SUBTEXT - In development

Generously supported by, Minderoo Foundation Artist Fund and STRUT and CO:3 Australia Mid-Career Fellowship

SUBTEXT is humorous, personal, and poetic. It builds upon my technique of live direction and real-time choreography, developed in Equations of a Falling Body (Perth Festival, 2023). This method involves performers receiving live instructions via in-ear headphones—directives that guide, manipulate, and order the unfolding of the performance. In SUBTEXT, this technique evolves: the role of director shifts among the cast, and instructions appear in multiple formats—sometimes audible to the audience, other times hidden.

The concept of creating a new work with a mixed-abilities cast was born from conversations with Adam Kelly and Julia Hales, who expressed their desire to perform in “other people’s creations.” While grateful to be recognised as solo artists, they longed to be part of a collective, in work not defined solely by disability.

During our initial rehearsal process we developed material around themes of simulations, death and reincarnation, the universe, and questions of leadership, power, and agency. Through interviews, discussions, and experiments, we discovered that humans can only ever experience the world through their own individual reality. The resulting choreographic material and scripted dialogue emerged directly from these conversations.

The arc of the work follows the ambiguous relationships within a group of people as they attempt to communicate. The audience gradually comes to know the performers, their vulnerabilities, and the shifting dynamics of the group: Who is in control? Who holds power? Does anyone truly have agency?

The “subtext” of the work is power and agency itself. This plays out in multiple registers: through the lived experience of disabled artists, the experience of navigating the professional arts sector, and the wider structures of society.

Lead Creative: Laura Boynes Collaborators and Performers: Julia Hales, Adam Kelly, Sarah Pollard, Bernadette Lewis, Russell Thorpe Sound Designer: Tristen Parr Composer: Callum O’Reilly Writer: Gita Bezard Outside Eye/Dramaturg: Dr Renee Newman

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