furious schedule. This program for Sydney Festival sees his version of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and The Matrix – starring enthusiastic volunteers – debut on the big screen alongside a selection of other ‘reduxes’ filmed around the globe.
With his digital camera, budget props and a good deal of improvisation DeDomenici’s forgeries disrupt the film industry and raise questions about ownership and theft. His unashamed imitating makes reference to the plight of copyright in the digital-download economy. Simultaneously the sheer effort and care involved in these recreations establish them as unique works in their own right, questioning the value that we place on some artworks and the lack of value we confer on others. These reproductions also play with the inexorable link that film has to location and explore the role of pop culture in the mythology of ‘place’. The Redux Project is a subversive exercise that exploits the very fabric of cinema to raise questions about the film industry, its narratives and the rights of communities to those narratives.
aMOMENT
FREE
MAYBE (___) TOGETHER CARRIAGEWORKS TRACK 12 FRIDAY 17 JANUARY: 6–10PM SATURDAY 18 JANUARY: 1.30–4.30PM & 5–8PM SUNDAY 19 JANUARY: 1–5PM
Come find us. We are nestled away from the fray. A caravan. A nest. A cloud. Peek through the windows.
Caravan design and build by Kathy Holowko
Music by Amiina Developed with support from the City of Melbourne through the Arts Grants Program amoment.com.au
Or be brave and climb inside ... With headphones on, audiences are transported to a parallel world of ample space, time and future-gazing. The aMoment caravan is a stunningly immersive experience that rotates audience members through one at a time in fiveminute intervals. Photo: Sarah Walker
ENJOY CORNERSTONE BAR & FOOD AT CARRIAGEWORKS THROUGHOUT SYDNEY FESTIVAL. Don’t miss a great range of local craft beers, wines, classic cocktails, delicious share plates and daily specials available before and after the shows.
What did you think of the show? We’re looking to you to help us build a definitive shortlist of this year’s top Festival Picks to be published in the SMH. Upload your reviews & photos at smh.com.au/sydfest or share with us using #smhpickthis
FESTIVAL VILLAGE AT HYDE PARK
THE FESTIVAL VILLAGE IS AN OASIS OF EATS, BEATS AND OTHER TREATS. IT’S THE PERFECT PLACE TO KICK BACK IN THE AFTERNOON SUN OR KICK ON INTO THE BALMY SUMMER NIGHTS. SYDNEYFESTIVAL.ORG.AU/VILLAGE