Set inside a hidden walled garden in Callan Park, Rozelle, the site-specific work of Inner Garden delves into the depths of the imagination exploring the crevices of the mind and the shape of our obsessions. As audience members enter a space inhabited by dancers, musicians, sculptural installations, plant life and historic architecture they are immersed in the performance.
“This isn’t sitting in a concert hall, the performance is happening all around you,” says Artistic Director, Tess de Quincey. “Once you enter the Inner Garden you’re surrounded by artists and dancers doing strange, beautiful things and telling the stories of their own obsessions and past.”
Inner Garden is a multi-disciplinary performance installation combining de Quincey’s sculptural choreography with an immersive sound design of Robbie Avenaim, Jim Denley and Kraig Grady.
Evocative installations and costumes (Tom Rivard & Katja Handt) and lighting (Sian James-Holland), come together to create an imaginary environment, including a mountain made of tables surrounding an eight metre high palm tree in the centre of the garden. Inner Garden’s dancers inhabit all the nooks and crannies of the historic site.
The site itself has a long history of human interaction. From the foreshore middens of the Eora peoples to Australia’s first purpose-built ‘enlightened’ lunatic asylum, from an overcrowded place of incarceration to a future of creativity and possibilities, the current site of Sydney College of the Arts offering a unique perspective on our city’s story.
Inner Garden continues a series of site-specific works created by De Quincey Co including Dictionary of Atmospheres in Alice Springs and most recently the acclaimed Box of Birds as part of the Performance Space 30th celebrations at Carriageworks.
Inner Garden
Sydney College of the Arts, Park Drive, Callan Park (Rozelle)
Season: 6 – 8 February 2014
Bookings: www.dequinceyco.net
For more information, visit: www.dequinceyco.net
Image: courtesy of De Quincey Co