THE SOLOS Comes to Melbourne Fringe

Developed in collaboration with a team of established industry leaders, six members of the Weave Movement Theatre ensemble will perform their first-ever stand-alone dance explorations for 2024 Melbourne Fringe Festival audiences. 27 years in the making, The Solos offers Melbourne art lovers a rare opportunity to experience the remarkable artists behind one of Naarm’s most cherished performance groups in their premiere solo performances.

Building from their acclaimed 2023 production Sense of Place, these powerful solo works stem from the individual stories spotlit during that season. Performers Anthony Riddell, David Baker, Emma Norton, Uncle Greg, Janice Florence and Trevor Dunn will come together in exciting partnerships with highly respected artists David Woods, Leesa Nash, Michelle Heaven, Milly Cooper, Peter Fraser, Dale Gorfinkel, Zya Kane, and Tan Kang Wei to hone their craft as soloists, and bring six unique works to the stage. 

Split into two programs over four days, this premiere production offers audiences the chance to experience artists from Weave Movement Theatre in a way they’ve never seen them before. 

Program One on Wednesday and Friday features solo performances by Anthony Riddell (collaborating with Peter Fraser and Dale Gorfinkel), David Baker (collaborating with Milly Cooper), and Janice Florence (collaborating with Michelle Heaven).

Program Two on Thursday and Saturday will offer a visual and audio art installation of the late Uncle Greg’s work (curated by Zya Kane and Tan Kang Wei) and performances by Emma Norton (collaborating with Leesa Nash), and Trevor Dunn (collaborating with David Woods).

“These are original pieces from people whose stories are universal, and stem from diverse minds, bodies, and experiences”, explains Weave Movement Theatre Artistic Director Janice Florence. “They do not focus on disability but instead spotlight the passions, quirks, memory, and heart of this group of solo artists with wild imagination, a sense of the absurd, and poetry of the ordinary.”

Program One performances:

Two arms moving independently by Anthony Riddell

Anthony navigates a world where he discovers teeth marks on the sun and protozoa that could be algae or animal. He responds with body, soul, and curiosity. With shape-shifting movements that expand and implode, lines that morph into images, and utterances that travel all over the place.

Shifting Ritual by David Baker

Everyone has a ritual, doing things day by day like getting out of bed, going to work, home. For some of us there might be situations that have changed into the unknown. In ways that no one expects. Sometimes people go on to other adventures…

Shifting Ritual explores those notions - shifting from natural into abstract ways of being and moving through utilising AV, sound, and stylised movement.

A pleasant haunting by Janice Florence

A work that has grown from Janice Florence’s family story originally explored in the 2023 season, Sense of Place. Now expanded to focus on the larger-than-life childhood characters involved in her journey towards the arts in working class, immigrant, old inner Melbourne. 

Program Two:

“I don't feel pain when I’m painting or performing” - a visual and audio art installation of works by the late Uncle Greg.

A personal story of family, and of country lost and regained, by a prolific First Nations disabled artist who made art for the joy of it. 

In the forest with ocean in movements by Emma Norton

Imagine you are asleep, floating in the ocean. You may wake up alone and feel lost. Reaching out with gentle hands, you may feel afraid. So, you hold your heartbeat in your hands and remember where you come from, and what you love. In the forest with ocean in movements invites audiences to explore all this with Emma’s first solo work.

Untermensch by Trevor Dunn

A person enters a room and turns on the lights. Performed by Trevor Dunn, Untermensch is the solo journey of one man, in a room, capturing a moment in time. 

Running at Dancehouse in Carlton for a limited season, this latest production from Weave Movement Theatre is a new direction for the company. Championing and celebrating the original works of members of the ensemble, The Solos is an exciting inclusion to the 2024 Melbourne Fringe Festival not to be missed.

Launching in 1997, Weave Movement Theatre is a bold, diverse dance/theatre company comprising disabled and non-disabled performing artists. Committed to providing high level training opportunities and powerful performances, they aim to challenge conventions and subvert audiences’ expectations, paving the way for inclusive practices to become the norm. Making the stage an area for dynamic and exploratory practice - a space to challenge power and celebrate movement theatre.
 

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