LIVE DREAMS: ANCESTRY - LIVE ON-THE-LINE

LIVE DREAMS: ANCESTRY - LIVE ON-THE-LINE   

Curator
Nisha Madhan (Basement Theatre, Aotearoa)  

STREAM HERE

Works that channel forgotten, stolen or repressed creativity through remembering one’s ancestry.

Duration: 2 hours 

This event will be available on-demand until Midnight Sunday 31st Oct 2021. Purchase a ticket to access the password for this event.

Artists 

Forest V Kapo (Bendigo, Victoria)
Dusted 
A conversation between myself and my ancestors, and the ancestors whose land I reside on, becomes the canvas of renegotiation from where we discuss the impacts of migrancy, indigenity displacement and home. With the human need for flight,'we' slip stream, between the present and the past- A past that often feels like a burden to carry in present time yet is the birthplace of heroic risks and transcending opportunities. With sound and poetics, with images and installation, is it possible to lay down without fuss new stories around belonging?

Marc Conaco (New Zealand)
SYOKES: Mahiwagang Chorvalyn (Magical Ephemera)
What does pre-colonial Bisaya queer identity look like in the future? What would our future look like if we reclaimed our powerful birthright as ritual specialists, healers and culture bearers? What does it look like for us to mindfully centre our joy and magic, despite trauma?

Collaborators:
Louie Bretana (artist)
Dennis Sayat (fashion designer)
Magic and Diesel (performers)

Arjunan Puveendran (Sydney)
Mrityu
This interdisciplinary work is centred on how we come to terms with 'mrityu', the Sanskrit word for death (and a cognate of the Latin word 'mort'). It draws on personal discomfort in grappling with funerals and a fear of losing loved ones, juxtaposed with Hindu philosophy where death marks the soul seeking detachment from the body. Mrityu explores this paradox: death as a moment of tragedy whilst also a pathway to release us from bondage to earthly suffering, through a distinctive merging of music, movement, ritual and spoken word.

Collaborators:
Choreographer - Amrita Hepi
Development Dramaturgs - Victoria Spence and Jiva Parthipan

Raina Peterson (Melbourne)
Maya

Morgan Hogg (Sydney)
Māmā
Māmā is one of a two-part series named Ariki Vaine. The work is a collage of a Cook Island dance reflecting the story and importance of mother nature. Narrated by my mother, the video creates a conversation toward future generations and the importance of cultural lineage to represent our ancestors. Women in my family have been vital models in my upbringing, and Māmā displays a graciousness toward the leaders of our culture. The work engages with the disconnection of being biracial, and the cultural language barrier between our heritage and understanding oneself. Additionally, dance is an ode toward our connection to Mother Earth, the video layered with visuals of nature within the islands reflecting the movements of the dance. Overall, the work aims to educate the audience upon the importance of cultural lineage and hold onto the cultures that are being lost through a colonised world. 

Amit Noy (New Zealand)
A Big Big Room Full of Everybody’s Hope
‘A Big Big Room Full of Everybody’s Hope’ is a performative imagining in three parts. Created by an intergenerational triad of family members that span from Aotearoa/New Zealand to Israel/Palestine, the work includes a wrestling with the Holocaust’s afterlife, a queer (as in strange) re-imagining of George Balanchine’s 1957 ballet ‘Agon’, and a song for the future from a young person living with OCD. How can we love the bad object? How do we reside at the crossroads of many stories? What elephants are we living with, and how can we welcome them in?

Collaborators: Maytal Noy, Belina Neuberger (co-creators and performers)

Jahra Wasala and Ooschon Masseurs (New Zealand)

In 2020, global events created enormous instability and uncertainty for experimental practice. In response, Performance Space created Live Dreams, a new platform for artists to share works-in-progress and ideas in development in a dynamic and responsive environment. Taking place both in physical space and online, Live Dreams enables artists and audiences to continue connecting with each other across borders and geographic space. Live Dreams has offered us an exciting glimpse into current developments in experimental art, and has been a crucible for experimentation and conversation.

Performance Space has expanded this program as part of Liveworks 2021, inviting four Guest Curators from across the Asia-Pacific to theme each stream with powerful provocations as we navigate the turbulence of our current moment. 

All LIVE DREAMS events will be live streamed on Vimeo, and embedded on our website. All the events in the LIVE DREAMS Series will be available on demand for 7 days after they air, through our digital experimental art channel LIVE ON-THE-LINE.

Access: 50% visual content