14 June 2022

Geese at the Courtyard Studio

| johnboy
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This has crossed my desk and will be of interest to some of you, particularly as it features some of Canberra’s most alluring women:

Come to Shadow House PITS’ new production of GEESE: An exciting non-traditional blending of dance, drama, music and ritual.

I have attached a short press release concerning GEESE.

We have been very fortunate to have Hanna Cormick working on the show. She recently was in Bali studying mask and movement and working with the children (now old men) of the Balinese dancer who performed in front of Artaud and was influential in Artaud’s “theatre and its double” theories. Our production incorporates this same Balinese dance.

You can access our workshop video which features some of it being workshopped:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdllD3zifo

Much of the production is actually spoken in French (with subtitles featured). This was necessary to depict some of the flavour and cultural nuances of the French existential philosophies which underpin the work. Even the Butoh elements in the show come back to Artaud’s work. Butoh co-founder Tatsumi Hijikata was very influenced by Artaud and in many ways Butoh was the logical extension of Artaud’s thought.

Five of the cast of seven have had considerable work in Butoh over the years. Jack Spahr (also a Drama teacher in the ACT has had some years of workshopping and performing Butoh with Chenoeh Miller. Ali McGregor also worked with Chenoeh and with Zen Zen Zo in Brisbane and had training in Japan. Hanna Cormick has incorporated years of experience with different movement styles including Butoh and Anna Voronoff has performed in Asia as well as in major Australian capitals over the past fifteen years.

GEESE is very much a theatre of ritual and making the “invisible visible”. From Jewish rituals of the Shabatt to the cremation rituals of Bali, GEESE will provide much to discuss, consider and dream about.

In developing the production, I found a striking similarity in Artaud’s thinking to that espoused by Mao through his cultural revolution. For more discussion on this point, see:

http://www.shadowhousepits.com.au/revolutionary%20suicide%20and%20the%20shedding%20of%20culture.htm

Please have a look at the attached release. The production is not a traditional work and it will provide a unique experience to glimpse an unusual synthesis of styles within a kind of surrealist structure. This said, the Brechtian notion of theatre set against an historical backdrop is very strong. Older people who remember the times of the Moratorium marches and the cultural / political activities of those times in the late sixties and early seventies may well recognise some of the sentiments and action of the play.

GEESE will play at The Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre at 8.00pm April 26 – 30 and at 1.00pm April 28 and 29.

From more info, please see:
http://www.shadowhousepits.com.au/whatsnew.htm

geese screenshot

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Waiting For Godot11:21 am 20 Apr 11

Who plays John Travolta’s role and who plays Olivia’s part?

I’d pay the cost of admission to know what the hell they are on about.

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