The BOND
“The Artificial Intelligence is the stones intelligence. The stones are the raw materials. In the chips & the computers. Geology. Their age. Their mind. Knowledge & spirit. The earth. Ancient-ness. Making the invisible visible."
-Luke John Campbell-
Explore the enduring link between humanity and the earth with the experimental sound journey of "The BOND". Presented in partnership with the University of Tasmania’s Plimsoll Gallery the exhibition offers immersive installations, live performances, and insightful talks over three weeks across July and August 2024.
Led by SEE creative Luke John Campbell, the project merges geology, creation, and Artificial Intelligence and is the third work in a trilogy of cross art form investigations. As the creative team leads participants on this transformative journey, they engage with real-time soundscapes and visuals, intertwining performers, visitors and AI technology.
Through meditative sound baths and gallery discussions, delve deeper into the philosophical intersection of art, science, and technology.
Lead Creatives: Luke John Campbell, Alex Moss, Matthew Fargher, Warren Mason
Partners: Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania
Funding: Arts Tasmania, Creative Australia, Department of Social Services
20th Anniversary Season Sponsors
Why wait for 2025? Grab your ticket for The BOND and secure your premium seat as a SEE VIP Sponsor for our 20th Anniversary Season.
Celebrate two decades of amazing creativity. Don’t miss out on this special limited pre-release for the 2025 Season. Be part of this incredible milestone and grab your tickets now.
Your VIP invitation includes over $175 in exclusive value, featuring:
- Premium seating for one individual to three major works
- Reception with the artists
- Special preview invites
- Ensemble updates
This celebratory Season Pass includes the following performances:
- The BOND at the Plimsoll Gallery, July-August 2024, general admission ticket $25
- RELACHE, The Last Dance On Earth at the Odeon Theatre, Feb 2025, premium ticket $60
- III at the Plimsoll Gallery, July 2025, premium ticket $40
- ADVENTURES OF PEACOCK, CHICKEN AND THE PONY THEY RODE UPON at the Theatre Royal, Oct 2025, premium ticket $40
Invest in the future of the arts and our local artists by supporting Second Echo Ensemble's 20th Anniversary 2025 season.
Cloak me in myself and let me go
"I have shed my skin and lost my truth. I’m held. Suspended. Subdued. There is no malice. Only love. But you hide my truth and so I suffocate. Cloak me in myself so I can remember. And swim. And sing. Cloak me in myself so I can be free. Let me drown so I may breathe. Cloak Me in Myself and Let Me Go."
-Bryony Geeves-
Cloak Me in Myself and Let Me Go is a tour de force that draws parallels between life as a contemporary woman and life as the legendary selkie - the seal who sheds her skin to dance as a woman in the moonlight.
Lead Creatives: Bryony Geeves, Sue Hayes, Jason James, Heath Brown, Genevieve Butler, Bryony Anderson
Partners: Terrapin Puppet Theatre
Funding: Arts Tasmania, Creative Australia, Department of Social Services
THE STARE
If we don't look, we can't see, and if we can't see, we can't know, so how can we understand?
Challenging the way we view people living with disability, The STARE addresses uncomfortable and too often unspoken 'norms.' Through a series of portraits, audio/video recordings, and live workshops/performances, the project creates conversation to reconstruct what is normal. Dedicated to reflecting the diverse world we live in, The STARE celebrates difference.
In 2023-24 we presented a major exhibition in the Bondstore at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. The STARE will be ready for touring in 2026.
Lead Creatives: Dan Cripps, Angus Ashton, JR Brennan, Keith Deverell, William Webster, Alex Morris-Baguley, Aidan Chick, David Montgomery, Luke John Campbell, Alex Moss, Eri Konishi, Bryony Geeves, Elise Romaszko and Kelly Drummond Cawthon.
Partners: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Win TV, GO Transit, City of Hobart, Preset Gallery
Funding: Arts Tasmania: New Work New Markets, City of Hobart, Creative Australia.
THE ARCHIVE
![[in]security Divas.](https://secondechoensemble.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/insecurity-hero-image-800-×-800pxFINAL.png "[in]security hero image")
[IN]SECURITY
A Kabarett. A bar. Behind the scenes, and on the stage. Aging divas go head to head conjuring moments where love, life and sex meet death, rejection and failure. All of this in a raucous evening of unapologetic dance, splintering theatre and life affirming performance art.
The DIVAS:
Dr Hedley has worked the streets as a performance artist from Lymington to Berlin.
Kenneth has been playing the double bass in big orchestras since 1976.
Jane is dancing with legs that have been insured by Lloyds of London.
On a good night you might see Hedley strip, Kenneth take on Bach, and Jane smoulder her way through a show tune. Through the truth-telling prism of performance art they deliver a scorching, uncompromising manifesto on relevance.
Be prepared to enjoy some disco, a martini and perhaps even shed a tear.
Lead Creatives: Kelly Drummond Cawthon, Michael Fortescue, Paul Hedley Roberts with Amanda Hodder
Partners: Footscray Arts Centre, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Restless Dance Theatre, Dark Fringe
Funding: Arts Tasmania, the Myer Foundation, Adelaide Fringe Artist Fund, RANT Regional Arts Fund, Australia Council for the Arts
Video: Angus Ashton Film
The BEAUTY Project
A catwalk turns into a wedding aisle
The shore becomes a small river
Nature’s runway
Do you feel beautiful in the moon’s mirror?
-Elise Romaszko-
Join us for a wild journey across eco-catwalks, a ceremony of marriage, romantic picnic rendez-vous and a crazy nature fashion show.
Lead by Elise Romaszko in her directorial debut, The BEAUTY Project is a pop-up catwalk performance that asks 'what is normal?', 'What is beautiful?’ Dedicated to reflecting the diverse world we live in, The BEAUTY Project celebrates difference, champions equity, and confronts our assumptions.
The BEAUTY Project has been cooking since 2020 through community based workshops, site specific creative developments, and public interviews/surveys. The performance is dedicated to reflecting upon diverse collaboration.
Project your beauty - Challenge your projections - Experience The BEAUTY Project
Lead Creatives: Elise Romaszko, Julia Drouhin, Michael Fortescue, Roz Wren
Partners: Ten Days on the Island, City of Hobart
Funding: City of Hobart, Arts Tasmania, Australia Council for the Arts
The BRIDGE
The bridge is the space between two mirrors.
You come in and go out of the mirrors.
It is dark. It is loud. It is cold
It smells of metal and glass Space
The multiverse of the world we are in
It is our virtual reality
We will surrender. To the void in us
To the static living somewhere
We will see and feel. Something. Someone.
-Luke John Campbell-
The BRIDGE is the second work in a trilogy of cross art form investigations. Inside an avatar, surrounded by drums and witnessed only as a reflection, Luke is exploring the conceptual space between who we think we see and our expectations of them.
Viewers will question what and who they are seeing and consider whether they judge a book by its cover.
Lead Creatives: Luke John Campbell, Matthew Fargher, Jason James, Alex Moss, Bryony Geeves
Partners: Constance ARI, University of Tasmania, Plimsoll Gallery, Performance Space NSW, Tasdance, Rosny College, Rosny Barn
Funding: Australia Council for the Arts, RANT Regional Arts, Arts Tasmania
THE STARE (SERIES)
If we don't look, we can't see, and if we can't see, we can't know, so how can we understand?
Dedicated to reflecting the diverse world we live in, The STARE celebrates differences and brings thought-provoking portraits of disability to shop fronts, galleries, billboards, and personal and public screens.
In 2021, The STARE was presented on the City of Hobart Loop screen, Metro buses, poster poles, Win TV, and the City of Hobart Soap Boxes in Mathers Place.
Additional episodes were released through 2022 culminating in a major exhibition at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in 2023.
Lead Creatives: Kelly Drummond Cawthon, Dan Cripps, Angus Ashton, JR Brennan, Keith Deverell, William Webster, Alex Morris-Baguley, Bella Young, Aidan Chick, Charlie Smith, David Montgomery, Luke John Campbell, Alex Moss, Eri Konishi, Paul Roberts, Bryony Geeves
Partners: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Win TV, GO Transit, City of Hobart, Preset Gallery
Funding: Arts Tasmania: New Work New Markets, City of Hobart
THE STARE Episode 1: The Black Dog
Episode 2: What Makes You Beautiful?
Episode 3: Am I Safe Here?
Episode 4: I am A Rare Ninja
Episode 5: Outside Boy
Episode 6: Queen
Episode 7: Is My Spirit Willing to Emerge
outside boy
This is my campfire story. It's about growing up. I was subtle. I was swept up by people telling me what to do. Now I am stable and can harness my thoughts. I am an outside boy. Not an outsider.
-Charlie Smith-
In 2022, Second Echo Ensemble and Performing Lines Tasmania toured a new family friendly performance across Tasmania. From February through May we shared 50+ performances, 25+ workshops in 8 regional cities with over 5000 Tasmanians.
Presented by Second Echo Ensemble with Performing Lines Tasmania. Development partners included Moonah Arts Centre, Tasdance, Spring Bay Mill and Big hART.
This project was made possible through the generous support of Australian Government's Regional Arts Fund, Playing Australia, Arts Tasmania, and RANT Regional Arts.
Video: Angus Ashton Film
Let Me Dry Your Eyes
The ocean is filled with tears
And the sea turns into a mirror There's a whale in the moon when it's clear And a bird on the tide
- Tom Waits
Let Me Dry Your Eyes is a love story of sorts where two beings - a bird and a whale - are connected only where they can meet at the water's surface. The audience will be invited to experience the work at the water's edge, listen to and view underwater through telescopes and hydrophones and possibly even join us in the pool.
Presented by Second Echo Ensemble and MONA FOMA 2021
Supported by Arts Tasmania, the Alcorso Foundation, Regional Arts Fund, City of Hobart, and SEE supporters.
Video: Angus Ashton Film
The CHAIN
The eternal chain and the chain of who we are. The constant on and on.
We are never really gone.
Nothing is ever lost. The chain reaction. The rise and fall. The perpetual cycle.
The internal and the eternal.
The water teaches us the wisdom to Surrender to life and death. In my mind, I surrender to the Breath. Without acceptance, there will be a violent storm. Go with the flow.
Go with the chain.
Breathing is life, and it gives us birth. Listen to the water. The volume. The sound is flowing and falling. Listen. To the water. Flowing. Falling. Falling flowing. Surrender.
Accepting death and life and death.
THE CHAIN is an installation-based performance created at Wilkinson's point.
Presented by Second Echo Ensemble and Constance ARI.
Supported by Arts Tasmania, Regional Arts Fund Glenorchy City Council, Tasmania Performs, Moonah Arts Centre, Constance ARI, Rosny College, and SEE supporters.
Rite of Spring
Through dance, physical theatre, and immersive design, we journey deep into the promise of spring. Interiors are revealed; the wishful linings of pockets, secrets stained on petticoats, histories, and landscapes tattooed on the heart. Our hopes, expectations, and choices. Our rights and dreams. Rite of Spring is a grand procession: audience and performers traveling together. On a journey with friends, strangers, and neighbors, we move at the same pace and in the same rhythm. We feel geography and celebrate moving and being moved.
Development Showing: Ten Days on the Island RAWspace 2015, Undercover Artists Festival, Brisbane
Premiere: Salamanca MOVES 2016
Produced by Second Echo Ensemble in association with Tasmanian Theatre Company and Salamanca MOVES
Director: Kelly Drummond Cawthon
Design Team: Nick Higgins, Hanna Parsinnen, Roz Wren
Musical Director: Michael Fortescue
Performance: Luke Campbell, Aidan Chick, Alma Faludi, Rodrigo Diaz-Icasuriaga, Zeb Direen, Rob Flehr, Bryony Geeves, David Montgomery, Alexandra Morris-Baguley, Bridget Nicklason-King, Elise Romaszko, Charlie Smith, William Webster.
Contested Land
Contested Land is conceived and directed by Charlie Smith. A founding member of SEE, Charlie is working with ideas that are both quietly political and socially evocative. Investigating the history of nations, conflicts both embodied and landscaped, and lines drawn in the sand, Contested Land explores our sense of connection and what it means to us to take, give, share and fight over our contested lands.
Development Showings: Dancehouse Room to Move 2016, Melbourne, Ten Days on the Island RAWspace 2017, You Are Here Festival, Canberra 2017
Presenting partners: Moonah MOVES and Tasmanian Theatre Company.
Director: Charlie Smith
Creative Producer: Kelly Drummond Cawthon
Performance: Second Echo Ensemble with Joshua Langford
Musical Directors: Matthew Fargher and Michael Fortescue
Original Recorded Music Works by: Rhys Gray and Thomas Misson, commissioned and recorded for Contested Land by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gregory Stephens.
Design: Roz Wren
By My Hand
By My Hand is an immersive physical theatre work set within a rigorously defined structural lattice of rope and rock. It is a kinesthetic and sensory exploration of how we are caught up and held in place by our perceptions, our beliefs, and our rigidly held constructs of authority.
That which constrains us defines us. That which contains us releases us.
Premiere: DARK MOFO 2018
Tour to Lonely in the Rain Festival 2018, Finland
Choreographer: Luke Campbell Creative Producer: Kelly Drummond Cawthon
Music Direction: Matthew Fargher Performance: Luke Campbell, Kelly Drummond Cawthon, Alma Faludi, Matthew Fargher, Michael Fortescue, Jusso Pakarinen, William Webster, Anna Maria Vaisanen, Bella Young
Visual Installation: Garth Knight
Costume Design: Roz Wren
Production Manager/Lighting Design: Sam Cole
Produced by Dark MOFO and SEE
Producing Partner: Tasmanian Theatre Company
Supported by the City of Hobart, Creative Hobart, kdcWORKS, Dark MOFO, Match Creative Partnerships Australia, Arts Tasmania, and SEE supporters.