In Development
Kelly Ryall
Disappearing Acts
Disappearing Acts is an exploration of a theatre without a performer. When a person leaves a room what remains behind of their presence, what kind of resonance? As an ongoing exploration and in future developments of this work, we will look at different ways to expose and distil this essence.
Stage 1 development 2008. (Developed with the assitance of the Sidney Myer Fund)
Disappearing Acts development edit from Kelly Ryall on Vimeo.
Stage 2 development 2009-10
Ben Speth
The Gift of Responsibility
Synopsis
The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.
William Faulkner
‘The Gift of Responsibility’ is based loosely on the life and associates of Edward John Eyre who, along with Sturt, Mitchell, Leichhardt, Burke and Wills was a prominent explorer of Australia. The play isn’t a period piece; it is paraphrase of the colonial endeavour reflected by an exploration of the forms and philosophies of performance.
In the mid 19th Century a young man of some means comes to Australia to make a name for himself.
Sometime before that a poor Irish boy turns to a life of crime and finds himself convicted and transported.
Meanwhile, in what will become Western Australia, a young man’s family is destroyed and he ships out on a French whaler.
Concurrently, in an act of despair, appeasement and hope, a mother enlists her child in the care of a whitefella ‘of some means’ heading up an expedition to the in-land sea.
These four people walk across the southern edge of the Nullarbor Plain. Half of them die.
He returns to England, marries, joins the Foreign Office, becomes Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand. His career stifles, he returns to England.
Later he becomes the Governor of Jamaica. In Kingston, he and his family move into a house that smells of rotting flesh.
He presides over a harsh and bloody put-down of the land reform rebellion of 1865 and is re-called to England.
These are the primary subjectivities that drive ‘The Gift of Responsibility’. They aren’t portrayals, as no attempt is made at characterization; performers stand before an audience using a language that is descriptive, first person present tense, eschewing simile and metaphor.
To the extent that identification and catharsis are at issue, the performers are real people saying real words – wrestling with the modalities, histories, and ethics of those words. What ‘The Gift of Responsibility’ asks of the performers is to communicate these potentialities to the audience. What it asks of the audience is to understand that what happened 200 years ago, is still, very much a part of our everyday.
Stage 1 Development April - July 2009 (Developed with the assitance of the Sidney Myer Fund)
Gorkem Acaroglu
Exception (formerly known as Bare Life)
Bare Life is an experiential performance work that imaginatively examines the situation of an asylum seeker trapped inside their fantasy of the first world. The project draws on a body of sophisticated political theory, and cutting-edge multi-media technology.
A prominent element of the production will be the integration of live performance and an interaction with Second Life.
Stage 1 development 2008.(Developed with the assitance of the Sidney Myer Fund)
Stage 2 development 2009. (Developed with the assitance of Arts Victoria)
Stage 3 development 2010
