You Are Here is the title of Performance Space’s first two season for 2010. The seasons of performance, dance and installation explore our place in the world, the landscapes in which we live and the times of our lives.

You Are Here is our first concept-led season in which we have brought together works across artforms which share common themes.  We’re interested in what it means to ‘curate’ a season of performance and visual art and we have asked ourselves: how do we make sense of and provide a frame for the work we present?

The works in You Are Here respond to questions about where we are located in place and time.  The title refers to both physical location but also how the world around us changes over time.

Location and place are strong threads running through You Are Here and are the main focus of our first season.  The interests of artists span from Nigel Helyer’s investigation of our immediate location at CarriageWorks, through explorations of Rosie Dennis, Martin del Amo, Mike Mullins and William Yang of  the cities in which many of us live, to the installations of Patrick Ronald and Shannon McDonell, and Alex Kershaw which consider rural environments and their ever-present place in the Australian psyche.

The first season of You Are Here coincides with the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival and we’re pleased to have programmed performances by four queer artists.  The works of Martin del Amo, Rosie Dennis, Alexandra Harrison and William Yang draw out threads of queer lives and showcase a diversity of queer voices.

You Are Here is also an opportunity for us to present the work of a new generation of performance makers.  New works by Alexandra Harrison, Alisdair Macindoe and Matt Prest and Clare Britton reward us with fresh perspectives on relationships between family and friends.

These works sit alongside four key works which frame the journeys of life by examining the marking and passing of time as defined by generations of people.  The works of William Yang, Mike Mullins, Nigel Helyer and Urban Theatre Projects are central to You Are Here because they contribute to our understanding of our location not only in place but in time.

Performance Space’s You Are Here season is distinguished from the Sydney based art collective which is incidentally also called You Are Here.  We love their work, find out more at youarehere.me.

For You Are Here we are delighted to be working with Campbelltown Arts Centre and Next Wave to co-commission and develop through residencies, Matt Prest’s new installation-based performance Hole In The Wall.

Nigel Helyer’s GhosTrain is a project in three parts which began as a series of oral-history sound works based on the Eveleigh Rail Yards, that recently aired on Radio National. Helyer’s work with Performance Space involves a leitmotiv sound installation in the CarriageWorks foyer supported by a City of Sydney cultural grant, and finally a residency with Performance Space that will result in a locative media audio-walk for the CarriageWorks site, made permanently available later in 2010 as an iPhone application.

In the lead-up to the Biennale of Sydney, Performance Space is also supporting the development and rehearsal of a Biennale commissioned performance work by Perth-based artists Pilar Mata Dupont and Tarryn Gill which will premiere at a site-specific location in Sydney. After recently premiering a full-length musical theatre work Heart of Gold at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, the artists, who practice across photomedia and performance are in the early stages of developing a narrative-based choreography for the event, working with local dancers.

In preparation for You Are Here Alisdair Macindoe, Martin del Amo, and Alexandra Harrison all had residencies with Performance Space in 2009. In much the same way, our second season of residency programming for 2010 is focused on new contemporary dance work in development for Performance Space’s future program.

DOWNTOWN
Rosie Dennis
Mon 1 – Fri 5 Mar, 6pm
{IN THE THEATRE}
$15

“… an Australian artist who found a fascinating niche between performance poetry, dance and physical theatre.”
– The Scotsman

Rosie Dennis uses a digital roadworks sign, popular science and dance to create and present a new performance that weaves together her day’s field research about the seductiveness of collective individualism and the comfort to be found with strangers. The performance will build by three-minutes each day and culminate in a premiere of the new work.

Downtown is performed at 6pm each day.  Running time of 15 minutes on Monday builds to 27 minutes by Friday. All shows are free except Friday when the ticket price is $15.

Image: Sylvia Zajkowski and Rosie Dennis

Downtown by Rosie Dennis from Rosie Dennis on Vimeo.

A version of Downtown was commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre. This project is generously supported by the Gambetta Family Community Grant.

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MY GENERATION
William Yang
Tue 23 Feb – Sat 6 Mar, 8pm
{IN THE THEATRE}
$30/$20
(Artist Talk post-show Thurs 4 Mar)

“…This is a show that nobody interested in Sydney’s recent cultural history should miss.” – Time Out

My Generation is William Yang’s story of Sydney’s artistic community from the mid 1970s to 1980s. Presented in Yang’s unique performance style – using spoken word, image and live music – this vibrant and moving work weaves together stories about the glamorous fashion events of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson; the theatrical circle of Jim Sharman, Kate Fitzpatrick and Patrick White; and the visual arts scene of Brett Whiteley and Martin Sharp. William documented this era with a camera in one hand, a glass of champagne in the other, and a smile.

Artists: Dale Holdsworth, William Yang

Image: William Yang

My Generation, William Yang – Performance Space 2010 from Performance Space on Vimeo.

My Generation is produced by Performing Lines. This project was generously supported by the Gambetta Family Community Grant.

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DARK, NOT TOO DARK
Alexandra Harrison
Wed 17 – Sat 20 Feb, 8pm
{IN THE THEATRE}
$30/$20
(Artist Talk post-show Thurs 18 Feb)

“…she takes her audience on a thought-provoking wander through personal and family stories, flights of imagination and atmospheric vignettes…”

Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald (complete review here)

Dark, Not Too Dark is about light, weight and waiting. Alexandra Harrison’s first solo dance work evokes a provocative and seductive world where the terrain of memory is slippery, glamour is faded and intimate encounters are long lost. Developed with composer Bob Scott and through Performance Space’s residency program.

Artists: Benedict Anderson, Kate Champion, Kate Davis, Alexandra Harrison, Richard Manner, Michael Pigott, Kali Reid, Bob Scott

Image: Heidrun Lohr

Dark, Not Too Dark, Alexandra Harrison – Performance Space 2010 from Performance Space on Vimeo.

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This project is generously supported by the Gambetta Family Community Grant.

POLITICS OF CHANGE
Mike Mullins
Tue 16 Feb, 6:30pm (Running Time: 2hrs)
{IN THE THEATRE}
$15

Mike Mullins – the founder of Performance Space – presents a multi-media performative lecture on the development of Australia’s contemporary performance culture from 1973 to1986. Mullins – an obsessive documenter, collector and archivist – brings together a unique collection of historical photographs, documents, newspaper articles and film footage from his personal archive to reflect upon this significant period of time that paved the way for new forms of performance practice in Australia.

Collaborators: Gerard Hindle, Keith McDougall, Sonya Parton

Image: Invasion of No-One, Orange Festival, 1985.

Politics of Change, Mike Mullins – Performance Space 2010 from Performance Space on Vimeo.

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GhosTrain is a site-specific, sonic-sculpture that engages with the disappearing memory of Sydney’s recent industrial past. Each day, at 1pm, a siren will herald the haunting approach of a steam locomotive, whose acoustic trace will pass along the axis of the CarriageWorks foyer space. Sound artist and sculptor Nigel Helyer explores the architectural heritage and social history of CarriageWorks – recognising the importance of the soundscape that once characterised the site, endeavouring to re-instate specific elements of its acoustic ecology and oral history.

Artist: Nigel Helyer

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ONE OF SEVERAL CENTRES
Alex Kershaw
Thur 11 Feb – Sat 6 Mar, 11am-5pm Tues-Sat
{IN THE GALLERY}
FREE
(Artist Talk, Sat 6 March, 2pm–TRACK 12)

Australia’s mythic ‘red centre’ is at the heart of Sydney based artist Alex Kershaw’s installation. Through performative interactions with the people who live, work and holiday within Alice Springs, Kershaw has created video engagements that reveal rituals of everyday life and the town’s disparate voices. Through acute observation and skilful use of video and sound, the boundary between truth and invention is blurred, allowing the town to be re-imagined – revealing the contradictory and changing nature of this vast and complex place.

Artist: Alex Kershaw
Sound Design: Gail Priest

Image: Alex Kershaw, Production still courtesy of artist and GRANTPIRRIE

One of Several Centres, Alex Kershaw – Performance Space 2010 from Performance Space on Vimeo.

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HABITS AND HABITAT
Patrick Ronald and Shannon McDonell
Thur 11 Feb – Wed 17 Mar, 9am – 5pm, Mon – Sat
{IN THE FOYER}
FREE
(Artist Talk, Sat 13 Feb, 2pm-TRACK 12)

Patrick Ronald and Shannon McDonell have spent hundreds of hours constructing a life-size photographic diorama of an archetypical Australian farmhouse. This immersive installation offers visitors the opportunity to interact with a constructed scene and to take a voyeuristic look into another person’s habitat. Through painstaking detail Habits and Habitat investigates cultural transfer, the connection between country and city, and the ways that the ‘bush’ continues to inform Australian culture and identity.

Image: Patrick Ronald and Shannon McDonell

Habits & Habitat, Patrick Ronald and Shannon McDonell – Performance Space 2010 from Performance Space on Vimeo.

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IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE
Martin del Amo
Wed 10 – Sat 13 Feb, 8pm
{IN THE THEATRE}
$30/$20
(Artist Talk post-show Thurs 11 Feb)

“With his unique gift for storytelling, Martin del Amo is gaining a reputation as one of the country’s leading independent dance artists.” – Dance Australia

In It’s a Jungle Out There, choreographer and performer Martin del Amo puts the city at the centre of his exploration. Darkly funny and often surreal, del Amo conjures the sprawling and disjointed nature of the metropolis through his imaginative and engaging blend of dance and storytelling with an electronic sound score composed and played live by Gail Priest.

Artists: Martin del Amo, Gail Priest, Travis Hodgson, Paul Matthews

Image: Heidrun Löhr

It’s A Jungle Out There, Martin del Amo – Performance Space 2010 from Performance Space on Vimeo.

The premiere season of It’s a Jungle Out There was produced by Campbelltown Arts Centre as part of their 2009 Contemporary Dance Program. Its development was supported by the Australia Council, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body, the Department of Art, Sport and Recreation through Arts NSW, Performance Space, University of Sydney’s Department of Performance Studies and Ausdance NSW. The remount and tour of It’s a Jungle Out There is supported by the Australia Council and produced by Performing Lines. The Sydney season is generously supported by the Gambetta Family Community Grant.

Martin del Amo is supported by Managing and Producing Service NSW – a joint initiative supported by the Australia Council and Arts NSW.

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