A hypersensory journey for the curious and the bold that explores music, film, dance, performance art, sound and light, Supersense is a cutting-edge new festival that marries the renegade with the classic throughout Arts Centre Melbourne from 7 – 9 August 2015.
Curated by globetrotting performer Sophia Brous in collaboration with the Asian Performing Arts Program, Supersense foregrounds musical and artistic traditions exploring ecstatic experience and transformation from both at home and around the world. From the euphoria of Eastern trance ceremonies to the frenzies of modern punk and stroboscopic cinema, the festival will transform Arts Centre Melbourne’s stages, back rooms and hidden spaces into zones of rapture and collective experience.
“Supersense turns Arts Centre Melbourne inside out, making some of our hidden spaces cauldrons of creativity,” says Claire Spencer, CEO Arts Centre Melbourne. “It’s unlike anything we have ever presented before, and we look forward to throwing open the doors to the adventurous and the creative-minded to experience our spaces in a whole new way.”
Local and internationally celebrated artists who feature include LA’s Ariel Pink, legendary German electronic artist Ash Ra Tempel/Manuel Gottsching, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and the premiere of Gurrumul’s radiant new concert Gospel Songs.
Commissioned works by John Cale featuring Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) and Michigan electronic artist Laurel Halo plus Discreet+Oblique: The Music of Brian Eno featuring a cast of acclaimed artists including Australia’s ethereal improvised trio The Necks also feature as part of the program.
The immersive film installation Hypnosis Display by cult American songwriter Grouper and filmmaker Paul Clipson will also be featured and industrial electronic duo HTRK will join forces with Melbourne’s own Chunky Move in performance.
Other artists to feature in the unique programme include legendary punk matriarch Lydia Lunch’s Retrovirus, American avant jazz guitar icon Marc Ribot, China’s sublime Tao Dance Theatre (in a co-presentation with Chunky Move) and the extraordinary Kuda Lumping, an extended ritual trance music and dance ceremony performed by the people of Mount Ukir, Indonesia, under the direction of Gideon Obarzanek (founding director, Chunky Move).
“Supersense is an emporium for ecstatic experience, a durational festival-as-theatre that will fill audiences with wonder,” says Sophia Brous, Curator and Artistic Associate at Arts Centre Melbourne. “It is a space to be curious and intrepid, to come see a legendary icon and then discover an entire world of sounds and traditions that are heart wrenching, extreme, profound and joyous.”
“I am so very excited to step into this transformed environment and feel the impact of all the performances together with so many others in a program that could only happen in one of the great creative cities in the world.”
The Supersense festival takes place over three days running 7 – 9 August 2015 at Arts Centre Melbourne. For more information, visit: www.artscentremelbourne.com.au for details.
Image: Gurrumul (supplied)