“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
– Nikola Tesla
All movement, sound, light and life itself begins with an energetic vibration, and extends the field of vibration beyond itself from moving cells to sound waves, from touch to radiating light.
Collaborators Nikki Heywood (choreographer), Mark Cauvin (sound), Heidrun Lohr (image) and Hellen Sky (provocateur) will focus on a limited range of materials and ways of activating vibration and frequency.
How do we shake out the embedded history inherent in living and non-living forms to produce movement, sound and photographic image?
How do we capture the different qualities and behaviours of vibrating materials and bodies to elicit affect: empathy, discomfort, reverie, wonder or perhaps heightened imaginative association in the audient/observer?
NIKKI HEYWOOD is a Sydney-based interdisciplinary artist working across dance, performance, writing and live art. Nikki’s practice includes devising, direction and choreography as a solo performer, in collective creation and collaboratively generated projects, running skills based workshops for students and emerging practitioners, assisting the creative process of others as a mentor and dramaturg. Co-curator of regular platforms for improvised performance Rushing for the Sloth and Whip It in Sydney for over a decade. As 2005 Recipient of Rex Cramphorn Scholarship (NSW Ministry of the Arts) Nikki undertook research of collaborative performance practice in Europe and Australia and intensive workshop with Goat Island Company of Chicago in Cork, Ireland.
Awarded Doctorate of Creative Arts in practice-based research 2016, thesis title- Undoing Discomfort: being real/becoming other in an embodied performance practice, University of Wollongong, with commendations.
MARK CAUVIN is a classically trained Double Bass interpreter and performer of contemporary solo double bass music. Mark attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2003), Scuola Internazionale d’Alto Perfezionamento Musicale Italy, Perugia (2006) and Stockhausen Courses in Germany (2010). He has worked extensively with Chamber Made Opera and Decibel Ensemble and had new works composed for him by Cat Hope, David Young and Italian Double Bass Maestro Fernando Grillo (1945-2013). Since 2010 Mark has participated in numerous choreographic research based projects with Nikki Heywood and Hellen Sky in Sydney and Melbourne. Mark’s multimedia work Die Dunkelkammer (The Darkroom) for Soloist and Electronic Music has been presented at PNEM Sound Arts Festival (Netherlands) and Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane & Perth (2015). Mark continues to research the double bass to create a new method for double bass technique that transforms the resonating harmonics of the instrument. His latest performance work – a music theatre piece for Double Bass solo and real time magnetic tape playing – will premiere in 2018. He has been a recipient of three grants as an individual artist from the Australian Council for the Arts.
HEIDRUN LOHR is a German born artist working in the medium of photography, particularly performance and dance photography, and stop-frame animation. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including a large retrospective at Australian Centre for Photography, and she is revered amongst the Australian performance community where she collaborates with a number of different artists. She was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship in 2008.
HELLEN SKY is an Australian trans-disciplinary artist-choreographer: her choreography senses connections between matter tangible, textual, imaginary, and the movement between the physical and virtual world using computer interactivity live camera and the body. She has studied dance and written about movement—borderless bodies and the cellular data body—locally and internationally. Sky studied at the Australian Ballet School, BA and did Post Graduate Research at VCA and SIAL (Spatial Information Architectural Laboratory) RMIT. She was co founder /co artistic director of Melbourne’s Dancehouse, Company in Space, founding member Circus Oz, Australian Performance Group (APG), member of Chamber Made Opera Ensemble, Dance Fellow Australia Council for the Arts.
Images:
Main image and image 1: Readymade Studio Aug 2017. Photo credit: Hellen Sky
Image 2: Mark Cauvin, Readymade Studio Feb 2016. Photo credit: Heidrun Lohr