Themes of destruction of land, homes and memories is at the heart of performance piece Demolish.
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Demolish will hold its world premiere at Bendigo’s Prince of Wales Showgrounds on Tuesday and features a combination of dance, theatre, lighting effects, video projections and music.
Performers complete the construction – and destruction – of a makeshift house during the performance while examining how the Australian landscape has changed since colonisation.
It was developed with the help of funds from the Regional Centre for Culture.
Demolish is the finale event for the 2018 Regional Centre for Culture program which funded more than 30 arts projects across the Greater Bednigo, Mount Alexander, Central Goldfields and Hepburn regions.
Co-creator Ken Evans said the team has been developing the project for six months
“It feels really good (to see it ready). It’s been fairly full on for six months,” he said.
“The commission came through in December and we started working with our composer, video projection artists and each of our performers to develop ideas.
“The team we have been working with, we have been working with so closely. Their input is integral to the whole process.
“To finally have it set up and to do our first run with heavy machinery felt fabulous.”
Demolish focuses on the Dja Dja Wurrung description of their landscape as “upside down”.
“When I first heard the Dja Dja Wurrang term upside down to describe their own country and land, it triggered lot of images,” Evans said.
“(Co-creator) Rebecca Russell said it’s about a conversation between a land owner and a Dja Dja Wurrang elder. It was a gentle conversation, but I threw in the juxtaposition of doing it in a demolition site.
“It evolved into being about how fragile our home is, and our existence and our tenuous grip on this planet. So we developed the idea of a house under construction and, through that, the feeling fragility.”
Demolish is on at the Regional Events Centre in the Prince of Wales Showgrounds from December 11 to 15. For tickets visit www.gotix.com.au
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