St Kilda Tales: A Performance Rave was inspired by real people who live around the vibrant suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne, where the writer and various members of Ranters Theatre have lived for a number of years. But while the St Kilda milieu inspires the production, St Kilda Tales is not an attempt to represent St Kilda on the stage; in fact St Kilda’s heterogeneous community is the springboard into a contemporary urban ritual. The project is entirely non-representational, and utilises the anarchic energy of the performers in an organic framework to explore and celebrate the complex diversity of urban life. St Kilda Tales strips away literary excesses, theatrical conventions and technical distractions to create a unique experience for the audience.
NTRO Output Category
- Original Creative Work : Textual work
Place
Melbourne, AustraliaVenue
Theatre Works - Explosives FactoryNTRO Publisher
Victorian Theatre Company & The Brisbane Music FestivalMedium
Writing for TheatreResearch Statement
Research Background – St Kilda Tales: A Performance Rave is a reworking of a previous script that investigates intimate encounters of characters within an epic form around St Kilda at the turn of the millennium. It incorporates text, music and dance into a continuously moving picture
Research Contribution – St Kilda Tales: A Performance Rave is a play that is representative of Australian postdramatic theatre of the everyday. It develops theatrical dramaturgy and dramatic action by focusing on the minutia of everyday encounters with music and dance. The play presents an absence of conventional theatrical conventions and signposts, such as character, plot, or representational space and time. St Kilda Tales: A Performance Rave utilises language that focuses on the immediacy of the everyday encounter, with an emphasis on choreographic and musical principles of construction. The work requires ten actors to be on stage within a contiguously moving world that incorporates the audience in a living experience.
Research Significance – As evidence of the significance of St Kilda Tales: A Performance Rave is that it premiered as part of the season with the Victorian Theatre Company in collaboration with the Brisbane Music Festival for a sell-out season. The text has been made available in Australia by Australian Plays Transform and has been well reviewed and documented.Size or Duration of Work
2 hours duration
