DESERT HOTHOUSE
An engine room of contemporary dance development.
The creative development of 3 new works by an accomplished team of diverse women and femmes. Choreographed by Katina Olsen, Madeleine Krenek and Frankie Snowdon (each performing the works of the other), concepts interrelate and explore themes of sovereignty, self-determination, control, empathy, and mythmaking, forming a call to action and contemplation of our responsibilities to ourselves, each other and the truth.
These developments are centred around ongoing creative and cultural feedback, research, rigorous inquiry, fleshing out conceptual, choreographic and design elements and strategy for presentation opportunities. This bespoke model allows the forging of strong conceptual ties between them, the potential creative content of each to be fully explored and a future long term trajectory rooted in trust and collaboration.
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Choreographers: Katina Olsen, Frankie Snowdon and Madeleine Krenek
Sound Composition/Design: Serina Pech
Lighting Design: Jen Hector
Set Design: Elliat Rich
Dramaturge: Ashleigh Musk
Producer: Art Oracle, Erica McCalman
Creative Consultant: Angela Flynn
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This project has been supported by The Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Government through the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE).
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WHITE LIES
KATINA OLSEN
Australia (as we know it) is built on the legal fiction of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one, the basis of the British claim to possession of Australia). Sovereignty has never been ceded and Australia is the only Commonwealth country without a Treaty with their First Nations peoples. Many of these policies have affected Katina and others’ own ancestors directly and have left lasting effects on the systemic and cultural landscape we know, understand, operate within and still benefit from today. Whilst some might inherit stolen wealth, others inherit intergenerational trauma. White Lies attempts to show the disparity between truth and a lie and one version of history versus another whilst asking: “if we muzzle the truth of the land and its people, how are we to learn and understand how to care for it and live within it?”.
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AUTHENTIC AMATEURS (Working Title)
MADELEINE KRENEK
Empathy is a primitive human capacity to connect with others on several levels; simultaneously, involuntarily and unconsciously we echo each other’s minds and bodies. This work investigates the phenomenon of innate human empathy and its role in establishing kinesthetic connections between performers and audiences, with an underlying nod to the unrelenting and often invisible work of women in creating and maintaining connection, care and societal evolution. A series of physical states are layered with absurdity and spectacle, each one highlighting commonalities that all humans share and understand. Crafting and building choreographies in real time, the performers create a work which is a deeply personal and visceral experience for the audience - transforming them from passive observers into invested participations, a complex relationship for contemplation and action.
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10 STEPS TO BECOMING A COUNTRY (Working Title)
FRANKIE SNOWDON
Frankie is obsessed with the idea that every BODY is a country. The work investigates the parameters and possibilities of nationhood when applied to an individual human, and how the body is a critical tool for conversations about power, history, colonisation and the future. 10 STEPS combines research of colonial practices, Western legal and political systems, Indigenous Australian and multicultural systems of organising communities and relationship to land - and the role of women and the feminine in all of these. Frankie and collaborators propose an immersive performance practice that asks audiences to consider our/their collective complicity, ignorance and subjugation throughout history. The work creates an alternate reality, in which the autonomy, desire and empowerment of bodies in their multi-layered presentations and relationships to each other and the environment is not only encouraged, but vital to our evolution and survival.