CURRENT WORKS

THE STARE 2023

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 we will present a major exhibition in the Bondstore at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

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.

Eri stands sideways with arms cradling the air in front of her

THE ARCHIVE

[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?

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 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 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

Second Echo Ensemble
Play Video

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

Play Video

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

Play Video

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. 

Second Echo Ensemble

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.