Projects.
The Dream Index
Production Year: 1998
A performance spectacle of haunting beauty, searing images and operatic dementia. Performative mathematics, random acts of violence and irrational slippages from pedestrian routines. Conversations with the collective unconscious via Freud, Jung, Dali, and Breton, with the Lieberstod aria from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde a recurring leitmotif. German operatic constructions of love, death and transfiguration collide with a surreal Australian experience of beauty, pathos and strangeness.
"Version 1.0 is a confident manifestation of a new initiative springing up despite a limited number of training grounds for young performing artists."
Caitlin Newton-Broad, City Hub
Production Notes
The Dream Index is a study in image, a prototype for paradox. How does one create an index of dreams? How can the fluid subjective fantasy align and be reconciled with the formatted objective? Can mathematics be surreal? Can dreams be deconstructed in terms of logic? And how can the dream be represented in the moment of performance, with the inescapable presence of the real human body?
Thus The Dream Index is an experiment, a meditation on form and content. It has been realised by the collated visions of the version 1.0 network in a short, intensive period. A whirlwind of dinner parties and arguments. Conceptual and choreographic maps developed over four weeks and overlayed onto bodies in four days. A nightmare indeed. That The Dream Index has anything resembling coherence and beauty is a tribute to the tireless dedication of all concerned. I thank you for your faith and a licence to mine your dreams.
- David Williams, version 1.0, June 1998
Preludes and Fugues: 14 unspeakable acts in the theatre
Production Year: 1999
Production Notes
With Preludes and Fugues we had an interest in investigating the line between performing and non-performing, between invisibility and presence, and also to exploring the notion of performance as task, i.e., a series of things that you do onstage. This investigation stems from my experience of watching performance and finding the stagehand the most watchable performer. Theatrical convention supports the fiction that the stagehand is invisible (or somehow unworthy of being viewed), hence the full-length blacks, the changes that occur in darkness or semi darkness. But of course they are really visible. What makes stage technicians so watchable is their (absolute) focus on the task at hand - to be completed as efficiently as possible so as to exit the performing area quickly and retreat to the comfortable safety of the wings or the green room. We wanted to dispel this fictional invisibility and place the technician squarely on the stage under the gaze of the audience. But how does one set about to make a performance from this?
I assembled a working group of performers who also work regularly in a technical capacity and over the last four weeks we have been trying to find a performative frame for these notions. What we have found ourselves performing is a strange "choreography of labour" - real work in real time. What we had not anticipated is that it would become so comical. We have ended up with a deadpan minimal slapstick, somewhere between the Marx Brothers and Gravity Feed. In a sharp contrast to the frenetic energy of Where the garment gapes, the action of Prelude and Fugues is often simple to the point of stillness, but somewhere in the gaps and gazes between the performers and the task at hand we have found a strange pleasure.
- David Williams, version 1.0, September 1999
This production premiered at the Sidetrack Theatre, Marrickville, on September 25, 1999.
Where the garment gapes
Production Year: 1999
Production Notes
Between April 1786 and January 1790 Mozart collaborated with Lorenzo da Ponte to produce three operas - Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan Tutte - which have become close to the heart of Western high culture. Mozart responded to the libretti's increasingly single-minded concerns with female moral frailty by using the full force of his compositional virtuosity to represent women rendered helpless by their own desire. These erotic cameos are striking similar to the basic stuff of the glossy images that our culture seeks to marginalise in an act of chronically transfixed fascination. Whilst what we call pornography provokes this systemic confusion of rejection and preservation, Mozart's music is generally thought to transcend all such moral ambiguity, and even all dramatic exigencies, in its absolute expression of universal human nature: Cosi fan tutte indeed! The implicitly violent idea that women must fall victim to sexual flattery by virtue of their nature, and its articulation by means of the most beautiful music, renders such moments deeply unsettling and provocative.
Cosi fan Tutte is indeed an unsettling opera. The libretto's overt misogyny, and its treatment of the notions of fidelity and romantic love still provoke a strong response from modern audiences. The opera is largely without context, and the characters behaviour is never explained - for instance it passes without comment in the libretto that the women cannot recognise their fiances in fancy dress!
It is particularly the finale of the opera that captured our attention. At the conclusion to the opera, there is the obligatory "happy ending". This is a comedy, after all. But the wedding which provides the conclusion of the opera is ambiguous - the libretto does not specify exactly who marries whom. Is it conceivable that all of the characters marry each other in random pairings? Or to take a position of absurdity, that man marries man and lives "˜happily ever after"? It is from the notion of interchangeability inherently present in this scene that particularly suggests the idea of the "generic lover" - around which we have constructed this performance. We have created a performance spectacle in which all of the roles and performers are interchangeable, where actual and performed identity is constantly in flux. Any role in the opera, or in the theatrical performance devised from the opera, can be and is performed by any member of the group, or even occasionally assigned to inanimate objects. Anything or anyone can be positioned as the object of desire, or to use Barthes' term, "the love object".
Where the garment gapes is an experiment in creating an engaging performative critique of an operatic narrative. Through this performance we have attempted to illustrate this operatic narrative through a number of methods of representation, both textual and musical, while simultaneously generating a series of interludes which provide commentary on the source material and on the performative act itself. Of primary concern throughout this piece is the pleasure of the audience. Stylistically, we would position the work of version 1.0 somewhere between Frumpus and The opera Project, while acknowledging our enormous debt to the performance making strategies of Christopher Ryan, with whom all of us have worked at some point. Thanks to all of you, and I hope you enjoy our small contribution to the culture.
- David Williams and Jane Parkin 1999
A menacing comedy of interchangeable desire, identity crisis and gender trouble. Mozart’s morally ambiguous opera Cosi Fan Tutte is savaged by aesthetic terrorists whose sweating bodies penetrate the gaps in the operatic product.
Where the garment gapes… is an hilarious and irreverent reconstruction of Cosi Fan Tutte utilising the musical abilities and demonstrating the idiosyncratic physical language and abstract imagination which are the hallmarks of version 1.0's rapidly evolving style - highly energetic, visually stunning innovative live performance. Combining physicality, musicality and textual deconstruction, version 1.0 seeks to create an exciting theatre of synthesis, collapsing false distinctions between theatre, dance, performance art and opera.
The work weaves together disparate notions of disposable fashion, interchangeable identities, voyeurism, sexual violence, and pedestrian fascism into a provocative reading of Mozart's morally ambiguous chamber opera Cosi Fan Tutte. Created by David Williams in collaboration with performers Damon Young, Jane Parkin, Angie Macnevin, Keith Kempis and Chenoeh Miller, this work was initially developed during a creative development residency at The Centre for Performance Studies, Sydney University.
This production premiered at PACT Centre for Emerging Artists on 4 June, 1999.
The second Last Supper
Production Year: 2001
Production Notes
A performance in three courses
TAKE. EAT. THIS IS MY BODY. THIS IS MY CAB SAV. DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE.
If there were a drug to make life meaningful, it wouldn't be on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Is armed struggle possible when the cricket's on?
Some of us expected to witness a revolution in our lifetimes. Should we still wait?
A group of strangers arrive at a mysterious corporate dinner nominally commemorating the 2000th anniversary of the Last Supper. They adopt the names of Apostles, and fuelled by endless glasses of red wine and a three-course meal, transform global capitalism into religion in a Last Supper of seductions, treachery, slapstick, hypocrisy and violence. Traversing the ideological terrain of the New Right, best management practice, revolutionary nostalgia, millennial anxiety, and the grand empty spectacle of the Sydney Olympics, The second Last Supper unflinchingly probes the ethical dilemmas of the moment. Hilarious, sobering, provocative and poignant, The second Last Supper is truly surprising and unforgettable performance.
Production History
April 2001
Performance Space
Sydney
Questions to Ask Yourself in the Face of Others
Production Year: 2003
Production Notes
Is it possible to be innocent after experiencing the history of the world?
We started with a hostage situation. We started with questions of action and apathy. Suddenly there was too much action, and it was out of control. The work changed. The world changed.
Adam and Eve have lost control of the wheel, driving through fire to reach the Garden of Eden. They arrive late to find a burnt out ruin, populated by ghosts. The airwaves are saturated with information that streams past their eyes and filters through their pores, evoking hysteria, hilarity and fear. They appeal - in the best sense of TV courtroom drama - to be set free. How should their crimes be punished? The audience will decide...
Production History
30 May 2003
Performance Space
Sydney
Development Residency
February - June 2002
Performance Space
CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident)
Production Year: 2004
Production Notes
The TV news deadline has passed, Senator Faulkner. You can turn away from your theatrics. (Senator Brandis, CMI inquiry transcript page 1582)
I did not hear the question; I was engaged offstage, I have to say. (CHAIR, CMI inquiry transcript page 1542)
When it comes to theatre, there's nothing quite like a Senate inquiry. And when it comes to politics, there's no-one else making theatre like version 1.0, hailed as “a refreshing new vision in performance” (RealTime), and “challenging and hilarious” (Sydney Star Observer). Put the two together and you have CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident) an edgy performance devised from the transcripts of the Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident, the inquiry into the children overboard scandal.
CMI explores the “children overboard” lies, the real tragedy of SIEV-X, border panic hysteria, the failure of the political process, asking fundamental questions at the intersection between the personal and the political. In CMI six acting Senators wrestle with their wills, their words, their politics and each other, aided and abetted by multi-channel video and real time lie detection software. The Inquiry talks the talk that numbs the intellect and paralyses the body’s capacity for outrage.
CMI is a public act of outrage, a staging of outrageous acts, a guided tour along the treacherous border separating cool heads from icy cold rage. CMI is heartbreaking and hilarious, a horribly funny tragedy.
Production History
26 March-11 April 2004
Performance Space
Sydney
13-17 October
2004 Performance Space
Sydney
19-23 October 2004
The Street Theatre
Canberra
The Wages of Spin
Production Year: 2005
Production Notes
A performance about freedom, democracy and the War on Iraq
With clever subversive wit, The Wages of Spin provokes a closer examination of the issues at the core of the controversy surrounding the “intelligence” reports that were the deciding factor in Australia’s involvement in the war in Iraq. This is political theatre version 1.0 style - playful, surreal, visceral and tragic, with no easy answers. While the production’s subject is serious, the treatment is often hilarious. version 1.0 have again produced a show that successfully subverts, whilst never ceasing to entertain.
Audiences can expect to be shocked and horrified at the reality of war and the manipulation of truth, and in the very next moment, laughing at the irony of the media’s obsession with pop star Delta Goodrem’s ‘suffering’ and ‘trauma’ caused by her relationship ‘crisis’. The production’s meticulously researched script re-examines Senate Committee proceedings, often cheekily using the Hansard transcript verbatim as a theatrical device that leaves audiences asking: What should we believe? Further provoking the audience to question the authenticity of information, and the ‘word’ of those in power, is the productions clever re-contextualization of official public documents, television interviews and even raves from columnists and bloggers. The Wages of Spin is designed to engage the audience critically with the issues and ask: “Does it matter that we went to war on a lie?”
Production History
20 May - 5 June 2005
Performance Space Sydney
20-30 July 2005
The Street Theatre Canberra
National Tour 2006 with Mobile States
Produced by Performing Lines
From A Distance
Production Year: 2006
Production Notes
A performance exploring Australian identity as defined through sport
From a distance, all we can assume is Sally misjudged when she reached 100 per cent of her ability
Steve Lawrence, WAIS
From a distance, to give up is almost very un-Australian
Cathy Freeman
In the 2004 Athens Olympic women’s eight rowing final, Sally Robbins stopped rowing. The media frenzy, and the discussion of national identity that followed were the starting points for this work. This performance is not about Sally or her team-mates, but about the reaction to their story in the Australian media. Of particular interest was the notion of ‘un-Australian’, a term repeatedly used to describe those involved in the ‘no row’ incident. What is it to be ‘un-Australian’? Using media transcripts and commentary on the ‘no row incident’, version 1.0 investigate Australian identity as defined through sport, probing the dark side of sport and nationalism with disturbing and frequently hilarious results.
Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue
Production Year: 2007
Production Notes
At AWB we promote and demonstrate clearly that our business affairs and operations are at all times being conducted legally, ethically and in accordance with the highest standards of integrity and propriety. This is a fundamental principle of AWB’s operations and business affairs.
AWB Corporate and Code of Conduct Policy
$290 million in bribes was paid to the regime of an evil dictator on the eve of war. Why? Government ministers and Australian Wheat Board executives all struggled to remember exactly what went on, but no one is too sure… The 8,500 pages of transcript of the Cole Inquiry into the ‘wheat-for-weapons’ scandal have been transformed into provocative, innovative and entertaining theatre by version 1.0, the team behind the acclaimed The Wages of Spin.
It’s time to kickback the kickbacks.
WINNER: SPECIAL PANEL AWARD FOR INNOVATION, 2009 DROVERS AWARDS FOR TOURING EXCELLENCE
NOMINATED: BEST TOURING DESIGN, 2009 DROVERS AWARDS FOR TOURING EXCELLENCE
NOMINATED: BEST INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION, 2007 SYDNEY THEATRE AWARDS
Production History
24 April 2009
NORPA
Lismore City Hall, Lismore
30 April - 2 May 2009
Jetty Memorial Theatre
Coffs Harbour
7-9 May 2009
Civic Theatre
Newcastle
13-16 May 2009
Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre
20-23 May 2009
Illawarra Performing Arts Centre
Wollongong
29 May - 30 May 2009
Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre
2 June 2009
Civic Theatre
Orange
5 June 2009
Westside Performing Arts Centre
Shepparton
10 June 2009
Portland Civic Hall
13 June 2009
The Capital
Bendigo
18 June 2009
Horsham Town Hall
August 24- September 8, 2007
Performance Space @ Carriageworks
Sydney
The Bougainville Photoplay Project
Production Year: 2008-2011
Production Notes
WINNER: ‘MISE-EN-SCENE’ IN THEATRE (ALTERNATIVE & HYBRID PERFORMANCE CATEGORY), 2010 GREENROOM AWARDS
NOMINATED: OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION IN THEATRE (ALTERNATIVE & HYBRID PERFORMANCE CATEGORY), 2010 GREENROOM AWARDS
NOMINATED: BEST INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION, 2009 SYDNEY THEATRE AWARDS
A slideshow with fireside chat
1. An eminent Australian orthopedic surgeon makes a series of trips to Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) during the 1960s, just as the era of Australia's colonial mandate is drawing to a close. The doctor is presented with dozens of crippled children and lepers; his operations allow many of these people to walk for the first time.
2. The giant Panguna copper mine is established against the wishes of Bougainville's traditional landowners. Environmental destruction is caused by the mine, and the struggle for Bougainville to become independent of PNG leads to a brutal civil war during which roughly one in ten of the island's inhabitants die.
3. An Australian academic begins fieldwork study of reconciliation ceremonies on Bougainville in the current period of post-war reconstruction. He carries with him a book of photographs.
Three narrative threads are delicately interwoven in an intimate, moving, and constantly surprising monologue performance from acclaimed performance group version 1.0. Combining field notes, oral history, slides, Super-8 film, video installation and the display of various artifacts, The Bougainville Photoplay Project grapples with the ethical, epistemological and practical dilemmas of making art and conducting research in post-colonial, post-conflict settings, particularly when the artist/researcher is a citizen of the former colonial power. This is politics and performance at its most personal.
Production History
31 March - 2 April, 2011
Ten Days on the Island
Earl Arts Centre, Launceston
9-28 November, 2010
Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney
12-15 August 2010
Arts House, Melbourne; toured by Mobile States
18-20 August 2010
Browns Mart, Darwin Festival; toured by Mobile States
25-28 August 2010
Brisbane Powerhouse; toured by Mobile States
2-5 September 2010
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts; toured by Mobile States
13-31 October 2009
Old Fitzroy Theatre, presented by Tamarama Rock Surfers
6 September 2008
Performance Space at Carriageworks
9-11 February 2008
The National Multicultural Festival
The Courtyard Studio
Canberra Theatre Centre
27 April 2007
UTS Gallery, Sydney
February 2006
Mori Gallery, Sydney
July 2005
ADSA Annual Conference
Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga
THIS KIND OF RUCKUS
Production Year: 2010
Production Notes
version 1.0's THIS KIND OF RUCKUS is an alcohol-fuelled, techno-beat driven performance about sexual violence in contemporary culture. Accompanied by stunning video imagery, THIS KIND OF RUCKUS explores the forming and wrecking of relationships, patterns of control, and cycles of abuse. Relationship counseling sessions, dance floor seductions and personal tales of sexual violence, are blended with commentary on recent high-profile sexual assault scandals involving rugby league players to create a confronting, unsettling and deeply compelling performance.
WINNER, BEST VISUAL OR PHYSICAL THEATRE PRODUCTION, 2010 HELPMANN AWARDS
THIS KIND OF RUCKUS premiered at Performance Space at Carriageworks on 3 September, 2009.
seven kilometres north-east
Production Year: 2010-2012
Well-crafted with clever use of video and live song, Vercoe gives an engaging performance, building the show slowly to its emotional conclusion, prompting a few tears and plenty of after-show discussion in which Australian parallels didn’t escape notice.” Jo Litson, The Sunday Telegraph
Production Notes
WINNER: THE PEACE TRUST AWARD 2012, ADELAIDE FRINGE FESTIVAL
NOMINATED: BEST INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION, 2010 SYDNEY THEATRE AWARDS
seven kilometres north-east is a performance work from version 1.0's Kym Vercoe (performer) and Sean Bacon (video artist), exploring the discomforting entanglements of place, tourism and atrocity.
The work was triggered by a visit to the famous Mehmed Pasa Sokolovic Bridge, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 2008. Completed in 1571, this bridge forms an historical link between east and west, made famous in Nobel-prize winning author Ivo Andric's novel The Bridge on the Drina.
The nearby Vilina Vlas Spa Resort in Visegrad was recommended in a tourist guidebook, and so Vercoe checked in. The visit was a great success, filled with tourist adventures and slivovitz-fuelled conversations with locals. Upon returning home, Vercoe discovered to her horror that certain facts about Visegrad had been omitted from the tourist guidebook. The travelogue shifts, turning to a darker reflection upon how places bear traces of the atrocities that occur within and around them, the unspeakable and unbearable acts that current residents are only too happy to see erased or obscured. Drawing upon journal notes, the writings of Ivo Andric, tourist guidebooks, correspondence with guidebook editors, and transcripts from the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, seven kilometres north-east is an evocative and deeply personal political performance.
Performance History
22 February - 4 March 2012
Main Theatre, Adelaide College of the Arts
Adelaide
April 20 - 21 2011
MESS Festival
Sarajevo
Bosnia
September 29 - October 16 2010
The Old Fitzroy Theatre,
Woolloomooloo
A Distressing Scenario
Production Year: 2010
Everything I Know makes for a playful tilt at the way in which the language of the so-called experts is filtered, sorted and appropriated. It’s funny and free of po-faced finger-pointing. The second part (The Market Is Not Functioning Properly), made by the documentary performance company version 1.0, is a more gripping and personal statement. Jason Blake, Sydney Morning Herald
Production Notes
In 2007 it began. "Toxic debts" caused "credit crunches" requiring "massive bailouts". Governments gave us "decisive action" and "stimulus packages". It was an emergency -- we needed to spend our way out of trouble. The system was to blame. Corporate greed was to blame. Irresponsible lending practices were to blame. A few rotten apples were to blame. Capitalism was to blame. No one was to blame.
A time of prosperity came crashing to a halt, and as ordinary citizens, none of us really understood why. Two acclaimed performance groups, version 1.0 and post, have set out to find the answer. Two teams of extreme economic non-experts have boldly tackled what few could ever comprehend-- the Global Financial Crisis.
Be prepared to laugh, learn, and ultimately understand: something.
World premiere season:
Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir St
25 November - 19 December 2010
The Disappearances Project
Production Year: 2011 Touring: 2012 - 2013
“...it’s a work that lingers in the mind and some of its impact is derived from our own fearful projections, the inevitable “what if”. But The Disappearances Project is also a quiet plea for action that could help so many in this scarcely imaginable predicament: the inflexible application of privacy laws, bureaucratic inertia, the lack of a dedicated channel for these kinds of inquiries in welfare and mental health services … spare, beautifully crafted and moving work…" JASON BLAKE, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
"...Those are some of the issues raised by Australian company Version 1.0 in this verbatim show that offers a collage of the experiences of Australians who have been left behind by the disappeared. Making its European premier as part of the Brighton festival, the hour-long static show delivered by two actors - Irving Gregory and Yana Taylor, both superb - who sit facing the audience. The piece displays a frozen quality, its form mirroring the emotional state of those talking about the people they love, there one day and gone the next."...."the sense of dread is enhanced by Paul Prestipino's haunting soundscape in which the sound of dripping water mixes with creaks, scrapes and rasps” LYN GARDNER, THE GUARDIAN
Production Notes
NOMINATED: BEST INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION, 2011 SYDNEY THEATRE AWARDS
When a person goes missing from a small community the effect can be devastating and wide-reaching. When their disappearance remains unsolved many years later, the effects of prolonged not-knowing are agonising. Tracing the trajectories of hope, anger and grief over years of police investigations in a range of unexplained disappearances, version 1.0 explore the effects of long-term missing persons cases on family members and communities. Following the journeys of those left behind in the wake of disappearances, The Disappearances Project explores the search for both lost loved ones and for the pieces of shattered lives. An intimate new work from the Helpmann Award-winning performance group version 1.0.
Production History
4 - 6 May 2013
Brighton Festival 2013
Brighton Dome Studio Theatre
New Road, Brighton, UK
20 - 21 July 2012
The Arts Centre
135 Bundall Rd
Surfers Paradise QLD
18 July 2012
Centre of Contemporary Arts
96 Abbott Street
Cairns QLD
16 July 2012
Burdekin Theatre
161 Queen Street
Ayr QLD
16 July 2012
The Events Centre
20 Minchinton St
Caloundra QLD
9 - 10 July, 2012
The Empire Theatre, Toowoomba
56 Neil Street
Toowoomba, QLD
3 - 6 July, 2012
Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts
420 Brunswick Street
Fortitude Valley, QLD
22 February- 4 March, 2012
Main Theatre, Adelaide College of the Arts
39 Light Square Adelaide
26 - 30 July, 2011
Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia
Presented by Perth Theatre Company and version 1.0 inc.
19 April-7 May, 2011
Track 8, CarriageWorks
Presented by Performance Space, CarriageWorks and version 1.0 inc.
8-9 April, 2011
Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, Bathurst
The Table of Knowledge
Production Year: 2011 - 2012
The play is often wildly funny, so improbable is the mire of greed and lechery, and yet every laugh is another nail in the coffin of the council’s probity ... This is vital, engaging theatre that serves an invaluable function in helping to purge the canker.
John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald.
Production Notes
A Merrigong Theatre Company and version 1.0 co-production
In February 2008, the Independent Commission Against Corruption began investigating allegations of corruption involving local developers and former staff of Wollongong Council, an investigation termed ‘Operation Atlas’. The resultant scandal had reverberations far beyond expectations, suggesting entanglements with members of the NSW State Government, and culminating with the sacking of the entire Council. The ICAC investigation exposed sexual obsessions, envelopes full of cash, and a secret cabal of powerful men that met regularly around a plastic table outside a local kebab shop, described by them as the "table of knowledge". version 1.0 turns its forensic theatrical vision onto the Inquiry transcripts and the media reportage of this scandal, to produce an entertaining and informative interrogation of power, corruption and good governance in contemporary Australia.
Performance History
13 - 24 March, 2012
Bay 20, Carriageworks
245 Wilson St Eveleigh
10 - 14 April, 2012
Gordon Theatre, Illawarra Performing Arts Centre
32 Burelli St, Wollongong
30 August - 20 September, 2011
Gordon Theatre, Illawarra Performing Arts Centre (IPAC)
32 Burelli St, Wollongong
The Tender Age
Production Year: 2012
Production Notes
a version 1.0 and Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) production
On 29 July 2009, a 14-year-old girl was given an on-air lie detector test on a live Sydney radio program. Clearly agitated, the girl announced that she had been raped when she was 12. This infamous incident has been used to examine changes in the way young people engage with sex and sexuality. The rapid advances in communications technology, the proliferation of pornography and the depiction of sexuality as power are changing young people's attitudes to sex. How do young people negotiate these conflicting messages?
In a social media-saturated performance space, The Tender Age examines the contradictions in the way society educates young people about sexuality, and the ways in which young people themselves negotiate relationships framed by social technologies. Devised and performed by a mixed ensemble of artists from version 1.0 and the Australian Theatre for Young People, The Tender Age is eye-opening, gut-wrenching, and utterly compelling theatre.
Production History
August 22 - September 1, 2012
Bay 20, Carriageworks
Redfern
The Vehicle Failed To Stop
Production Year: 2011
Production Notes
Premiere season October 10 - 26 2013, Carriageworks
In October 2007 Marou Awanis, 49, and Geneva Jalal, 30 were shot dead on a busy Baghdad street by contractors from Australian company Unity Resources Group when their car allegedly "failed to stop". Their deaths dragged Australian companies into a furious international debate on the ever-increasing role of private contractors in war zones, a highly controversial development in Iraq and other theatres of the so-called War on Terror. version 1.0 use this incident as a starting point for a wide ranging performance investigation of war and commerce, and the implications of this for our democracy.
The Major Minor Party
Production Year: 2012
Production Notes
World Premiere Season: Canberra Theatre Centre, May 29 - June 1 2013
The Major Minor Party explores the rise of the ACT-based Australian Sex Party. Founded in 2009 by Fiona Patten and Robbie Swan of the Eros Association, an adult-industry lobby group, the Australian Sex Party has now contested three elections, winning enough votes in the 2010 Federal election to feel confident to declare themselves "the major minor party" in Australian politics. In a political climate increasingly dominated by religiously-affiliated minor parties such as Family First or nationalist parties such as One Nation, this performance charts the colourful emergence of the Australian Sex Party, as they expose hypocrisy, relentlessly fight against censorship, host brothel open days, and take visiting dignitaries on guided tours of the porn industry. Densely interweaving irreverent hilarity and sobering seriousness, The Major Minor Party is a wild and eye-opening ride through the Australian political landscape.