WTF16 WELCOMES THE WORLD TO BRISBANE IN FEBRUARY 2016

Transcription

1 WTF16 WELCOMES THE WORLD TO BRISBANE IN FEBRUARY 2016 Brisbane Powerhouse will welcome artists from Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Indonesia, Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, UK and USA to present a program of contemporary performance at WTF16, taking place from February WTF16 will run alongside the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) for the second time, following their initial pairing in According to Brisbane Powerhouse Artistic Director Kris Stewart WTF16 is a home for exhilarating contemporary performance that challenges the definitions of traditional theatre. WTF celebrates the personal and the political. Yes, it s theatre, but it s also an invitation for audiences to challenge the way they think about, see and experience the world. A few highlights of 2016 program include: the dark, political and hilarious 심청 Shimchong : Daughter Overboard!, Andy Warhol Factory Superstar Penny Arcade in Longing Lasts Longer, the politically charged Confirmation, and even a dancing robot in Huang Yi & KUKA. This year we re also launching a new program of free club nights; Club WTF features a series of wild and wonderful international music artists over three nights and will give people the chance to hang around, grab a drink and really soak up the festival vibe. Lovers of technology and the arts will get to see the two combine in innovative dance production Huang Yi & KUKA and New Zealand s Okareka Dance present Mana Wahine, a powerful work that combines dance, film and theatre. New York s undisputed queen of the underground Penny Arcade will deliver a rousing rumination inspired by four decades of pop culture in the multi-award winning Longing Lasts Longer. Companion pieces BigMoutH and SmallWaR will also take audiences on a virtuosic journey through history. Rising UK performer Chris Thorpe presents a powerful analysis of beliefs in Confirmation, while Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster also calls in to question society s decision making processes. Those looking for colourful stories and musical adventures will enjoy the world premiere of Motherboard Productions 심청 Shimchong : Daughter Overboard! and Club WTF s free late night shows: Hanuman Spaceman by The Cambodian Space Project, The Lepidopters: A Space Opera and HH: Syn-Infection. APAM is the premier biennial industry event for contemporary performing arts in the Asia Pacific region. Over 600 artists, presenters and producers from around the globe will discover Australia and New Zealand s best creative works, find new collaborators, network with fellow professionals, and meet key arts funding and development agencies to build and negotiate international and national tours. DATE Thu 18- Sat 27 February Brisbane Powerhouse Watch the WTF2016 trailer here. See the full WTF2016 program here.

2 PERFORMING ARTS AND ROBOTS COMBINE IN THIS INNOVATIVE DANCE WORK Brisbane Powerhouse and Huang Yi present Huang Yi & KUKA (Taiwan) The dance elements combine with exquisite precision to produce an abstract painting in motion a visual masterpiece. ArtsHub Utterly new and original. BlogCritics The art of dance combined with the science of mechanical engineering are set to dazzle Brisbane audiences when Brisbane Powerhouse hosts the Australian premiere of Huang Yi & KUKA from Thursday 18-Saturday 20 February Internationally acclaimed choreographer and dancer Huang Yi brings his childhood dream of dancing with a robot to life in this innovative show that Yi describes as beautifying the sorrow and sadness of his childhood. I was born in a wealthy family. When I was 10, my parents went bankrupt. As a child who was constantly moving from one tiny room to another and seeing my parents go through suicide attempts, I grew up knowing that I had to be a perfect child, says Yi. I detached all my emotion: passion, anger, and sadness, to be that perfect child; to be like a robot: obedient, friendly, outstanding, considerate, never rebellious, perhaps no personality. Performance became the best outlet for my compressed emotion and I wanted to find a way to dance with a robot. While researching advanced industrial robots, Yi found that KUKA stood out for stability and the fluid design. After approaching KUKA Taiwan in 2010, a sponsorship from Quanta Arts Foundation in Taiwan resulted in him having his very own robot. After conceptualizing dance moves between himself and KUKA, writing a computer program and countless rehearsals, Huang brings his dance with KUKA to the stage with stunning precision and artistry. Huang Yi and KUKA are joined on stage by dancers Hu Chien and Lin Jou-Wen. DATE Thu 18-Sat 20 February pm Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse TICKETS $49 (f), $39 (c), $25 (school groups) + transaction fee ($3 single ticket/$6 multiple tickets) Q&A A free Q&A session will follow Friday s performance

3 SONG, POETRY AND POLITICAL SATIRE COMBINE IN 심청 SHIMCHONG : DAUGHTER OVERBOARD! Brisbane Powerhouse and Motherboard Productions present 심청 Shimchong : Daughter Overboard! (Australia/Korea) Following sold-out seasons of 지하 Underground in Brisbane and Seoul, Motherboard Productions returns to WTF in 2016 with the world premiere of 심청 Shimchong : Daughter Overboard!, showing from Thursday 18- Tuesday 23 February 심청 Shimchong : Daughter Overboard! is adapted from the 1990 play Why did Shimchong plunge into the sea twice? by Oh Tae Suk, itself a radical re-interpretation of Shimchongga the story is one of only five works of pansori (traditional Korean opera) that have survived both the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. While the original told the story of a young woman who sacrificed herself to the Dragon King to save her father s sight, according to co-playwright Jeremy Neideck, Motherboard s reimagined version shifts the story to modern-day Australia. 심청 Shimchong : Daughter Overboard! offers Australian audiences the chance to look at themselves through foreign eyes, and Korean audiences the opportunity to see how far Shimchong may have drifted had she jumped into the Indian Ocean instead of the Indang Sea. I was struck by the similarities between Oh s portrayal of the illegal trade in sex workers and the plight of people displaced by war and seeking asylum in our country, so Kathleen McLeod and I wrote a Shimchong who has been reborn a young Australian woman. While the themes are a little more serious than the bustling speakeasy setting of Motherboard s 지하 Underground, Neideck says the two shows still have common values. It is a black comedy. Audiences can expect a night of song, laughter, and being challenged. You will be able to drink with your friends, even get up and have a dance if you feel like it, all while being entertained by an international cast. This show is a lot of fun, but its frivolity doesn t make the subject matter any less serious. Director and co-writer Jeremy Neideck has studied and worked in Korea for over ten years, with organisations such as The National Theater of Korea, the National Changguk Company, and Korea's National Art Studio. Cowriter Kathleen McLeod is a published anti-poet poetess whose work weaves the personal and political, exploring themes of intimacy, love and karma, sex, trauma and violence. DATE Thu 18-Sat 23 February 2015 Thu, Fri,Sun, Tu 7.30pm, Sat 2.30pm pm, Mon 10am pm Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse TICKETS $35 (f), $30 (c), $25 (school groups) + transaction fee ($3 single ticket/$6 multiple tickets) Q&A A free Q&A session will follow Friday s performance

4 MULTI-AWARD WINNING EDINBURGH FRINGE HIT QUESTIONS THE HEART OF CONVICTION Brisbane Powerhouse presents Confirmation (UK) an absolutely compelling performance from a man who is fast becoming one of the most powerful performers in the UK. The Scotsman Thorpe and director Rachel Chavkin energetically take a liberal Fringe audience to the edge of the abyss of belief and hang them over the side in a conversation for our times. The Independent Critically acclaimed performer Chris Thorpe collaborates with The TEAM Artistic Director Rachel Chavkin to present a politically-charged theatre-experience. Confirmation makes its Australian premiere at WTF 2016 from Thursday 18-Saturday 20 February Using real-life dialogues and imagined struggles, Confirmation shines a light on the phenomenon of confirmation bias our choice to look beyond the facts and see only the evidence that proves we re right. According to co-creator Chris Thorpe, the show originated from his frustration with the current level of political discourse in the UK and additionally questioning his own liberal bias. I guess I've always been fascinated by conviction, because it seems mysterious to me. Not that I don't have deeply-held beliefs I do but because those beliefs weren't necessarily specific, burning certainties. They were more beliefs about the application of concepts. That there must be some reasonableness in every point of view, however small. So I decided to investigate how the processes that allow us to form a worldview work. The information gathering and filtering that makes daily life possible, applied on a larger scale, contains a huge potential for destruction. I decided to talk to someone of conviction. To see if it was possible to have a conscious conversation about those unconscious processes. Chris Thorpe has been at the helm of some of the most critically acclaimed productions in recent years, from the Fringe First winning The Oh F**k Moment (2011) to What I Heard About The World (2012), the Total Theatre Award and Arches Brick Award winning #TORYCORE (2012), There Has Possibly Been an Incident (2013), and I Wish I Was Lonely (2013) at Forest Fringe. Rachel Chavkin is the Artistic Director of the multi-award winning The TEAM, a New York Citybased theatre company dedicated to dissecting and celebrating the experience of living in America today. Produced by Warwick Arts Centre and China Plate. Commissioned by Northern Stage and Battersea Arts Centre. DATE Thu 18-Sat 20 February pm Turbine Studio, Brisbane Powerhouse TICKETS $39 (f), $34 (c), $25 (school groups) + transaction fee ($3 single ticket/$6 multiple tickets)

5 ANDY WARHOL FACTORY SUPERSTAR RUMINATES LOVE, LONGING AND LOSS Brisbane Powerhouse presents Penny Arcade: Longing Lasts Longer "The smartest, most quotable theatrical party in town" THE S An exhilarating, passionate plea to those who care to actually do something about it. THE STAGE "Hot and hysterically funny" NEW YORK POST After wowing audiences at the 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and winning both a Scotsman Fringe First Award and a Herald Angel Award, former Andy Warhol Factory Superstar Penny Arcade is bringing Longing Last Longer to Brisbane. The passionate rumination about the city that never sleeps will show as part of WTF16 from Thursday 18-Saturday 20 February 2016 In equal parts memoir and manifesto, Arcade s acclaimed razor sharp satire is mixed live to a euphoric music soundscape inspired by four decades of pop culture. On the themes of the show Arcade said, "You need to be able to see the alternative in order to live the alternative And what's being done now in all of the cities all over the world is removing the alternative, removing the bohemian, taking the rock and roll, the funk, the poetry right out of it. So, that's why I do the work that I do, for the young people that are coming up: I want to offer an alternative." Recruited by Andy Warhol to be a Factory Superstar while still a teenager, Arcade then spent over a decade engaged in globe hopping, performance art and international intrigue before returning to NYC. In 1990, she created her most famous work, her sex and censorship show, BITCH!DYKE!FAGHAG!WHORE! a blend of political humanism, freedom of expression and erotic dancing. After an unprecedented year run off broadway BITCH!DYKE!FAGHAG!WHORE! toured the world twice. She has created many shows at PS122 including Bad Reputation, Sunday Afternoon Tea with Penny Arcade and Quentin Crisp and New York Values, and from 1999 to 2005, with her then husband Chris Rael of indie-pop group Church of Betty, paired texts and music to create Rebellion Cabaret. A contemporary of Patti Smith and Debbie Harry, the late great Quentin Crisp named Penny Arcade as his soul mate and the woman he most identified with. She is one of a handful of artists who created and continue to define performance art. DATE Thu 18-Sat 20 February pm Turbine Platform, Brisbane Powerhouse TICKETS $35 (f), $30 (c), + transaction fee ($3 single ticket/$6 multiple tickets)

6 SISTERHOOD AND MĀORI MYTHOLOGY EXPLORED VIA DANCE THEATRE AT WTF16 Brisbane Powerhouse and Okareka Dance Company present Mana Wahine (NZ) Five extreme dancers, three choreographers at the top of their game one of the best contemporary dance performances we have seen in years. NZ HERALD Never had I seen an audience so transfixed, so attentive, so mesmerised, so moved all at the same time. THEATRESCENES.CO.NZ Three of New Zealand s best choreographers combine dance, theatre and film in the Australian premiere of Okareka Dance Company s Mana Wahine, hitting the stage as part of WTF16 from Friday 26 Saturday 27 February Inspired by the true story of Te Aokapurangi, a young maiden from Mokoia Island who single-handedly saved her people from slaughter, Mana Wahine celebrates women's power, authority and sisterhood in an all-female dance work. Following a critically acclaimed 11-venue tour around New Zealand, according to Co-Director and Choreographer Taiaroa Royal the team are looking forward to touring the show internationally. The response has been overwhelming. We are set to tour NZ again in 2016 due to demand for the work to return and we re also really looking forward to bringing the show to Australia. Audiences can expect to be moved by the spirituality of the work, the sheer energy, strength and athleticism of the all-female cast, mesmerised by the stunning audio visuals and expect their heart rate to rise from the excitement of the music. Formed in 2007, Okareka Dance Company was established to fuse contemporary dance with indigenous Māori themes and other genres to create authentic, diverse works. Led by senior performers Taane Mete and Taiaroa Royal, Okareka has become one of New Zealand s most sought after and prolific dance companies. Through choreography, set design and costume, the company strives to tell bold, spiritual stories that are of and from New Zealand. DATE Fri 26 + Sat 27 February 2015 Fri 7pm, Sat 2pm + 7pm Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse TICKETS $39(f), $34 (c), $25 (school groups) + transaction fee ($3 single ticket/$6 multiple tickets)

7 CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED DUO OF SHOWS TAKES AUDIENCES ON A JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY Brisbane Powerhouse presents BigMoutH and SmallWaR (Belgium) take a drink in and brace yourself for an unnerving, technically risky and thought provoking show I would hate to have missed it." THE S (Review of BigMoutH) poetic a sensitive, thoughtful and often beautiful response to the continuing suffering caused by war." THE TELEGRAPH (Review of SmallWaR) After touring to New York, Edinburgh, Madrid and the UK, Belgium artist Valentijn Dhaenens brings his critically acclaimed duo of shows to Brisbane as part of WTF Over rotating nights from Thursday 25-Saturday 27 February 2016, BigMoutH and SmallWaR will take audiences on a journey through history. Opening the season, BigMoutH captures the moments that spurred the masses to war as Dhaenens pays tribute to 2,500 years of oration, from the Grand Inquisitor to Socrates and Mohammed Ali through to Osama Bin Laden. According to Dhaenens the show gradually developed to have the speeches intersect and exchange with each other forming a massive go-to-war-appeal. Over the course of a year I promised myself to read at least one speech a day. Doing so, I read more than a thousand speeches that year. I tried not to force speeches to relate to one another but simply put them on stacks hoping that one day they would start communicating with each other. BigMoutH illustrates that the tricks of rhetoric have hardly changed across centuries of speech writing. One of the key moments in the development of the show came when I had just memorized the funeral oration of Pericles (around 400BC) and at night watched the television news and saw French President Sarkozy (who had just lost 10 soldiers in Afghanistan) repeating about the same words. SmallWaR shifts the focus from statesmen and commanders to the subordinates and the effects of stirring words. Set in a 1914 field hospital, through video projection multiple characters are evoked by Dhaenens. It was while performing BigMoutH that the idea for SmallWaR came to me. I really wanted to show the other side of all those speeches. I felt the urge to show people where these speeches can lead and to make something that was about the victims of those speech-makers.

8 It s set in a field hospital, but I wanted to have material from many other wars to help show whether anything has changed at all. I wanted to put it in a broader perspective. I was very attracted to the stories of the nurses because that s something you wouldn t have these days. If you read their diaries you can see them change, in a period of a few weeks, from being very idealistic to being very cynical. And I think this human side of the conflict is the thing that affected me the most. That made it possible for me to make this show. Performer Valentijn Dhaenens co-founded the theatre company, SKaGeN, one of the leading modern theatre groups in Belgium and Holland. Outside SKaGeN he has worked extensively as an actor in over 30 productions for Belgium s major companies such as NTGent, Kaaitheater Brussels and Ontroerend Goed. His international breakthrough came with his own written and directed solo-show BigMouth that has toured extensively to major festivals and venues worldwide. Producer Richard Jordan is an Olivier and TONY award-winning producer. His London-based company Richard Jordan Productions was founded in 1998 and has produced over 180 productions in the UK as well as 21 other countries, including 70 world premieres and 81 European, Australian or US premieres enjoying associations with many of the world s leading theatres and arts organisations. BigMoutH DATE SmallWaR DATE TICKETS Thu 25 + Sat 27 February 7.30pm Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse Fri 26 + Sat 27 February Fri 7.30pm, Sat 2.30pm Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse Single show $44 (f), $39 (c), $25 (school groups) Two Show Package $60 + transaction fee ($3 single ticket/$6 multiple tickets)

9 THE POLITICS OF PEACE TAKE TO THE STAGE AT WTF16 she combines performance, art and anthropology like no other artist, and that her works are an enlightening, enthralling experience for audiences. CRIKEY DAILY REVIEW - On In Spite of Myself One incident plays out from three very different perspectives in award-winning creator Nicola Gunn s new work Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster, showing as part of the WTF16 program from Thursday 25-Saturday Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster follows Gunn s sold-out Malthouse Theatre hit A Social Service. Informed by the work of American psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, using a hefty dose of activism, humour, and self-awareness, Gunn will recreate various scenarios on stage to explore how conflict can be the catalyst for personal and social transformation. According to Gunn the concept was inspired by a personal encounter while holidaying in Belgium. The idea came about early last year I got into a fight with a stranger because he was throwing stones at a sitting duck. She was protecting her eggs. I asked him if he could please stop because it was unnecessary. He told me to mind my own business, or words to that effect. I was in a foreign country and we did not speak each other s language. What ensued was an angry, abusive and physical confrontation that achieved nothing. Gunn further explains the premise of the show as an evening of enlightening entertainment in the form of controlled chaos and transformative conflict. The concept is: What if in the auditorium, all together, we create conflict? And what if we create conflict just so we can practice transformation? The objective is to use conflict as a catalyst for personal and social transformation. Commissioned by Mobile States and produced by Performing Lines, Gunn has brought together a formidable creative team of some of Australia s finest contemporary artists, including sound designer Kelly Ryall, choreographer Jo Lloyd, lighting designer Niklas Pajanti and AV design by Martyn Coutts. Nicola Gunn is a Melbourne-based live artist and performance maker. She creates work that blends participatory performance, live art, video and installation to explore the fragility of the human condition with subversive humour. Nicola has received critical acclaim for a genre of sophisticated performance: including At the Sans Hotel ( ), Hello my name is (2012), In Spite of Myself (2103) and Green Screen (2014). Tours include Wellington, Christchurch, Berlin, Dublin, Rotterdam, Edinburgh, Canada and Australia. DATE Thu 25-Sat 27 February 2015 Thu + Fri 8pm, Sat 3pm + 8pm Turbine Studio, Brisbane Powerhouse TICKETS $35 (f), $30 (c), + transaction fee ($3 single ticket/$6 multiple tickets)