Spotlight Residency: Brittany Plummer
Chameleon; April/July 2019
Work in development: Throughout her Spotlight Residency, Britt will be collaborating with Hew Parham, as Director, and Ben Brooker, as Dramaturg, to shake up original work Chameleon that Britt devised and performed in for its premiere season at Adelaide Fringe 2019. Britt, and her creative team, will be turning the piece on its head and delving further into the world of the Bouffon. Bouffon is a way of shining a light on the injustices in society, the lead up is slow burning, and then the message lands strongly. Chameleon was created with the desire to rouse social change around men’s attitudes towards women, sexism, and harassment women encounter in the workplace, in relationships, and wider society. The ways we adapt, and mould our selves to meet other's expectations; changing our behaviour, appearances, and masking of emotions, to blend in, and sometimes survive. Chameleon is a personal piece for Britt, as all stories are her own. It is a conversation, a celebration of women, authenticity and embracing our individuality.
Britt Plummer is an actress, theatre-maker, teacher, and director of FRANK. Theatre, she is a graduate of the Adelaide College of the Arts, and École Philippe Gaulier in France. In 2018, Britt founded FRANK. Theatre, a SA company presenting original work that explores the human condition with honesty, humour, and heart. Specialising in bouffon, clown, and vaudevillian styles, Britt is driven by theatre rooted in the realms of pleasure, play, and connection with the audience. Britt has worked with Monski Mouse Productions, Foul Play, Punctum, Early Worx, Slingsby, Five.Point.One, ActNow, and State Theatre Company of SA. Britt is a teacher of Le Jeu, Neutral Masque, Mask Play, Bouffon, and Clown, to acting students at the Adelaide College of the Arts. In 2018, she directed students in a Bouffon show in Paulo Castro’s ‘La La Luna’. Britt premiered ‘Chameleon’, her first solo work, in the 2019 Adelaide Fringe Festival at MakeSpace, and received the Adelaide Fringe Weekly Award for Emerging Artist. In March 2019, she worked with Punctum on the immersive durational theatre work ‘Public Cooling House at WOMADelaide. In June 2019, Britt joins the London cast of the Edinburgh Fringe hit, Flabbergast Theatre’s ‘The Swell Mob’, presented by Adelaide Festival Centre as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
Freerange Residency: GIRL
Masc; May, 2019
Work In Development: Masc will be a sonic event, an electronic song cycle and a live experimental sound performance that responds to the following provocations: How do we forge a sonic template for queerness? How does a non-Masc body exist in that space?
GIRL is an Australian-based queer music and live performance project by Jason Sweeney and Em König in collaboration with LGBTQI+ comrades. These artists formerly known as Winter Witches seek to amplify queer sonics and bent gestures into a world gone normal. Their work to date spans live art concerts, art DJ duo (Vegan Festival, Wild Style, Laneway Festival, Adhocracy) and sound art installation/performance. Their first major work, Sentients, was commissioned as part of the Vitalstatistix Climate Century Festival in 2018. As a live art project, GIRL continue to tour across Australia. Their new work, MASC, is being developed with support from Adelaide Festival Centre, The Mill, The SUBSTATION, pvi collective and Performance Space in 2019.
Freerange Residency: Tobiah Booth Remmers
Damaged Goods; June, 2019
Work in Development: Damaged Goods is a solo research project that explores the frailty and unpredictability of being human. Through metaphor and imagery the work will delve into the experience of living and surviving in a world that sometimes throws everything at you, and at other times leaves you completely alone. It will search through ideas of endurance, vulnerability, unknowingness and revelation in an attempt to make some sense of this continuing journey.
Tobiah is a freelance dance creator, performer, teacher and facilitator from Adelaide, Australia. Since graduating from the ‘Adelaide College of the Arts’ Bachelor of Dance Performance in 2009 Tobiah has worked with a wide range of Australian and international artists; Garry Stewart (ADT), Graeme Murphy (Sydney Dance), Branch Nebula, Brink Productions, Larissa McGowan, Lina Limosani, Gabrielle Nankivell, Paul Gazzola and Paulo Castro among many others. Tobiah has performed in major arts festivals; Adelaide Fringe Festival, Adelaide Festival, Brisbane Festival, WOMAD, Dance Massive (VIC), Dublin Dance Festival and has performed at the Barbican Centre, London. Tobiah has choreographed numerous works with his Adelaide based performance collective; ‘The Human Arts Movement’ and short works for students at ‘Adelaide College of the Arts’ and ‘LINK Dance Company’ in Perth and has lectured at both colleges as well as at ‘Queensland University of Technology’ and ‘Transit Dance’, Melbourne. Tobiah has lived and worked in Europe during 2016/17, receiving residencies in Bulgaria, Brussels and Sweden, with resulting works being performed in Brussels, Bulgaria and Greece. Tobiah has also taught workshops on his own creative and movement practice in Brussels, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Sweden and Israel.
Freerange Residency: Anya Anastasia and Aaron Austin-Glen
August, 2019
Work In Development: Anya Anastasia and Aaron Austin-Glen are currently developing a theatrical musical comedy for stage and screen set in an unspecified rural Australian town that has seen more prosperous days. The crux of the script centres around the town’s attempt to return the community to its glory days through a series of heart warming yet ridiculous large scale schemes. With particular focus on the frustration, felt both on an individual and collective level with local bureaucracy and political inaction, the script is a razor sharp commentary on the current Australian and global landscape.
Anya Anastasia is an internationally acclaimed songstress with a vivid and twisted imagination. She has traversed the globe with her original songs and bold performance pieces appearing at festivals in Europe, the UK, around Australia and NZ. Anastasia’s vocals range from husky jazz with a brazen Aussie inflection, to operatic soprano paired unusually with irreverent contemporary musings, though her roots firmly in the world of folk, and she wields a shamelessly un-ironic penchant for catchy pop melodies. Known for her wit and poetic lyricism she is the creator and writer of multiple critically acclaimed darkly funny musical theatre shows that are currently touring Australia. http://anyaanastasia.com/
Aaron Austin-Glen is an independent producer developing multi-disciplinary productions in unconventional spaces for major festivals and arts organisations. With extensive experience as a producer for Brisbane Festival, Woodford Folk Festival, New Zealand Festival and the Southbank Centre London spanning contemporary music, theatrical performance, community engagement, literature and large scale spectacle he has a wealth of creative knowledge and industry connection in Australasia, UK, Germany and India. Aaron has also written, performed and produced his autobiographical show 'Somewhere Else But Now' in Germany (Munich & Cologne), UK (Southbank Centre) and Australia (Anywhere Festival).
Brink Productions Theatre Residency: Hew Parham
Three Bananas; April/May & August, 2019
Work in Development: Three Bananas is a one-man theatrical show about the bicycle, heroes, trophies, the ego and the ups and downs of life. Drawing from the styles of physical theatre, clowning and story telling, the show is ambitious, epic and crosses many continents in its scope.Inspired by legendary Italian cyclist Gino Bartali who said: “Medals aren’t meant to be worn on the shirt they are to be worn on the soul”, the "three bananas" are the performer himself searching for meaning, self worth and an award-winning story; an egomaniacal narcissist cycling champion whose relentless drive to win covers a deeper truth, and Bartali himself. It calls on the great socially aware clowns such as Chaplin, Tati and Fo in how the buffoon through humour can shine a mirror to what is happening in the world right now. Can the clown stop looking at himself for a second to see what is happening in the world? Can the clown move out of the shadows of his heroes to see his own worth?
Hew is a graduate of Flinders University Drama Centre, Adelaide Australia. In 2007 Hew was the recipient of the Neil Curnow Award where he studied at The Hunter Gates Academy of Physical Theatre one-year program in Canada. Hew has also extensively trained and mentored in the Pochinko Clowning/Clown through Mask Method with John Turner at The Manitoulin Conservatory for Creation and Performance (MCCP). In 2013 Hew received a grant from Arts SA to work with British Physical Comedy troupe Spymonkey in London, England. Hew has developed several solo shows with his comedic characters – including Odyssey Schmodyssey which played at the Sanguenay Fringe Festival in Quebec, Canada as well as the Amuse Bouche New York Clown Theatre Festival; The Giovanni Experiment and Giovanni! which also played at the New York Clown Theatre Festival in 2014 and more recently at The Wonderland Festival in Brisbane, Australia. In 2016 Hew was commissioned to produce a new work at The Adelaide Cabaret Festival Rudi’s The Rinse Cycle. In 2017 Hew was employed by Melbourne based company Bunk Puppets to tour their show Sticks Stones Broken Bones to Norway, Germany and China. He is the resident Clown teacher at Flinders University.