Your Daybill

 

Contents
Creative Team
Biographies

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​Creative Team

Concept & Direction Samara Hersch 
Associate Artist and Dramaturgy Bec Reid 
Artistic Associate Alison Currie
Photographer & Collaborating Artist Ponch Hawkes 
Producer Freya Waterson 
Website Design Forde & Nicol 
Sound Design Marco Cher-Gibbard 
Design Installation Beck Adams

Featuring Australian Protagonists Jane Clifton, Alice Cummins, Clare Grant, Helen Herbertson, Latoya Hoeg, Liz Jones, Robin Laurie, Adrian May, Chris McKenzie, Brenda Palmer, Iris Walshe-Howling, Delia, Elizabeth, Lorna, Paul, Ponch and Marki

Previous Collaborators Natalie de Maccas, Jess Devereux, John Flaus, Sandy Green, Lucy Hawkes, Georgia Metaxas and Dien Nguyen 

 

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Biographies

Samara Hersch
Concept & Direction

Samara Hersch is an artist and director whose practice explores the intersection of contemporary performance and community engagement. She recently completed her Masters at Das Theatre in Amsterdam. Her current research is an exploration into public acts of intimacy through imagining new artistic frames for non-professional performers and audiences to inhabit.

Her recent body of work focuses on critical trans-generational dialogue with an enquiry into conversation as performance. These works include: Body of Knowledge, a work that invites teenagers to host conversations with adults regarding questions they have about the body and body politic (presented at BUDA, Belgium 2020, SICK! Festival, Manchester 2019, Liveworks Festival, Sydney 2019, Spielart Festival Munich 2019); Sex and Death an intimate encounter led by performers in their seventies (Festival of Live Art, Arts House 2016, Victorian Seniors’ Festival 2016, Modestraat, Amsterdam 2019), Dybbuks– a feminist conversation with the dead (Chamber Made 2018), For the Time Being: a remote, inter-generational encounter (Auawirleben Festival, Bern 2020, Kammerspiele, Munich 2020, Far Fabrique, Nyon 2020, West Kowloon, Hong Kong 2021).

Some of these works have recently been adapted to remote experiences in response to the pandemic; (Sex and Death_ and the Internet, commissioned by Darwin Festival and Sydney Festival through the Major Festivals Initiative in 2020, and Body of Knowledge – At Home, co-commissioned by Zurich Theater Spektakel and Kampnagel Sommerfestival, 2020). Body of Knowledge – At Home was selected for Impulse Theatre Festival, Germany (2021) and has been presented at Theatre Practice, Singapore, Schwankhalle, Bremen and Brut, Vienna.

Samara regularly collaborates with artist Lara Thoms. Together they engage youth activists to explore the performance of alternate histories. Their work subverts notions of adults as experts, foregrounding the voices of young people in the retelling of national stories and identities. Their work We All Know What’s Happening (Arts House, Melbourne 2017, Campbelltown Arts Centre 2018, Vitalstatistix, Adelaide 2019, Noorderzon Festival, Netherlands 2019 and Theater Spektakle, Zurich 2019) won the 2019 ZKB Jury Prize and Audience Prize at Theater Spektakle and the Green Room Award for Best Contemporary and Experimental Performance in 2017. They are currently creating a new work together called Please Stand, which explores the rituals, mythology and politics of National Anthems from around the world.

Samara was mentored by Bruce Gladwin, from Back to Back Theatre Co. through the JUMP Mentorship Program (2012) and later worked as a show director on their production of Super Discount (Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre 2013). Samara was the Female Director in Residence at Malthouse Theatre (2013). She was a recipient of the British Council Realise Your Dream Award (2010) and the Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Travel Fellowship (2015).

Samara is currently an artist in residence at Theatre Rotterdam and is part of European cooperation project ACT - Art Climate Transition.

Samara acknowledges that her practice has been developed and presented on the lands of the Kulin Nation whose sovereignty has never been ceded and pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

 

Bec Reid 
Associate Artist & Dramaturgy

Bec is an Australian-based performer, producer, director, choreographer and engagement specialist. Bec encourages people to experience their worlds in new ways through highly physical, participatory, practical and celebratory actions.

For more than 20 years, Bec has passionately collaborated where professional artists and communities coalesce; locally, nationally and internationally. In partnership with Tristan Meecham, Bec leads independent arts company All The Queens Men.

A WAAPA graduate, Bec began her professional career as Artistic Director of Stompin, in regional Tasmania, together with Luke George. Bec was a key collaborator with German theatre makers Rimini Protokoll and was the Associate Director of reality theatre juggernauts 100% Melbourne (City of Melbourne), 100% Darwin (Darwin Festival) and 100% Brisbane (Museum of Brisbane).

Bec has collaborated with Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey. Together with Ian Pidd and Kate McDonald, Bec is founder/Artistic Associate of Everybody NOW! In 2017-18, Bec was the recipient of a Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts.

Bec has continually served on various arts boards and regularly mentors young and emerging artists, formally and informally. Bec’s true loves are Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Ceilidhs and Italo Disco.

Alison Currie 
Artistic Associate

Alison Currie holds a Research Masters in Choreography and Performance from University of Roehampton, UK (2015) and a Bachelor or Arts in Dance Performance from Adelaide College of the Arts (2003). 

Alison's practice has, at its core, a fascination with the human in the world and how we connect to other people, to living and built environments, to other species and to objects through touch, memory, physical and emotional similarity and contrast. She has made dance works in various mediums and relationships to audiences including stage, gallery, live art, animation, video, and installation.

In 2021, Alison premiered two new works - Progress Report, co-directed with Alisdair Macindoe at Vitalstatistix, and Somewhere, Everywhere, Nowhere, co-directed with Yui Kawaguchi for OzAsia Festival. They were described respectively as “riveting dance theatre” by Dance Australia, and “powerful, haunting performance” by InDaily.

In 2020, Alison was commissioned by Garry Stewart to create Of All Things, performed by and created with Australian Dance Theatre. She was also a finalist at the Keir Choreographic Awards 2020 with De-Limit, co-directed with David Cross with seasons at Dancehouse and Carriageworks. In recent years, she premiered Creatures with The Human Arts Movement at the Samstag Museum for Adelaide Dance Festival, Close Company with Singapore's RAW Moves for OzAsia Festival 2018, and Concrete Impermanence for Adelaide Festival Centre and two seasons in Melbourne (The Substation and 2019 Dance Massive).

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