| This Is Living | Big hART |
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Building on the phenomenal sell out successes of Radio Holiday and Drive In Holiday for Ten Days on the Island 2005 and 2007, Big hART returns to Ten Days on the Island with their timely new production This Is Living a darkly comedic examination of small town Tasmania, with a cast of 17 - including skateboarders, the elderly, a live band and one of Australia’s leading theatrical families.
The company has been working with four inspiring Tasmanian communities throughout 2008 to create This Is Living, weaving together the complexities life and love through the lense of a life-long secret ménage-a-trois, a fatal car crash, and the front -page tabloid photographs from our local newspapers.
This Is Living follows in the same tradition of experimenting with form to produce large and original works from vibrant communities and individuals using career and non-career artists. During 2008, over 60 young people and more than 200 older citizens from Wynyard, Latrobe, Glenorchy and Huon Valley have been involved in creating This Is Living. Workshops have brought young and old together in their communities to record life stories, as well as skaters and seniors getting together for a series of performance workshops involving “arthritic dance”, “text with hearing aids” and “walking frame skating”.
The intensely local content is woven together with an astute piece of casting... the producer and leading actors all come from one theatrical family.
Lex Marinos (Kingswood Country) has been involved in almost every production in Big hART’s 17 year history. A frequent visitor to the North West Coast over the years, he and his wife Anne Grigg (Home and Away) and their best friend Bruce Myles (Blue Heelers, The Club) were deliberately cast alongside Sophia Marinos - their daughter as Producer - to reflect the “touring theatrical family” of Australian theatre in the past. From the first workshop to the finished product, this unique casting has added an intensity and feeling of yesteryear to the production as the trio play out the secret love triangle, central to the narrative on stage. Is this life imitating art or art imitating life...?
In each community this site-specific content is woven into the text, and local performers move through the performances as witnesses to the emerging narrative. In this way, the final performance evolves and differs in each community by utilizing this colourful pallet of image, text, movement and music.
As Creative Producer Sophia Marinos comments “... the Glenorchy show becomes all about the people and history that make up that community. The same goes for Wynyard, Latrobe and the Huon Valley. This is Living celebrates personal stories from within the community by bringing them to the stage in combination with professional performers and universal themes. With this process Big hART creates work that is grounded in the communities where we work but also embraces universal themes”.
Through these workshops This Is Living bridges generations to create understanding, social inclusion and improve quality of life for both old and young. It explores intergenerational participation, generating educational and employment opportunities for young people and highlighting issues requiring discussion at a time when the ageing of Australia’s population – and particularly Tasmania with the oldest population of all the States - is increasingly on the social and political agenda. Such demographic change calls for a cultural shift, impacting on our family and friendship structures, the media and products we consume, our attitudes to work, sexuality, and leisure. What does it mean to be a young person in an ageing society? This is classic Big hART – international yet local, intimate and irreverent, another multi-layered work from Tasmania’s most awarded arts export.
Big hART has premiered large scale, highly innovative new works in every Ten Days on the Island Festival, the last 4 Sydney Festivals, as well as Melbourne International Arts Festival, and Perth and Adelaide Festivals. This uniquely Tasmanian company is highly regarded nationally for its extraordinarily prolific output and creating some of the most important theatre on the Australian stage. Big hART’s Central Desert based work, Ngapartji Ngapartji has been touted as "the most important Australian work to inhabit our theatres for a long time" (Joanna Erskine, January 2008, Aussietheatre.com)
Writer & Director: Scott Rankin
Creative Producer: Sophia Marinos
Associate Director: Chris Mead
Photographer: Rick Evans
Choreographer: Kelly Alexander
Lighting & Audio Visual Design: Nicholas Higgins
Actors: Bruce Myles, Lex Marinos and Anne Grigg
Composer: Andy Viney
Musicians: The Dunaways
Production Manager: Mel Robertson
Performers: Telen Rodwell, Peter Dixon and a chorus of small town ghosts & skaters
Project proudly supported by the Councils of Glenorchy, Huon Valley, Latrobe and Waratah-Wynyard
Big hART & Ten Days on the Island present
THIS IS LIVING
Tasmania
WYNYARD
Wharf Hotel Theatre, cnr Goldie & Moore Streets
20 & 21 March at 7.30pm
LATROBE
Memorial Hall, Gilbert Street
26 & 27 March at 7.30pm
GLENORCHY
Derwent Entertainment Centre, Brooker Highway
30 & 31 March & 1 April at 7.30pm
FRANKLIN
Palais Theatre, Huon Highway
4 April at 7.30pm & 5 April at 2pm
Duration: 2hrs (Interval)
Tickets: $24, Concession $18, Family $64 (2 Adults, 2 Children)
For Glenorchy performance, tickets are also available from Derwent Entertainment Centre
(03) 6273 0233
Bookings: www.tendaysontheisland.com
Schools: For details of special schools performances visit www.tendaysontheisland.com
Visit: www.thisisliving.org.au and www.bighart.org
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