Kicking off on October 18, Liveworks returns to Carriageworks with some of the most experimental and innovative art and performance from across Australia and the Asia Pacific region. Since its first iteration in 2015, Liveworks has set the tone for boundary pushing work that avoids being confined to a singular genre or medium. This year, the program includes two major commissions and a range of works that will challenge who we are and where we are today.
xhe, a collaboration between Daniel Kok and Miho Shimizu, was co-comissioned with the Esplanade and Performance Space and draws the audience into a quest for a person that is neither he nor she, nor it. This five hour durational performance allows for a wealth of interpretations, but with an eye to concepts of fluidity and movement.
Indonesian dancer Rianto has composed the second commission, an international collaboration between Performance Space, Esplanade, National Kaohsiun Centre for the Arts and deSingel Internationale Kunstcampus. Rianto brings Lengger, a cross-gender Javanese dance, to Carriageworks to open up questions of freedom in-between manhood and womanhood.
Performance Space CEO and Artistic Director Jeff Khan highlights how these works fit underneath the banner of Liveworks’ theme ‘bodies at the edge’: “we hope that this year’s performances will highlight the important role of the body as a powerful agent of change.”
Works from locally-based artists include Uncanny Valley Girl by artist Angela Goh. A blend of performance, text and sound, the work has been developed with Melbourne producer CORIN and questions whether our ultimate fear is not the rise of the machines, but the rising up of the female body. Collective Applespiel present Return to Escape from Woomera, and invite audiences to play the original videogame, Escape from Woomera, alongside refugees, human rights advocates and the original game’s creators.
During the ten days of Liveworks, Carriageworks itself will be reinterpreted by collective 110% and a series of workshops and talks will run throughout. Day for Night returns for a queer club night to close the program on October 27.
Overall, describes Khan, “this year’s program invites you inside the work: to immerse yourself, to dance, embrace a stranger, play games, contemplate mortality, engage in conversation and wonder at the vastness of the universe.”
Tickets are on sale now, book and browse the full program at http://performancespace.com.au/events/liveworks-2018/