Special Edition of LIVE DREAMS Will Be Presented by Performance Space and Carriageworks

Following the premiere season of LIVE DREAMS at Performance Space's Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art 2020, Performance Space and Carriageworks are thrilled to present a special edition of LIVE DREAMS in May 2021.

Curated by Performance Space-Australia's leading experimental arts organisation- LIVE DREAMS brings artists and audiences together in new, dynamic and responsive ways. LIVE DREAMS is a series of curated performance events across three nights; DESTROY, RECLAIM, and REVEL. This innovative platform allows the artists to present ideas- and works-in-progress, and test them with live audiences. In coming to LIVE DREAMS, you can witness the creative process first hand, getting a glimpse into current developments in experimental art, and engage in a conversation about their next steps.

Taking place both in a physical theatre space at Carriageworks, and streamed live online, LIVE DREAMS, on 14th, 15th, and 16th of May, enables artists and audiences to continue connecting with each other across borders and geographic space. Hosted by Maeve Marsden, audiences will have the opportunity to pose questions and ideas to the artists in real time, and engage in a transformation of their works' next steps.

"The events of the past year have reshaped the world and caused many artists to rethink how and why they create work. LIVE DREAMS offers artists an opportunity to test these new ideas with generous, engaged audiences, and for those audiences to directly experience the creative process. LIVE DREAMS is an exciting glimpse into current developments in experimental art, and we are excited to be continuing this program throughout 2021." expressed Jeff Khan, Artistic Director and CEO of Performance Space.

Each evening presents a fresh new line-up of artists hailing from across Australia and the Asia Pacific, representing a diversity of practice, form, world view and career evolution. Curated under three themes that speak to the chaos and hope of our present world, the 14th May sees DESTROY; Works that seek to dismantle current norms and systems, exploding ideas of what is, so that it can no longer be. The 15th May presents RECLAIM; Works that reconstruct spaces and ideas that have been lost, dismantled or stolen, or that propose what should exist instead. The final evening, the 16th May, offers a chance to REVEL; Works that delve deeply into unbridled and unapologetic pleasure and joy, feasting on ideas of indulgence and prosperity.

DESTROY

Live Dreams: DESTROY brings together six striking works-in-progress by experimental artists from Victoria, Adelaide, Sydney, Philippines and Newcastle. The artists of Live Dreams: DESTROY seek to radically destabilise the present in a bold re-visioning of the future. Some of these works seek to overthrow colonial and patriarchal systems and present counter narratives to the dominant culture. Others re-map the body and ecology as sites of knowledge, and reinstate cultural, corporal and ancestral heritage. Across an evening of performances, presentations and provocations, Live Dreams: DESTROY interrogates the potential for art to dismantle in order to incite eruption and reckoning.

In an arresting dialogue between the artist and her Areeshi ancestral plant, Maissa Alameddine explores the burden of inheritance and transfer of heritage in the complexity of the migrant experience. Gabriela Imrichova disrupts colonial modes of being in the world to propose counter-intuitive offerings around our notions of progress, hope and linear temporality. Several works in Live Dreams: DESTROY draw on the body as site of knowledge and disruption: Jennifer Greer Holmes powerfully draws on lecture, karaoke and moving-image to collide personal experience W social narratives about PTSD and body-trauma. Via an autobiographical, trans feminine homage to Julia Serano and 60s French pop singer Gillian Hills, established interdisciplinary artist Bianca Willoughby draws parallels between the denial of cultural and ancestral heritage and the denial and reclamation of the trans body. Fusing the corporeal and the ecological, Bunny Cadag offers transgender perspectives on environment and nature, and seeks to re-evolve dominant culture understandings of nature and nurture. And through irreverent comedy, audience participation, rosary beads and a bag of dildos, Janie Gibson dismantles historicised narratives of sexual taboo and repression to open space for possibility, pleasure, power and sex-positivity.

The first of three streams in the Live Dreams series, Live Dreams: DESTROY interrogates the dismantling of the status quo and all that we might leave behind.

RECLAIM

Live Dreams: RECLAIM brings together six dynamic works-in-progress by experimental artists from Sydney, Perth, Hong Kong, Canada and Northern NSW. Collectively, these works reconstruct spaces and ideas that have been lost, dismantled or stolen, or that propose what should exist instead. Whether reclaiming language, decolonising cultural and power structures, or resetting our relationship with our bodies and the environment, this collection of performances and presentations explores how we can create a more equitable, joyful and sustainable world through the radical intervention of artists' visions.

From Jamaica Moana's reclamation of Maori language and lineage to Shana O'Brien's powerful invocation of her connection to ancestors and Country, several of the Live Dreams: RECLAIM artists unravel colonial systems and assert new narratives of sovereignty and culture. Victoria Hunt and Moe Clark continue this conversation by rematriating feminist and queer knowledge into contemporary Indigenous practice; while AñA Wojak, working with Cloubeard, reclaims the power of the ageing trans body through the lens of their decades-long performance practice. Elsewhere, Too Close to the Sun take on themes of wildness and extinction, inviting us to rethink our relationship with the environment, and Elysa Wendi and Rhiannon Newton weave together choreography and multi-sensory storytelling to unpack their experiences as women shaped by the cultural contexts of South-East Asia and Australia.

Live Dreams: RECLAIM offers insight into the future directions of performance, resetting our relationship with the past to explore remarkable new futures.

REVEL

Live Dreams: REVEL brings together 6 innovative artists traversing the landscape of elation. The artists from Sydney, Melbourne and Indonesia delve deeply into unbridled and unapologetic pleasure and joy, feasting on ideas of indulgence and prosperity. Showcasing works in progress the artists create encounters that reverberate feelings of humour, calm, connection, exhilaration and victory. The evening of performance and presentation will explore moments of deep euphoria, showing us that the act of revelry can be the strongest form of dissent.

Ryuichi Fujimura's humorous, poignant and sincere reflection on a contemporary dancer's life-where recognition is limited and the reward is small-asks the fundamental question, 'why perform?'. Ande Cunningham's self-proclamation of trans body euphoria celebrates the transitioning body's small victories and skirmishes that are in fact, life-saving affirmations. The conversation continues with Deden Bulqini, Sandra Fiona Long and Heliana Sinaga's work Love Coach, in which the artists explore how human programming of a robot's mind can emulate and produce the human experience of attachment and love. This exploration of the human/machine relationship is echoed in Sophie Penkethman-Young's video installation, which unpacks the techno-psychology of waiting online and the calming effect that loading bars, animations and spinning wheels can have on a person. Gary Carsley will perform raucous alternative narratives, wittily and wilfully disrupting established historical accounts and cultural norms whilst Samia Sayed delves into the world of the women who take over the ordinarily male-dominated space of car burnout culture.

Live Dreams: REVEL parades ideas of pleasure as political and delights in dissent, offering us an alternative to the chaos.

Performance Space and Carriageworks will continue to provide a clean and safe gathering space, and implement all health measures outlined by the NSW Government at the time of the event.

For full program details as they are announced visit https://performancespace.com.au/programs/current-programs/live-dreams-may/

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