Vitalstatistix spoke with artists Nicola Gunn and Steve Mayhew about their thoughts on theatre making and collaboration, other obsessions, and their current projects with Vitalstatistix.
Nicola Gunn makes contemporary performance that combines text, choreography and visual art in a self-generated impulse to tell a story or explore a form. In June she and collaborator Tamara Saulwick will undertake an Incubator residency with Vitalstatistix developing an ambitious new performance called Super Imposition. They will present showings on 30 June and 1 July.
Steve Mayhew is a director, dramaturge, curator and creative producer with many interests including regionality, dance dramaturgy and digital theatre. In 2017 he is working with Vitalstatistix to produce a series of projects co-presented with Performance & Art Development Agency, an organisation co-founded by himself and Vitalstatistix Director Emma Webb in 2015. This year Steve is also co-curator of the 2017 Australian Theatre Forum, alongside Alexis West.
Vitalstatistix: Tell us about something you are currently obsessed with?
Nicola Gunn: I am thinking a lot about shame and humiliation lately because of another work I’m making. But I generally have the same three recurring thoughts that I suppose you could say I’m obsessed by – and those thoughts are about work, getting old and dying alone.
Steve Mayhew: Wow it’s pretty busy inside my brain at the best of times… Here’s a list…
Vitals: You have each travelled quite a lot in recent years; what kind of perspective does this offer you about the arts in Australia (if any)?
NG: Our funding mechanisms are good, comparatively! (Although it might also depend what Australian state you live in.)
SM: I was in Paris, a place where art and culture just oozes out of everything, on November 8th 2016 the day Trump was elected and I began that day in a bit of a daze, not wanting to get out of bed and transfixed to the Deutsche Welle TV station’s German influenced indignant and shocked commentary.
I eventually dragged myself outside and found myself surfacing from a Metro station and I suddenly felt this compulsion to visit the little Statue of Liberty that I had a sense was nearby. You see 40 years had passed since I had last visited Paris as a child of 7 years and so I was having this almost déjà vu recollection of knowing exactly where I was. I quickly located it on Google maps and I wasn’t far away at from where it stands at the end of the Île aux Cygnes, so my 40 year retained memory was pretty good!
I got there and then I looked up at Liberty almost apologetically and asked ‘what the fuck happens now?’
I then walked to Palais de Tokyo to see an immersive and participatory work by Tino Sehgal that (PADA commissioned) artist Chris Scherer was working on and performing in. A part of the work involved me talking to a child aged about eight years in which she asked the very simple question “What is progress?” that led me to reflect expansively on what had happened in the world that day, she passed me onto a young man who carried on the conversation and after a while he passed me onto a woman about my age who passed me on to an elderly woman who was in her 70s. All the while we carried the conversation as we walked and talked in this huge picture-less gallery space. Finally the woman left me standing alone once she conveyed her happiness at being able to live by the beach and not worry as much about things, suggesting that maybe I should to.
Walking back to my apartment after that experience I recalled Nicola’s moral conundrums and complexities about the duck in Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster.
I suppose this story is a long way round of saying that the type of art experiences I love, and the life I aspire to lead, is one where one is informed by the other’s permeation. I suppose when you travel you can be more susceptible to having that type of experience just occur, whereas at home in Australia I often feel I have to separate it, section it off and MAKE TIME for it.
Vitals: Nicola, tell us about Super Imposition. What is the work exploring and where are you at in its development going into the Incubator residency with Vitals? How are you approaching your residency and the opportunity to show the work-in-development in front of an audience at the end of the fortnight?
NG: We’re coming at the project from slightly different perspectives around the idea of ‘controlling the narrative’ – who gets to control the narrative and who gets to decide what’s in the public’s interest, as opposed to what’s of interest to the public. Primarily we’re interested in the confrontation of our practices with that theme in mind – and what kind of work it might generate.
We watched this amazing interview of Helen Mirren by Michael Parkinson from the 1970s and Helen Mirren said, “You are who they say you are and you are who they think you are.” Or something like that. Helen Mirren said something like that in an interview with Michael Parkinson in the 1970s when he asked her what she thought of all the media headlines alluding to the fact her sensuality and her ‘figure’ overshadowed her acting ability.
Parkinson asked Mirren if it was true, all these things said about her in the press, and that’s what she said. “You are who they say you are and you are who they think you are.”
Vitals: Nicola, this is your first collaboration with Tamara Saulwick. In the past you have made series of works through collaborations that explore form as well as ideas (such as your recent works with dance artist Jo Lloyd, Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster and Mermermer). Can you talk to us about how you approach these types of collaborations – is it like a duet or a duel or a bit of both?
NG: Oh um probably a bit of both. Collaboration is hard and I don’t agree with this idea that a collaboration is about finding accord or consensus; I think it’s often the conflict of materials that is most interesting.
Vitals: Both of you tend to play multiple roles in any given project that you are working on. Nicola, you explicitly state that you take responsibility for each of your productions from concept to realisation. Steve, you often blur lines between artist and producer.
NG: I’m not really sure how to answer this. I make performance as a writer, director, designer and performer and it’s always been like this for me because that’s the way I choose to work. I don’t want to be defined by one role. Of course, I would love an administrator to take on the day-to-day running of my company (of one) because I am inundated by grant writing, budgets, tour producing, pitching and it’s beginning to be a bit overwhelming and I fear my artistic work is suffering as a consequence.
Unfortunately our funding system hasn’t quite caught up with contemporary practices; I won’t be recognised as a company or eligible for organisational or structural funding until I become incorporated and get a board. And this, I’m sure, comes with its own set of problems.
SM: In the year I graduated from university (OMG 26 years ago!!!) I realised that I could be much more than just a theatre director and that it was actually only a very small part of how I could participate in art making.
I’ve purposely made decisions in my career so I could gain experience in the so called ‘non-artist’ side of the arts – you know managing arts companies, programming festivals, producing art works and art projects and programs. I’ve done it to understand the environment we operate in and the leadership that is required to navigate it.
I suppose you could say I’ve approached those roles with a certain ‘artistry’ combined with ‘strategy’ – call it ‘creativity’ if you will. I’ve done creative residencies and collaborate with other artists so as to satiate my ‘creative’ and ‘artistry’ chops.
I’ve approached making the recent soundtrack for the work in progress Cher in a similar way to how I have helped produce it and assisted in giving its dramaturgical shape. Whenever I do anything with anyone I ask the same questions of us all: WHAT is it? WHO is it for? WHY is it a thing? WHERE is it? WHEN is it? and HOW should we do it? Oh … and … none of these questions have to be answered in full immediately or from the start, it’s often in the making that you find these answers.
Perhaps it has always been this way for many artists or perhaps it reflects something about current economies and modes of art making – what do you think?
Vitals: What are your thoughts about theatre in Australia at the moment? How do you feel about the function of theatre, or art, or how it might critically engage with the world? How is theatre being reimagined? What are some trends and interests and dilemmas for theatre makers that you are experiencing or hearing about?
NG: Recently I was invited to a meeting to discuss ‘the lack of opportunities in theatre available to women, people of colour and gender diverse theatre makers.’ Unfortunately I was unable to make it, but would be interested to know what the outcomes were.
The kind of things I have been thinking about recently are the lack of opportunities for career progression as an independent artist in Australia. The idea of continually applying for project funding every year is an extremely depressing and demoralising proposition. So what does career progression look like for an independent artist?
SM: All I can say is that everyone must pay attention to the First Nations companies that have recently received four year funding through the Australia Council across the Theatre, Dance and ATSIA Sections. Yirra Yaakin, Ilbijerri, Marrugeku, BlakDance, Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, Moogahlin and many more. These companies are overflowing with excellent ideas and stories to share, often in art forms that converge, blur and combine.
Vitals: Steve, this year you are co-curating the biennial Australian Theatre Forum, which will be held in Adelaide in October. Can you tell us a little about ATF in general and how you and co-curator Alexis West are approaching this year’s Forum?
SM: I’m really excited about co-curating ATF with Alexis – we’ve had some great laugh and tear filled discussions working on it.
Three days is just not enough to really give justice to all the amazing thinkers and makers out there to have their voices heard (especially from our First Nation’s artists listed above).
An incredible amount has changed since the last one at the beginning of 2015 – funding and organisational landscapes changed overnight in May 2015 and then again in May 2016. So we’re thinking we will begin there: looking at the last two years, examining and celebrating our actions and the foundation it is providing for us as we move forward.
ATF will be held alongside OzAsia and this also gives us the opportunity to invite an Asian point of view for comparison and influence as a part of our very ‘Australian’ discussions and issues.
There are some important discussions we believe we need to nurture through the forum, such as the evolution of an AMPAG framework and the retrieval of the women in theatre discussion, to name only two.
The EOI process for independent artists is now open and we really encourage them to apply NOW. We want to structure the forum so that a number of independents are leading the discussions. We are also inviting all the festivals, small-to-medium and major theatre organisations to bring and support an associate artist or producer to attend, encouraging the future leadership of our sector to be a part of the conversations now.
Vitals: What do you value about Vitalstatistix in the current arts landscape? What role can small organisations play in supporting independent artists and art form development in these lean, interesting times?
NG: Vitalstatistix has played an intrinsic role in supporting four of my projects now, through either residencies or presentations. One of those works will be touring to Europe, Canada and Chile over the next 12 months. The support artists receive from organisations like Vitalstatistix is not just project-based but it’s a long-term investment in an artist’s practice. I personally value the space and time Vitals offers: for me, creating in a residency model away from my home city is the most productive way to make work.
SM: Vitals is SO important to Adelaide and South Australia in these times.
It’s one of the very few organisations in this state that is constantly engaging with individual and independent artists practice, giving them a solid and safe platform to take risks and innovate.
People have to realise that this platform is very VERY different to a theatre company that is run by an Artistic Director who is fundamentally leading a development or rehearsal processes with a group of independent or freelance actors, designers to their vision.
Vitals’ current platform provides a multiplicity of voices, actions, experiences and strategies that are creative and artist led. It effectively acts as circuit breakers for these times where a certain kind of self (and often government led) aggrandisement in our arts and cultural landscape creates an ever infuriating and ridiculous caudal lure.
Vitals: What are you each reading or listening to at the moment?
NG: I just finished reading Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit and before that, I read The Faraway Nearby by the same author. At the same time I was reading Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. I’ve been listening to this Canadian podcast called Someone Knows Something about unsolved crimes. I have a weakness for true crime. I’m terrible with music. I still listen to the radio.
SM: This year I have been impressed with these ear worms…
This piece about why some countries drive on the left side and others on the right is actually quite an interesting overview of empires, wars, swords and camel trains…thanks to Sascha Budimski who posted this on his Facebook page recently.
Vitalstatistix spoke to artists Emma Beech and Ashton Malcolm about what they hope to get out of their yearlong residencies with Vitals this year.
Both Emma and Ashton are Adelaide-based theatre makers and actors who have a continuing relationship with the company. This year Emma Beech is Vitalstatistix’s Shopfront Studio artist and Ashton is one third of Points in the Plane along with Josephine Were and Meg Wilson.
Vitalstatistix: Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re hoping to develop with Vitalstatistix this year?
Emma Beech: In a change for me, I am looking not to develop a new work but to develop some new ideas and new ways of engaging with Port Adelaide and its people. I’m also looking to see how Vitals and its Port location could interact creatively with other companies internationally. What are those Port towns across the world doing? How can we speak with each other through art?
Ashton Malcolm: We are hoping to come out of this year with a clearer idea of who we are as a performance making collective. We love working and experimenting together, and have been collaborating as a trio for the past few years. So it feels like the right time to focus on our identity as artists and how we would like to shape our work and our collective going forward. And maybe we’ll even come up with a name!
V: What does it mean to have a yearlong relationship with the company?
EB: It means supporting the company, it means bringing a new set of eyes with a lot of fondness and seeing what myself, Emma Webb and all the others in the mix can cook up for the company in the present and in the future – in these highly un-plan-able times. How can we keep bringing what we do and the place we do it (Waterside) to life? The year is a chance to have one hell of a long conversation.
AM: I am so excited and feel very lucky to have a yearlong relationship with Vitals. Vitals have always been a shining light for me. Ever since I was at uni studying drama, Waterside was a place to see experimental work, to meet contemporary artists and to build new ideas. It is also where Josie, Meg and I first collaborated, so it feels very fitting (and rather romantic) to be there again this year, as we grow and develop into a more established collective.
V: Emma, how do you feel now you’ve had some time since Life is Short and Long wrapped up? And how do you think using the shopfront will shape your engagement with the Port this year?
EB: I feel like I’ve done the very best I could with the artistic process that I have, and I have now come to the point of putting my practice in a very attractive box and putting it on the shelf. I’m proud of what we made and did, and now is the time to soak up ideas, put out some ideas and work with others on what they are doing – to allow some space for me to come back to my practice at another time.
I see it as a whole year of working for and with the company, doing what needs to be done as guided by [Vitalstatistix Director] Emma Webb.
The shopfront: from working in that space during Life Is, many people passed the door to ask me where the shops were, what was I doing, to collect mail and gain access to the hall. I think the presence, any presence, will remind people that this space is very much alive and kicking and even kicking goals. I’m excited to be the interface.
V: Ashton, how do you juggle collaborating and working independently?
AM: It is always a matter of pulling out diaries and finding any time to be together that we can! We are all very driven and hardworking, which is part of why we work well together, but it also means that we are all very busy! Usually though, we block out some time throughout the year to develop new projects and to present work. Applying for grants together is helpful too because it forces you to plan timelines well in advance! The best thing though, I think, is how honest we are with each other and how much we support each other’s individual careers. When independent work comes up we tell each other, we celebrate our personal joys, and we do our best to be flexible and make it all work.
V: How do you balance the competing demands of your creative work with non-artistic pursuits?
EB: Ahhh, I don’t really. I’m writing this after a big day on the home front with my eyes bulging from their sockets. So I wouldn’t say balance. I’d say it’s the thing I have to do, want to do, and so I squeeze it in and around the other incredible life I have running around at knee height. So I don’t balance, I squeeze.
AM: I am in a very fortunate position at the moment in that I spend most of my time working on creative pursuits. When I’m not acting or making work, I work at the Starlight Children’s Foundation providing positive distraction for sick kids. That is highly creative too so all of my different worlds seem to compliment each other quite well, which helps. I’ve also had to become very good at compartmentalising – every morning I check my diary and whatever I am doing that day gets my full focus. If I think too much about balancing it all, it just gets way too stressful!
V: What do you get out of working with Vitalstatistix that you don’t get out of working with larger companies?
EB: A sense of continuity, a sense of community, a sense of possibility, a sense of being regarded and a sense of building something together. But also sometimes, a sense of how much harder it is for small company to have to pull together outcomes that are of as high a quality as the big companies. A sense of struggle. I do value that challenge.
AM: I’ve worked with Vitals a lot over the years and what I’ve always loved is the incredible freedom to take creative risks, to make brave work and to be unashamedly who I am. The great strength of a smaller team is that you get to know everyone very well. Vitals gave me my first big acting job out of uni (Cutaway: A Ceremony) and I’ve always felt like myself there.
They allow artists to be all that they are, to develop and grow, and to embrace their complexity. As a young woman, this kind of space can be a very hard thing to find- both at work and just generally in the world.
V: What else are you working on this year?
EB: I’ll be working at the SA Museum, I’ll be brushing up my straight acting skills because I love the idea of someone handing me a script instead of conceiving the script, writing the script, getting funding for the script, and then performing the entire script. I’ll be working on getting fit and eating really well and being nice to people.
AM: It’s going to be a very fun and busy year! I’ll be working with Vitals again in May to develop Rebecca’s Meston’s new work, Drive. I’m also making and performing in Patch Theatre Company’s new work, Yo Diddle Diddle, performing in a return season of McNirt Hates Dirt in the Dream Big Festival, and touring Grug with Windmill Theatre Company.
V: Do you see your art and processes as political? What do you think is the role of arts is in politics?
EB: I never have seen my process as political; I see it as social. Social may well be political but my first call is social. Social, because talking to people is connecting and connecting to strangers in this way is not a regular daily thing for most people but the practice of it – for all and sundry – could bring some big changes in the way we all do things.
People say the social is political but I think the political is social, and if we really knew how to speak and if we really knew how to listen, we could be doing a few things quite a bit better.
I don’t know if art does have a role in politics – art is art and it can be political and the act of making art is counter cultural, but where politics and art meet for me is uncut and unclear, and relates differently to different artists and different artworks.
AM: Yes. Especially the work I make independently, and with Meg and Josie. I am and always will be a fierce feminist, so that undoubtedly comes through in all of my work. I actually think it is kind of impossible to live in the world as an aware, engaged, human and not have that affect your work. If you are a politically engaged human, who is making work for a contemporary audience, then it can’t help but be of this world and time, which means it is bound to be politically and socially engaged. I think the role of arts in politics is to playfully provoke, to question, to open conversations. In my dream world, people would see a show and then spend the rest of the night in the foyer bar not talking about how good the actors were or how big the set was, but rather about the ideas raised.
Vitalstatistix spoke with Emma Valente, co-Artistic Director of Victorian-based theatre company THE RABBLE, and South Australian-based visual artist and theatre designer Meg Wilson, who has joined THE RABBLE as lead artist intern in 2016.
V: Emma, tell us about THE RABBLE.
EV: THE RABBLE is a group of artists who have been making theatre for ten years together. We produce experimental theatre that interrogates the human condition through a combination of surreal and visceral aesthetics, feminist sensibility, and the application of deeply research. Kate Davis and I are the Artistic Directors of the company. We are also the creators, directors and designers of all the work.
We are attracted to subterranean feminist concepts in iconic stories from folklore and literature. Our productions are realised through sweeping design and intense theatricality. We have abandoned male-dominated play scripts and replaced them with an improvisational methodology using poetry, prose, image, tableaus and gesture. We have made radical adaptations of many well know stories and novels including: Frankenstein, Story of O, Orlando, Cain and Abel, Picture of Dorian Grey, Joan of Arc and Ulysses.
V: You undertook a residency with Vitalstatistix late last year towards the development of your new work Ulysses. Tell us about this work and the value of a residency in the early stages of developing a new performance.
EV: THE RABBLE is working on a ten-hour durational event that is a radical feminist adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Taking our cues from Joyce’s novel the piece is a series of nine experiments that investigate the act of performing, intellectualism, femininity, the extremes of the body and death. The performance is broken up into eight Acts across the ten hours.
This project is extremely ambitious and the residency at Vitals was imperative in moving the project beyond being just an idea, to something that seemed achievable.
Kate and I knew that to make this project we needed time and space, we needed to be able to immerse ourselves in the book and in the project to map out how we would make it and what it would be. We got to do this at Vitals last year in November. It was such a rare opportunity to be given space to work on a project of such ambition, right at its early stages. I can think of very few companies who would offer this kind of support for such a huge project.
The outcome from that fortnight was so fruitful. Kate and I devised a schema for the whole work, which we are now working from. We really cracked open the whole idea, we decided that the piece would be a series of performance experiments that would take place over ten hours. We started to work out what those experiments would be, and even got to testing a few of them. We were also able to wrestled with the fact that we were doing the book at all, this huge part of the modernist canon, which has little to do with our own experience. This fortnight gave us the chance to work through this problem and has deeply influenced the format and the content of the piece.
V: How important is it to work nationally and what do you think is the fit between THE RABBLE and Vitalstatistix?
EV: It is imperative for us to work nationally. The industry is so small and the market for our work is niche, we can’t possibly expect to work only in Melbourne. We also want to make sure that we can reach as many people as possible; we love having the opportunity to perform for new audiences and make connections with new people.
Our relationship with Vitals has been a very fruitful and exciting one. Vitals emphasises process, development and experimentation, which is our focus as well. It is so excellent working in an environment that privileges these ideas, rather than being completely product driven. Being given space and time to develop and experiment with ideas undoubtedly makes our work better.
V: Why does THE RABBLE offer internships and what’s the exchange like?
EV: THE RABBLE has always worked with secondments and interns. Kate and I have made a huge effort to respond to most people that approach us. At the end of last year we got so many requests that we just decided to formalise the process, try and choose the best person, not just the person who sent us a well-timed email. We also realised that it was probably more beneficial if we offered a program that was longer than just one show or development. So this is our first year of offering yearlong internships.
We hope the exchange is an exciting one.
We have designed the program so that our interns not only get to observe and contribute to our work but also have time to chat about their own work. For me it’s important to understand stay in touch with what emerging artists are doing, how their approaches are different to my own and what are the subjects they are preoccupied with.
This program has been a great way to get to know more emerging artists and their work.
V: Tell us about what you are working on in 2016?
EV: THE RABBLE is developing quite a few projects in 2016. We have already completed two developments this year – one for Joan with Malthouse and one for Ulysses, this time based at The Substation in Melbourne. We will be remounting our version of Cain and Abel in July this year again at The Substation. I’m pretty excited to revisit this project, we performed it at Belvoir St two years ago and I found the subject matter fascinating. In this production we are asking ourselves, what if the first murder was committed by a woman? How would this affect our iconography and our history? There is a chasm in historical representations of women who are violent and it was so interesting to find this black hole in feminist research. I’m pretty keen to delve back into that world.
V: How are you feeling about the future of Australian arts?
EV: Pretty queasy. Like everyone, I’m waiting white knuckled for the next round of funding announcements. I’m worried that many of the companies that THE RABBLE could potentially partner with will be cut. I’m worried that the cuts are going to mean that the presenters who get funding are going to take fewer risks. And I feel sad. In Melbourne we’d been through a really exciting movement in the independent scene, just before the funding cuts were announced and now that movement has been cut off at the knees. I feel like there’s been a great opportunity lost.
On the other hand, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many artists who are just beginning their careers. I’m inspired and energised by their enthusiasm and creative drive. There is such an incredible next generation of artists coming up at the moment, particularly many female artists who are making gutsy and inspiring work. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next.
V: Meg, tell us about your artistic practice.
MW: I am an interdisciplinary artist who works predominantly with large-scale and often site-specific installation and performance. In recent years I have broadened my practice to encompass design for theatre and events. My visual art and theatre design practices are now mutually influential and often overlap.
A common theme explored within my work is the performativity of space, the surreal and abstract within familiar everyday spaces, and the audience encounter with the ordinary, set within the context of the out-of-the-ordinary.
V: Tell us about your connection with Vitalstatistix and the kinds of projects you have worked on with us.
MW: My first encounter with Vitals was in 2012 when I worked with Gaelle Mellis on Take Up Thy Bed & Walk. I spent a lot of time observing and embroidering handkerchiefs in what was my first encounter with theatre behind the scenes. Gaelle and Vitalstatistix took me under their wings and it is here that I found my creative home.
In 2014, undertaking a residency with Rosie Dennis of Urban Theatre Projects at Vitalstatistix, I was exposed to a new way of working. A way that is not solitary, where no idea is precious, where bigger and better ideas are built through the sharing of ideas. A place where it’s ok to mess things up, and ok to be vulnerable. Coming from a largely solo practice, this was totally new to me. This is also where I met Ashton Malcolm and Josie Were, with whom I have recently formed a performance collective.
I’ve gone onto work with Vitals in the role of collaborating artist/designer on some of the most exciting and experimental projects of my career so far, working with artists such as Mish Grigor on Man O Man and Willoh S.Weiland and Halcyon Macleod on Crawl Me Blood.
V: Why did you decide to apply for the internship with THE RABBLE?
MW: I see working with THE RABBLE as the next step in discovering how and where I can push my skills and ambitions at this point of juncture between visual arts and theatre in my practice. Where abstract installations may become the set for theatre, and where an installation in a gallery can be the site for performance and audience interaction. Where boundaries are pushed and ideas are challenged.
I wanted to become immersed in theatre devised through the manipulation and play with objects in an environment. This is what THE RABBLE do, and do so well. I only knew of their work through word of mouth and from what I could gather from images and short videos online. Unfortunately I was overseas when they were here working with Vitals last year, so I missed out on meeting Emma and Kate then. I think I saw their callout for internship positions on Vitals’ Facebook feed, and I jumped at the opportunity!
V: You kicked off the internship recently, spending some time with THE RABBLE in Melbourne – how was that?
MW: One word: EXCELLENT! So far I have only spent four days at The Substation with THE RABBLE and I have already learnt so much. Emma and Kate are very generous and welcoming individuals who have taken significant chunks of time out of their days to answer the many questions that I have.
Most of my time thus far has been spent observing the way they work in a room with their main ensemble members, Dana and Mary Helen. They’ve been working on another development of Ulysses, for which they did a residency at Vitals last year. It’s nice to begin with a project that has that familiar link between us.
V: What will you be working on with THE RABBLE in 2016? And what is your role?
MW: I was selected for the role of Internship for Lead Artist – for an artist seeking experience in performance making through a devised process. I will be working on five projects throughout the year that are in various stages of development. There are some projects that I will be able to observe from beginning to outcome, such as In the Bleak Mid Winter, an event curated by THE RABBLE at Malthouse. Then there are others, such as Cain and Abel, which are projects already at production stage.
I think that the role will vary hugely dependent on the project. At times it will be a chance to observe rehearsals and performance works at various stages of development, as well as to be able to participate in creative meetings and design concept meetings across the year. There will also be times when all hands will be required on deck…and I’m totally ready to jump in when I can!
V: What’s valuable about this type of opportunity?
MW: THE RABBLE work with real objects and create abstract worlds that show the truth of the materials used in their creation.
Content is created through improvisation and trial and error, then gradually shaped and refined through process. I am interested in the way that they blur the roles in theatrical practice.
The roles of director, designer, performer are all as collaborators present from the very beginning to shape all parts of a work. There are currently very few opportunities to work in this way in Adelaide, so I’m very excited to be jetting to Melbourne throughout the year to work with and learn from THE RABBLE. I have already spent a lot of time excitedly reporting back to Josie and Ashton about how this unique experience could be instrumental in informing the way we hope to work together as a collective back in Adelaide.
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