Arts House Listening Program

Wesley Enoch, Playwright and Director Tue 18 August, RECLAIM AUSTRALIA - with guest and co-host Deborah Cheetham. What are we trying to do as a nation - to legislate-out racism, or to remove racism from our central document - the Constitution? What does it look like and is it even possible? Join Wesley and Deborah and guests for this pertinent discussion.

Composer Kate Neal creates a compelling and intriguing multimedia exploration of signalling, communication and miscommunication in Semaphore. Using physical, visual and aural encoding systems – Semaphore, Morse code, pennants, lights and binary code – three dancers and eight musicians synchronize in a complex coordinated choreography of bodies, music and illumination, to generate an immersive display of sound and vision. Laura Sheedy’s direction, Jo Lloyd’s choreography, Sal Cooper’s animations, and archival recordings of World War II signalmen further augment Semaphore’s rich visual and aural composition. Regimented physical formations, outbreaks of cascading melody, intricate interplays of light and sound; Semaphore is an ingenious visual and sonic experience. Composer: Kate Neal Choreographer: Jo Lloyd Animation: Sal Cooper Director: Laura Sheedy Lighting: Marco Respondeck Producer: Wally Gunn Dancers: Harrison Hall, Rebecca Jensen, Shian Law With an ensemble of eight musicians

Acclaimed performance maker Tamara Saulwick employs portable turntables, reel-to-reel tape players and live performance in a moving meditation on cycles and the ending of things. Featuring the voice of Paddy Mann (Grand Salvo), an electro-acoustic score by Peter Knight, and design by Ben Cobham, Endings explores the experiences – both ordinary and extraordinary – that cluster around death, dying and afterlife. Endings is built, in part, from one-on-one interviews: real people’s stories, reflections and voices. Cut onto bespoke vinyl records, these voices are embedded in a richly textured sound design; operated, accompanied and extended through live performance and song. Voices of the living emerge from the crackle of records turning, vintage reel-to-reels send tape loops round the space. Performers converse with recorded thoughts from the past…and a voice floats through this evocative sound-world, singing an ode to the recently departed… “It’s remarkable theatre, executed with an exact brilliance that mak

The highly charged and evocative sound and smell of a struck match provide the ignition point for A Small Prometheus; a new work for five dancers about the consequences of small actions and the fragility of physical systems. Combustion and transformation drive the unfolding choreography as dancers synchronise, mesh and collide. Fire-driven kinetic sculptures become part of live interactive sound-and-movement loops between dancer, sculpture and machine. Two of Australia’s most exciting and uncompromising artists, Stephanie Lake and Robin Fox, seamlessly interlace choreography, sound and objects to create rich tension in a work that swings deftly between chaotic, free-form experiments and mechanically intricate moments. A Small Prometheus creates a strange and enthralling world of darkness, light and the spark that mediates the two. This postshow Q&A was recorded on Thursday 17th October 2013 Created by: Stephanie Lake and Robin Fox Choreographer: Stephanie Lake Composer and Sculpture Designer: Robin Fox Perf

The boxing gym: a place of dreams of glory, of a better life. The walls are covered in inspirational quotes; bodies are in constant motion; the stakes are high. For 18 months theatre-maker Roslyn Oades and her trusty tape recorder followed a determined young boxer from Bankstown as he prepared for a world title fight. On the way she encountered past legends, up-and-comers and failed contenders whose lives have been irreversibly changed by the fight game. Behind this thrilling, brutal sport lies a compelling tale of courage and its cost. I’m Your Man is no ordinary slice-of-life. The actors wear earpieces, taking their words directly from audio recordings to create a vivid, hyper-natural documentary theatre. One thing is certain: even the high-flyer will eventually lose. A sweaty, adrenaline-fuelled study of a contemporary masculine drama, I’m Your Man challenges preconceived notions of the tough, testosterone-fuelled world of boxing, creating new ways to experience real-life stories in theatrical form. Th

When a large sports bag full of cash is brought into Peter’s very ordinary home, his family finds itself caught up in a sinister and disturbing chain of events. You are invited to step onto the floor and into this gripping thriller, experiencing first-hand the sordid betrayal and moral philandering that’s about to blanket this suburban dream. Devised by Zoe Pepper and Adriane Daff of award-winning young company, Side Pony Productions, The Confidence Man is performed by audience members, equipped with masks and headsets to play out the story. Those who prefer to watch can survey the action from the perimeter, eavesdropping on the characters’ most private thoughts and conversations. In The Confidence Man, Dogville meets Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt. A morally complex tale complete with goodies, baddies, and a dose of good oldfashioned psychotic menace, The Confidence Man unfolds with the gripping intimacy of a tale whispered in your ear. This Postshow Q&A was recorded Thursday 29th August 2013 Director: Zo