BLAKDANCE 2012 is designed to showcase First Nation contemporary dance practice within an international platform. The symposium will offer an informal, inclusive and welcoming environment where wisdom, experience and knowledge can be shared on a global scale in Brisbane.

Two key questions will begin the conversation. They are: How do you as First Nation choreographers find your movement vocabulary and how do you as First Nation choreographers navigate through and with cultural protocol alongside the making? Our surprise guest provocateur will guide the discussion inviting questions from the audience.

Australia is rich in the diversity of Indigenous nations who each embody their country, language, dance and cultural practice. Each choreographer has their own unique style and traditional voice. If you want to understand more about our First Nation Australians, this symposium may well inform you. It will provide a platform for a diverse range of First Nation Dance Artists to talk about their practice.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to connect with First Nation peoples or artists, then this is your chance.

Cost: Free. RSVP essential.

In Shakespeare’s day theatre was closer to three or four hours long and done in day light in the open air theatres like the Globe and the Rose and the Curtain, without an interval. For many, plays were experienced from the pit standing shoulder to shoulder with people who talked or sold oranges and generally milled around. Shakespeare’s plays were structured so that you had comic interludes or action scenes at strategic moments to keep your interest and create a rhythm for the audience. Many modern films do the same thing pacing out when to have special effects, car chases, explosions or gags.

I believe intervals are great moments to allow an audience a release or to signify a change of time or allow the audience to consider the ideas of the previous act before launching into the next series of ideas. Directors will often consider how the audience is receiving the ideas of the play and balance out the pros and cons. Some shows are 120 mins long and feel like an interval would interrupt the flow of ideas sometimes a show can be 90 mins long but feel like an interval is appropriate.

A director and writer try to shape the experience of going to the theatre based on the story that is being told. Where do you sit…interval or no interval? Jump on to our Facebook page and tell me what you think about intervals.

Love, Wesley.

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll – two intervals

Bloodland – no interval

Bombshells – no interval

Romeo and Juliet – no interval

Elizabeth – one interval

Head Full of Love – no interval

Yes Prime Minister – one interval

Kelly – no interval

Managing Carmen – one interval

For the first time six renowned international and Australian First Nation choreographers will work with established and emerging dancers to create a new production called BLAKDANCE 2012.

This production will include a suite of works devised by each choreographer. It will be a timeless cultural collection that will surprise and engage audiences through traditional and contemporary First Nation dance and storytelling as each choreographer has their own unique style and traditional voice.

Rita Pryce (BAIWA DANCE CO), Jacob Boehme (IDJA DANCE THEATRE) and Tammi Gissell (FIGURES OF SPEECH) represent the Australian independent choreographers whilst the international choreographers include Sandra Laronde (RED SKY) and Jack Gray and Cathy Livermore (ATAMIRA DANCE COLLECTIVE), respectively from Canada and New Zealand.

BLAKDANCE 2012 is a showcase where international, national and local choreographers, dancers, industry members and audiences can come together to celebrate and gain a deeper understanding of First Nation Australia through contemporary dance practice. It’s an opportunity to share; where traditional dance meets contemporary performance, where the storytelling is from global cultural voices. Throughout the week there will also be forums, a cultural artists’ symposium and master classes.

This showcase event is created by BlakDance Australia Limited. BlakDance Australia Limited was born from an Ausdance National program called Treading the Pathways. Like Treading the Pathways, BlakDance Australia Limited’s purpose is to support Indigenous Australian dance and dancers.

BLAKDANCE 2012 will be held at Queensland Theatre Company in Brisbane as part of the GreenHouse.

Dates:  4 – 9 June 2012

Venue: Bille Brown Studio, Queensland Theatre Company, Montague Road, Sth Brisbane

Bookings

Performances and Forums – including a work from each choreographer

• Thursday 7 June  | 1pm (with post forum) and 7.30pm
• Friday 8 June | 1pm (with post forum) and 7.30pm (with post forum)
• Saturday 9 June | 1pm and 7.30pm

$38, $28 Concession, $25 Under 30, $21 School Groups (1.5 hour duration)

Cultural Artists’ Symposium – free event – all welcome

• Wednesday 6 June | 5pm – 7pm

Queensland Theatre Company | Call 1800 355 528 or BUY TICKETS HERE.

For all information on the master classes and professional development program contact BlakDance | admin@blakdance.org.au | +61 7 3220 3377 | BlakDance Facebook 

Applications are now open for an exciting two-week full time workshop with the Artistic Director and Video Designer from Witness Relocation.

Considered “soldiers on the front line of contemporary performance” (Real Time Arts, Australia), Witness Relocation will be delivering a workshop over two weeks with a small group to create dynamic, genre-defying dance and theatre. Techniques will be used that focus on what is happening in the room, build material from what is on hand and spiral out to claim surprising and endlessly inventive territory. The workshop will generate a performance piece using task-based, problem-solving methods that eliminate the pressure to “be creative” and simply allow participants to work and make constant discoveries – making sure that the process is continuously fun and exciting, and a little scary at times.

Please read the information form for full details and requirements of the workshop.

Instructions on how to apply for the workshop can be found on the application form.

Diversity and tolerance, imagination and courage, extreme knowledge and dedicated “geekiness” are the future. For our economic, cultural and social development we must support the arts.

John Holden from Demos in London says the theatre company of the future is not about the walls that keep the company in but more about the networks that enable the work to exist. Theatre companies will become a jumble of informal and formal networks that become active around a live event. He quotes the influential thinker Charles Leadbeater and his work in Manchester where their programming  developed into three streams – Enjoy, Do, Talk. These three areas allow an individual multiple ways of engaging with a company as an audience member, a performer or a contributor to debate and discussion. This engagement can  occur onsite, offsite or online creating exciting multilayered outcomes.

Steven Wolfe from the United States says that the theatre company of the future will have to move from efficiency to effectiveness – look at not the most efficient ways of doing something but what will bring the desired outcomes….because human beings are not always wanting an efficient experience. From sustainability to vibrancy – we should not be happy to merely survive, but we should encourage change and excitement around our companies. Not fixate on maintaining the status quo and giving predictability, but build to be seen as a vibrant and vital place to be, connect with and contribute to.

He also says we must challenge the rhetoric of engagement and replace it with ideas of entanglement….not the ‘us’ bringing art to ‘you’ but about so entangling ourselves in your world that you feel part of an us rather than a ‘them’. This idea that in AFL clubs you have supporters rather than fans. The supporter will follow you regardless of the outcome of the game because the club is part of your identity…a fan comes and goes depending on the fortunes of the club. (Go the Lions!). I reckon we would measure this in how many mutual friends we have rather than how many people have friended us on Facebook.

Ok….what does this have to do with developing a life long love of the arts? For me it’s about seeing the dismantling of barriers…of the walls that Holden talks about….creating new participatory models and challenging the status quo and old world ideas of the unchallenged expert in the arts.

Drama/ theatre has maintained barriers to build a kind of edifice of high art. But this must change; we must dismantle the barriers and create new participatory models, acknowledge and value the ecology of theatrical practice. The idea of the Artistic Director of QTC being in conversation with drama teachers has been anathema in the past and I think we have to change that. It is outdated and wrong. We have to see ourselves as peers in the making and support the art both as practitioners and as people who are supporting artists to grow. If we are going to get 10,000 hours of experience in to young people to be the artists of the future we have to work in partnership. We must remove the barriers and allow people to transition from student to artist to audience member to critic to teacher to supporter. This must happen easily and without value judgement of where you sit in that ecology. The difference between an Artistic Director, the artist and the audience member is merely the position from which we see the art. The challenge for a company like QTC is to not play the status game but to play the ideas game.

I am advocating that we must keep the Geek alive in all of us. The fluid movement of talented and interested people through different forms of theatre based activities, removing barriers and redefining the entry points for people to the ways of making and appreciating the arts is key to building an integrated ecological approach to theatre and drama.

Love,

Wesley

Friday 11th May at 5:30pm
Courtyard at Bille Brown Studio

Free entry, but you must register here.

Polytoxic invites you to The Rat Trap, a technicolour tiki bar where the doors are locked but the drinks are flowing.

Curfew is lifted and the guest list includes the high flying King of Burlesque, a body adorned Samoan chief, a hot brown bitch, a fabulous femme fatale and a seven-foot Islander drag offender. Come witness the unholy union of these five mongrel cross-breeds as a soap-opera saga of epic proportions unfolds.

The inhabitants of The Rat Trap work the room, swing from the lampshades, thrash about in fits of rage, and wield whips, hoops, bottles and fans, in a world where the traditions of the Pacific, the guts of physical performance and the crimes of pop-culture collide.

Buy Tickets HERE

“This is circus meets dance meets vaudeville, delivered with incredible energy. The performers are sexy as all hell and the vibe is seedy bordello…this is physical theatre with characters and story at its heart” ourbrisbane.com

Synopsis:

The Rat Trap spins a melodramatic tale around five decadently seedy characters who drink, fight, seduce and despair in the bowels of a bawdy tiki bar.

Your host for the evening is the delusional half-man, half-woman JanUri – who’s totes lost her shit. Then there’s Helena and Marlena – identical Siamese twins (one black, one white) surely destined for freak-showgirl stardom. Born conjoined, but split asunder by a crazy anchor accident at sea, these girls have some serious separation issues. Their father, Maurice, has found refuge in The Rat Trap. He is a blackbird-in-hiding, and the last of the now defunct Pacific slave trade. The place is in lockdown, and it’s the timelessly handsome Madman Mohito who mans the doors and keeps the club swinging.

Spend a night in the Rat Trap with the rats, and drink in an epic potion of death, sibling rivalry, physical tension and freak show fantasy.

POLYTOXIC’S WEBSITE | POLYTOXIC’S FACEBOOK | FACEBOOK EVENT

Additional Credits:

Dramaturg: Kathryn Kelly
Projection Designer & Photography: Sean Young
Production Manager: Cameron Brown
Rigging Consultant: Helen Clifford
Co-creator (initial development): Amanda-Lyn Pearson
Stage Manager: Whitney Eglington
Design Realiser: Maria Cleary
Design Assistant: Madeline Taylor
Additional Text: Daniel Evans
Additional Costume Design: Lisa Fa’alafi
Costume Coordinator: Nathalie Ryner
Costume Cutter: Gayle Magregor
Costume Makers: Bianca Bulley and Michelle Wiki
Producer: Leah Shelton, Polytoxic
Consulting Producer: MAPS for Artists

First developed and presented as a scratch performance at World Theatre Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse. Premiere season produced by Polytoxic and Queensland Theatre Company.
Polytoxic is supported by MAPS for Artists, a management and producing service delivered by Metro Arts.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. This project has also received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and the Brisbane City Council.

Polytoxic would like to acknowledge the in-kind support of Pegasus Vision Crew, ProNel, Vulcana, and SYC Studios.

Warning: Explicit Language, Herbal Cigarette, Sexual References and Partial Nudity.

So come and grab a champagne from the bar and watch LOVE TV@ Bille Brown Studio!

The characters and personalities that work in and around this exciting creative hub will join Aphrodite in her clam for an intimate conversation about what they are passionate about. There will also be a love song or two, perhaps one of Brisbane hottest leading actresses, maybe a producer with a reputation with the ladies or the gentlemen.

We want to hear the tales of love and passion from the area and find out “Where is the love in postcode 4101″?

If you have a good tale to tell, you can also nominate yourself or someone else to appear on the show, just visit the Love TV website.

www.lovetv.com.au

An interactive, durational work in which a playful little puppet builds his own world from wooden blocks. Audiences are invited to help, or to reimagine his construction, as this unlikely little man creates his surroundings.

The performers are:

1) David Morton
2) Anna Straker
3) Kaitlyn Rogers

Visit the Dead Puppet Society’s twitter and facebook.

An eclectic extravaganza of Folk, World, Jazz and Popular music – Luna Junction can be found at the heart of West End’s burgeoning ‘Gypsy-Folk’ scene, playfully juggling musical genres, instruments and influences to weave a colourful tapestry of traditional and original music.

With an album in the pipeline and a string of gigs booked up and down the coast, this wraggle-taggle bunch of buskers have taken time out from the streets of Brisbane to record their much anticipated debut. Set for release later this year, the band is also making plans for an album launch tour via Sydney, Melbourne and regional NSW.

Nurturing a mutual desire to ‘reshape the sound of this midnight-mainstream’ Shani Forrester and her merry musicians take you by the hand and lead you to the space where folk meets pop…