News
2023 to 2024
Hi there.
I hope everyone is staying as safe and connected as you can, in whatever way you think best.
As for us, we’ve had a pretty busy 2023, creating and presenting a new show in Sydney, developing a new work overseas, and re-staging an oldie in Edinburgh, as well as reviving some old connections and making some new.
Nocturne In April and May we headed to Sydney to create a new work around Sydney Harbour, commissioned by Vivid Ideas as part of Vivid Festival 2023. Nocturne was conceived as a counterpoint to the immense light shows and large audiences of Vivid – an intimate journey to (re)discover the dark, the hidden nature, and the night sky. A journey into the dark and the light within & without. We felt incredibly honoured to spend slow time with indigenous custodians of this place and for them to share their stories and knowledge of land, sea and sky country with us and our audiences.
All The Ways Without You Immediately after Sydney we headed overseas to Jersey Arts Centre on the Isle of Jersey, to undertake a 4-week development. This development consolidated the explorations we undertook in 2022 with our young Irish collaborators, Aoife and Riain, exploring the possibilities of a site-specific work in which the site was a black-box theatre. This generosity with both time and space allowed a new conception and theatrical language to emerge, with the help of our Irish collaborators, creative producer Richard Jordan and lighting designer John Ford. A season is planned for 2024.
en route From Jersey we headed to Edinburgh to re-mount our en route – edinburgh show with The Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Fringe in August. It’s been a few years since we first took en route to Edinburgh (in 2010!), but the show seemed to hold up well and still resonate with the city, and provide fresh revelations for both us and the audience.
While we were overseas we took advantage to visit presenters and colleagues in Edinburgh and also in Dublin, where we started dreaming on an eco-work for Dublin, scouting for sites for a possible adaptation of Nocturne. We stopped for a weekend in Berlin to experience Shared Landscapes, a 7-hour experience of multiple live art experiences within a forest. And finally on to Riga, Latvia, to attend and give a talk at the international festival Homo Novus, and to immerse ourselves in the local and international artist community there. An incredibly rich time.
Noir Trail Later in the year we returned to an on-going new work, Noir Trail. Last year we undertook a couple of short developments at The Substation in Newport. This largely involved developing the indoor part of the show, with singer/performer Susan Bamford, and with lighting designer John Ford. All is coming together nicely, with a planned season in late 2024.
64 Ways of Being Part 1 (Melbourne CBD) and Part 2 (Footscray) have been launched as part of our major commission, a collaboration with games researcher Dr. Troy Innocent and app development company Millipede.
Part 3 (Fitzroy) was launched in October and Part 4 (St. Kilda) is nearing completion and will be launched early 2024.
As is often the case over the summer, we have little idea of what lies ahead in 2024. There are a few conversations happening, here and overseas, but for any of these to come to fruition always involves a combination of luck, logistics, finances and good will – so we wait, enjoy the summer and will find out what the world has in store for us. We have been very fortunate in the past (!), but recognise – as in so many things around the world – that things can change very quickly.
As always, thank you for your interest in our work, and do take care of yourself and others, stay safe, stay connected. We really do hope that some day there’ll be an opportunity to bring one of our works to wherever you may be.
one step (Suzanne, Clair, Julian)