With extraordinary achievements, award-winning works and outstanding critical responses, Arts House is a consistent champion of Australia’s significant experimental performance artists, presenter of genre bending art forms and founder of Dance Massive and the Festival of Live Art (FOLA).
From February all Arts House spaces (North Melbourne Town Hall, Meat Market and The Warehouse) will be bursting with artists testing and adjusting, editing and re-editing, in that glorious, and sometimes terrifying rush, of presenting a work for the first time.
Angharad Wynne-Jones, Arts House Creative Producer explains that Arts House is one of Australia’s most critical players in the development of contemporary arts practice, “We start 2015 and our next decade with the explosive next chapter of Dance Massive featuring over 80 artists in nine shows including seven world premieres.”
For Dance Massive 2015, Arts House have curated nine of the most exciting and diverse works in Australian contemporary dance right now, including Rawcus’s focus on cataloguing the array of diverse bodies, Vicki Van Hout’s creation of new choreographic language exploring the oldest living culture on the planet and Phillip Adams’ investigation into queerness – all of the works reveal the ignition points and fault lines of our cultural landscape.
As well as a stellar line-up of contemporary dance artists, there will be two initiatives that support the creation of great new works – the National Indigenous Choreographers Residency led by Jacob Boehme and Mariaa Randall; and the eXchange 2015, initiated by Leisa Shelton, which brings together three Australian and three Taiwanese dance-based artists.
In May, Arts House will feature an exciting Autumn quartet of works that encourages deep listening – these include post’s controversial Oedipus Schmoedipus; two works developed through Arts House’s CultureLAB: a Melbourne premiere from Tamara Saulwick (Endings) and a world premiere from Kate Neal (Semaphore); and our pick of last year’s Next Wave Festival, Matthias Schack-Arnott’s Fluvial.
Through support from the Australia Council Early Career Residency initiative, Arts House Season 1, 2015 will also feature Bek Berger’s finely curated Supper Clubs that will enliven conversations and industry practice including the first discussion on Debriefing and rethinking after the Australian Theatre Forum on Tuesday 10 February 2015.
For more information, including complete program, visit: www.artshouse.com.au for details.
Image: Fluvial, Matthias Schack-Arnott – photo by Jesse Hunniford