The Substation/ Lucy Guerin Inc/ Pieces 2022/
The Substation is an accessible venue.
$25 Full
$20 Concession
PIECES is an annual artist development program offering choreographers the opportunity to produce a new 20-minute performance commissioned by Lucy Guerin Inc and The Substation.
PIECES showcases exceptional contemporary artists operating outside of company structures whose work embodies risk, boldness and experimentation. It is a season that reminds us of the capacity contemporary dance has to unveil, defy and inspire.
The commissioning structure provides selected artists with resources to challenge their regular practice and dive into a singular choreographic exploration.
The eclectic program that emerges is an opportunity to gather and celebrate live performance as a vital experience.
The choreographers creating work for the 2022 season of PIECES are Melanie Lane, Amber McCartney and Rachael Wisby.
Premiering this December, PIECES 2022 is a co-production by Lucy Guerin Inc and The Substation.
Commissions include:
Into the Woods by Melanie Lane
Into the Woods treads between fact and fiction, tragedy and horror. Fragments of historical records from the Middle Ages are extrapolated and re-configured into an imagined future. In collaboration with visual artist Tianyi Liao (Shanghai).
Content Warnings
Includes descriptions of violence
Creative Team
Choreographer/Performer: Melanie Lane
Artistic Collaboration: Sara Black
Video Animation: Tianyi Liao
Music: Ludwig Van Beethoven, Positive Centre, Guillaume de Machaut
Costume Design: Melanie Lane
Text: Victor Hugo, Raisa Kröger
Special Thanks
QL2, Belconnen Arts Centre, Chris Clark, Amélie Langevin and Raisa Kröger.
Roses by Rachael Wisby
(this is me imagining things)
“She descends without falling”
References
Ballet as Ideology: Giselle Act II – Evan Alderson
Dawn – Octavia Butler
Recollections of my non-existence – Rebecca Solnit
Orwell’s Roses – Rebecca Solnit
What Killed Giselle? – Marian Smith
Reworking the ballet: Counter Narratives and Alternative Bodies – Vida L. Midgelow
Giselle by the Bolshoi Ballet theatre (SOURCE)
Choreography As a cenotaph: The Memory of Movement – Gabriele Brandstetter
The Red Shoes – Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Content Warnings
Haze and partial nudity
Creative Team
Choreographer/Performer: Rachael Wisby
Composer: Rachel Lewindon
Costume Designer: Hailey Scott
Script Writer: David Bitzer
Special Thanks
I would like to thank everyone at LGI and my collaborators for their generous support of this work. I would also like to thank Phillip Adams and Temperance Hall for their ongoing support of my choreographic research. Thank-you too to my partner Nasim Patel for asking the hard questions like “where are you going with this?”
Tiny Infinite Deaths by Amber McCartney
The maggot will be your guide through the in-between. Don’t take anything with you, remove your jewellery, watch and unzip.
Content Warnings
Contains loud sounds and horror themes.
Creative Team
Costume Designer: Andrew Treloar
Composer: Makeda Zucco
Special Thanks
Lucy Guerin, Estelle Conley and the LGI staff, The Substation, Tom Willis, Zsusza Gaynor Mihaly, Andrew Treloar, Makeda Zucco, Hailey Scott, Alex Winter, Sam and Ruby Giles.
ARTIST TALK
There will be an Auslan interpreted artist talk following the performance on Friday 16 December 2022.
CONTENT WARNING
This performance includes loud sounds, horror themes, descriptions of violence, partial nudity and the use of haze.
ACCESS
This event is wheelchair accessible and gender neutral accessible toilets are available. Seating will be provided.
This performance contains spoken word. The performance on Friday 16 December will be Auslan interpreted by Auslan Stage Left.
The duration of the performance is approximately 75 minutes without interval.
The Substation galleries, bar and bookshop will open one hour prior to the performance. Latecomers will not be admitted.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Co-curators: Lucy Guerin and Brad Spolding
Choreographers: Melanie Lane, Amber McCartney and Rachael Wisby
Dancers: Sara Black
Lighting Designer / Production Manager: Tom Willis
Stage Manager: Zsuzsa Gaynor Mihaly
Producer: Estelle Conley
Tickets/
Presented by The Substation and Lucy Guerin Inc with thanks to the continued support of PIECES from the City of Melbourne.
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Related/
Pieces 2019
Pieces will showcase bold new contemporary dance works by the next generation of Melbourne’s independent choreographers. This December, artists Sarah Aiken, Siobhan Mckenna and Geoffrey Watson will present unique and exciting new works in a six-show season at The Substation. This triple bill will shift our existing notions of dance in unexpected ways by providing resources for artists to challenge their regular practice and execute their most daring ideas.
Pieces is an evolution of LGI’s annual Pieces for Small Spaces, a co-production of LGI and The Substation supported by the Angior Family Foundation. LGI has also been supported by Creative Victoria, the City of Melbourne and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Artists:
Sarah Aiken is a Melbourne based performer, choreographer and teacher originally from Bellingen NSW. Through solo and collaborative practice, Sarah’s work investigates authorship, scale and the self, looking at the roles of audience, performer, subject and object and connecting tangibly with audiences, to consider performance as a site for empathy & exchange.
Siobhan Mckenna is a performer and choreographer based in Melbourne, Australia. Upon graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts (2016) she was awarded the Choreographic Award for showing outstanding potential through her work Petri-Dish. In 2018, Siobhan’s work Utterance won the Best Dance Award and the Temperance Hall Award for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Geoffrey Watson is a Melbourne-based practitioner, whose work is rooted in dance and has branches in wearable design, text, lighting, robotics and sculpture. Geoffrey advocates for an ever increasing state of confusion in the already confounding landscapes of art, history and beauty; producing work that glances skeptical at reality from the corner of a crowded room.
Presented by The Substation and Lucy Guerin INC.
Pieces 2021
PIECES is an annual artist development program offering choreographers the opportunity to produce a new 20-minute performance commissioned by Lucy Guerin Inc and The Substation.
PIECES showcases exceptional contemporary artists operating outside of company structures whose work embodies risk, boldness and experimentation. It is a season that reminds us of the capacity contemporary dance has to unveil, defy and inspire.
The commissioning structure provides selected artists with resources to challenge their regular practice and dive into a singular choreographic exploration. The eclectic program that emerges is an opportunity to gather and celebrate live performance as a vital experience.
The choreographers selected for the 2021 season of PIECES are Michelle Heaven, Lee Serle, and co-choreographers Harrison Hall & Andrew Treloar.
PIECES is a co-production by Lucy Guerin Inc and The Substation, co-curated by Lucy Guerin and Brad Spolding.
Please note, the performance on Friday 10 December will include an artist talk with Lucy Guerin. This talk will be Auslan interpreted.
Commissions include:
MICHELLE HEAVEN
Michelle Heaven presents a new 20-minute contemporary dance performance titled The Value.
It is something that we see in all kinds of places, in all kinds of shapes, doing all sorts of things … Sharyn and Dana will try and show you how to look at the thing.
Creative Team
Choreographer/performer: Michelle Heaven
Performer/collaborator: Caroline Meaden
Composer: Darrin Verhagen and Kayden Verhagen
Lighting designer: Rob Sowinski
Creative collaborator: Ben Cobham
Costume supervisor: Jenni Langford
Secondment: Janelle Tan
Special Thanks
bluebottle, Janelle Tan, Marlo Cobham, Lucy Guerin Inc and The Substation
HARRISON HALL AND ANDREW TRELOAR
Harrison Hall and Andrew Treloar present a new 20-minute contemporary dance performance titled Surprise, Surprize.
… a misshapen creature of hacks … isn’t really well defined, but it sounds so … have said or heard it … of terminals prowling about in the dark making their … noises.
Creative Team
Choreography by Andrew Treloar and Harrison Hall with Sarah Aiken and Claire Leske
Band: Rory Tiganis-Hannan, Jonah Grant, Jason Lambrou and Will Larsen.
Cosplay Artist: Roberto Arias
Special Thanks
Lucy Guerin Inc and The Substation
LEE SERLE
Lee Serle presents a new 20-minute contemporary dance performance titled Working Title.
For the past six years choreographer Lee Serle and visual artist Mateo López have been collaborating on a range of projects presented and exhibited at MASSMoCA and The Drawing Center (USA), Museo de Arte de la Universidad National de Colombia, and Bodega Piloto (Colombia) and Zoukak Theatre (Lebanon), creating across disciplines to create installations, live performances and films.
Creative Team
Choreographed and performed by Lee Serle
Visual art and design by Mateo López
Sound composition by Alisdair Macindoe
Lighting design by Rob Sowinski
Special Thanks
Brad Spolding, Michaela Coventry, Lucy Guerin, Estelle Conley, Mateo López, Alisdair Macindoe, Jake Shackleton, Lucy Guerin Inc and The Substation
CONTENT WARNING
This performance includes the use of haze.
