SPOTLIGHT

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Double Think
Byron Perry

Venue: Dunstan Playhouse
When: Tue 28 Feb 12:25 PM - 12:50 PM
Genre: Dance
Main Audience: Adults (18+)
Producer: Karen Rodgers, Force Majeure
No. in touring party: 5

Double Think

Double Think explores the Orwellian notion of ‘doublethink’, defined as a wilful blindness to contradictions in systems and beliefs. This is a dance/performance work in a state of flux, where the exploration of opposition and duality exists primarily in the space and form of the piece itself rather than in reference to any external idea. As it oscillates between states - light and shadow, small and large, black and white, the work is an exploration of itself as the individual in the throes of doublethink.

The machinations of the supporting elements are exposed and operated by the performers. The composition and organisation of lighting, sound and set are presented as an arrangement or choreography in their own right. Modular set pieces house localised lighting elements and the performers manipulate them directly to create performance environments and simultaneously illuminate them.

Double Think is a rhetorical examination of the illusion of opposition, where the performers create trains of thought and derail them at the same time. If nothing is anything except by comparison, then this is really something.

Produced by Force Majeure
Direction/Choreography: Byron Perry
Performers/Collaborators: Lee Serle, Kirstie McCracken
Composer: Luke Smiles, Motion Laboratories
Lighting Designer: Benjamin Cistern
Original set design in collaboration with Bluebottle: Ben Cobham

Byron Perry

A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Byron has toured extensively developing and performing roles with Douglas Wright, Leigh Warren, Chunky Move, Paul Selwyn Norton, Lucy Guerin Inc, Ballet Lab, DV8 Physical Theatre, Force Majeure, Antony Hamilton and Kate Denborough. In 2006 he received an Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer and won Best Male Dancer at the Green Room Awards for his year’s work. He was recently the inaugural Harold Mitchell Fellowship recipient for professional development in direction and choreography.

His choreographic work includes punctuated equilibrium and the hayflick limit for Chunky Move, hest² for the Victorian College of the Arts, breaks of asia for The Studio at the Sydney Opera House, a volume problem for Tasdance and goggle box for which he was nominated for a Greenroom Award for Best Original Choreography. Recently he was commissioned by Chunky Move to create I like this for their Next Move program with co-director Antony Hamilton. In 2011 he has developed two new works, Double Think for the Melbourne International Arts Festival and One Show Only for the Singapore-based group Frontier Danceland.

Photo: Byron Perry