PQAU23
Leading next year’s Australian Contingent (PQAU) will be the talented and highly accomplished artist and designer Jacob Nash. knowN for his ongoing work with Bangarra Dance theatre as well as his stunning interventions (as lead designer for Sydney Festival and elsewhere), Jake will share his wealth experience and perspective as a First Nations artist.
“As a First Nations Australian designer I am continually decolonising theatre spaces and creating performance spaces that culturally respond to the story being told”.
PQAU23 will be an installation that speaks to how Jake interprets Country and creates landscapes for live performance. Working with collaborators, Jennifer Irwin and Steve Francis, the work will bring together some of the most iconic design elements from Bangarra’s repertoire to create a space that talks to the ancient stories held within First Nations culture in Australia and EXPLORES how they exist in a contemporary form when not on country.
This space will not be a space for performance but one that holds the memory of performance, Country and culture. Audiences will be able to walk within this scared space, not as observers, but as participants exploring the space where ancient and contemporary culture collide.
Dark Emu - Bangarra Dance Theatre
Jake will also be working with students from the VCA to develop (in collaboration with QUT, NIDA and WAAPA) a work for the Student and Emerging Designer exhibit. Jo Briscoe (VCA) will be heading up the student contingent and well as acting as curator for Countries and Regions. Anna Tregloan will remain involved until the end of the year as will producer Erin Milne (Bureau of Works).
The vision for PQAU23 is greatly assisted by the support of:
WE ARE WORKING ON THE LANDS OF THE GADIGAL PEOPLE AND THE LANDS OF THE Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung PEOPLES. WE PAY OUR RESPECT TO THESE PLACES, PEOPLES AND CULTURES.
PQAU19
WORKS
THE GUISE OF THE SOLO PERFORMER
In 2015, the Australian exhibition considered the results, implications and evidence of action by the masses and featured works where differing senses of accumulation were core. For 2019 we are taking a different tack. Rather than works that are energised by drawing numerous individuals into a single dream, this year we focus on individuals that radiate outward. Performers who largely stand alone on stage while their created worlds revolve around them.
The solo performer. The one who stands vulnerable but fearless. A nucleus that the event unfolds around, or so it would seem. In fact (and of course) it takes a village.
Our four key works, CARRION, REPATRIATE, THE RAPTURE AND THE SECOND WOMAN, have performance artists who demonstrate courage and staggering originality smack in their centres. Through putting their own person as the crux of the work they are able to embed a politic and communicate it in a quintessentially individual way. In quite different ways each also works their physicality in concert with design to achieve an integrated form. In these works costume, mask and physical space are not an exterior facade. It is only through collaboration with a village of other artists, designers and composers that the performance becomes.
REPATRIATE
Performer Latai Taumeopeau and Filmaker Elias Nohra’s Work Repatriate considers the issue of climate change with regards to vulnerable pacific island nations, specifically the threat of forced dispossesion and displacemnet. As a tank slowly fills with water, Taumoepeau dances the colective vocabulary that she has learnt from various Pacific Island Nations, articulating body parts which are encircled with yellow flotation devices in the manner of Pacfici body adornments. The dance is distorted as the infaltables become buoyant. Strugglin to maintain the choreography, the artist is eventually submerged and drowns.
First presented as part of' ‘24 Frames’ and Carriageworks, 2015
Latai Taumeopeau - Co-author, Producer and Performer
Latai Taumeopeau is a Punake