Our homes are the sets where highs and the lows of life are played out.
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The home literally forms the set in a new performance from the Regional Centre for Culture which explores the rapid and violent change that took place during the Goldrush.
Performers will construct and then tear down a homestead in the Bendigo Showgrounds as part of a narrative which questions what the landscape that is our home means to us.
Director Rebecca Russell said she was inspired to create the show with designer Ken Evans after living on Dja Dja Wurrung country for nearly 10 years. Driving through the landscape she began to wonder about the effect of European settlement on the people who had lived there for 60,000 years.
In her hometown of Clunes Ms Russell saw gold celebrated, but began to realise there were stories that hadn’t been told.
With Mr Evans she hopes to challenge viewers to think about something they had never thought about before.
“It felt important to us to actually make something that’s a bit hard hitting,” Ms Russell said.
“There’s so much going on in the world at the moment, we felt like we needed to come up with something that was actually going to say something.”
Russell says she is surprised at the power the piece has to connect with people of all social groups.
The ideas of demolition, consumption, development, technology, and the real cost of our food and water tap, into many a modern worry.
“I feel as though there are themes in this show that actually resonate with people in this contemporary life,” Ms Russell said.
View Demolish at the Bendigo Show Grounds from Wednesday December 12 to Saturday December 15.
More information at: russell-evans.com/demolish-dec-2018.html
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