Melbourne's Next Wave Festival 2014 Announces Cutting-Edge Performances

Unfolding in Melbourne from 16 April - 11 May, 2014, Next Wave Festival 2014 is a city-wide, month-long celebration of cutting-edge arts and culture from around Australia and the globe. Darebin Arts' Speakeasy presents a season of Next Wave Festival 2014's brightest artists, including a new opera inspired by human interactions and a contemporary dance re-telling of the Indigenous folklore around the four winds of the Torres Strait.

"In 2014 Next Wave celebrates its 30th anniversary and Darebin Arts' Speakeasy is proud to present some of the most exciting and ambitious new works in Australia at our iconic performance venue Northcote Town Hall," said Beau McCafferty, Arts Programming Coordinator at Darebin Arts.

Dubbed a 'yogic disco', Deep Soulful Sweats by Bec Jensen and Sarah Aiken on Thursday 24 April is an immersive, all-in dance project that is equal parts spiritual and physical workout. Traversing yoga, interpretive dance, aerobics and culminating an all-night dance party, audiences are invited to literally excorcise through exercise.

In Deep Soulful Sweats, everyone is a participant in this yoga class come dance party. No yoga or dance experience necessary, Deep Soulful Sweats is loaded with unexpected twists and turns: harness your chakras and set up your 2014 Next Wave Festival adventure with this curious mix of yoga and dance fantasy discotheque.

On arrival participants are given a hand-held LED light, divided into elemental groups (Air, Water, Earth, Fire) based on their star sign, and assigned an elemental ambassador. Sarah Aiken (Air), Rebecca Jensen (Water), Janine Proost (Earth), and Natalie Abbott (Fire) bring with them a collective wealth of experience as performers, makers and teachers of contemporary dance and yoga.

Terminal by Dylan Sheridan Thursday 1 - Sunday 11 May is a contemporary opera, in which composer and artist Sheridan explores ideas of genetic memory, recurring dreams and the relationship between personal and collective health. In this opera there is no singing; rather the sound world is comprised of delicate interactions between live and pre-recorded sound.

Scored for two performers and featuring live electronics, this work follows an everyman (percussionist Matthew Horsley) who wakes into his own dream world in order to confront 'The Rat' (performed by dancer and actor David Maney), a symbol associated with both disease as well as the ability and will to survive.
Inspired from fragments of the composers' personal dream diary, the opera unfolds like a graphic novel in a series of vignettes.

It is this sound world which informs the narrative - not the other way around. Sounds and timbres from the percussionist's performance at each stage of the dream are recorded and mixed into the electronic soundscape and used to suggest and inform the direction and following stage in the narrative. As such, the performer is both creating and trapping himself in his own dream labyrinth.

Torres Strait Islander, choreographer, and dancer Ghenoa Gela weaves a choreographic tale of the four Winds of Woerr, the mystical winds that dictate the seasons and, in turn, life on the Torres Strait from Tuesday 6 - Sunday 11 May.

Before the Torres Strait Island people learned of seasons, knowledge of time came from the elements: from the Four Winds of the Torres Strait Islands. The Four Winds - Kuki, Sager, Naigai, Ziai - told the seafaring people what to hunt, when to plant, when to harvest and even when a family member passed away.

Ghenoa Gela, an emerging choreographer and proud Torres Strait Islander woman, is yearning to tell her families stories on stage. Although she grew up on main land Australia, Ghenoa was fortunate to learn her culture from her parents and family through Traditional Torres Strait dancing and family gatherings.

Throughout Next Wave Festival patrons will uncover 'signature scents' of the Festival in an olfactory exhibition Smell You Later curated by Katie Lenanton from Thursday 1 - Sunday 11 May. Secreted into corridors, passageways, bathrooms and other unexpectedly fragrant locations, this scent-based project will transform Northcote Town Hall into an unexpected perfumery.

Scent has the power to unlock - and create - memories and associations with events, people, places or moments. With Smell You Later, curator Katie Lenanton is attempting to generate new scent memories for Next Wave patrons, who will become unwitting scent ambassadors, disseminating the Festival's signature fragrance across Melbourne.

As audiences experience different performances and exhibitions across the duration of the Festival, they may also begin to recognise distinctive odours in the air and associate these with the memories of their Next Wave experience.

Occurring every two years, Next Wave Festival 2014 spans 28 days and features the work of 239 artists. Next Wave will unveil an exciting and experimental season of never-before-seen art projects that have been created especially for the Festival and will enliven Melbourne's theatres, galleries, laneways, beaches, rivers, the side of Trades Hall, gardens, private homes and bathrooms.

Deep Soulful Sweats: Peaks of Phantasm is playing at Northcote Town Hall, 189 High Street, Northcote 7pm, Thursday 24 April, 2014 Tickets from $15.

Terminal is playing at Northcote Town Hall, 189 High Street, Northcote 6:30pm, Thursday 1 - Sunday 11 May, 2014; 4:30pm, Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 May; 8:30pm, Saturday 10 May. Tickets from $15

Winds of Woerr is playing at Northcote Town Hall, 189 High Street, Northcote 7:30pm, Tuesday 6th May - Sunday 11 May, 2014; 5pm, Saturday 10 May; 3pm, Sunday 11 May. Tickets from $12. Developed with the support of MAPS NSW, Australia Council, ArtsNSW and Performing Lines.

Smell You Later is based at Northcote Town Hall and various venues around Melbourne from Thursday 1 - Sunday 11 May, 2014. Cost is free!

For tickets and more information www.darebinarts.com.au/programs/speak-easy or call 03 9481 9500.

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