WORKS
FIRE MONKEY
9 & 10 December 2016
Arts Centre Melbourne Lawn
100 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Presented by Multicultural Arts Victoria
In association with Victoria Chiu and The Arts Fission Company (Singapore)
Organiser
Presenter
The Arts Fission Company
Venue Supporter
With the Support of
FIRE MONKEY -- Stolen Fire and Fractured Myths
01 - 06 October 2018
Northcote Town Hall
Melbourne Australia
Presented by Darebin Arts Speakeasy, The Arts Fission Company and Victoria Chiu
The 2018 Sing-Aus co-production is the restaging of the original 2016 site-specific performance led by Arts Fission’s choreographer Angela Liong and independent Melbourne choreographer Victoria Chiu supported by Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV). Dancers and musicians from Singapore and Melbourne worked together in the cross-cultural collaboration and presented a poignant reflection of tumultuous international events like the refugee diasporas that affected the world.
The 2018 restaging of the performance kept to the title influenced by the Chinese lunar calendar that marks 2016 as the Year of the Monkey under the element of Fire. The universal myth of Fire not only ignites common stories among different cultures, it also enables movement creation through mapping of ancient memories with contemporary reflections.
The Year of the Fire Monkey has unleashed increasing uncertainty and disruption in the world. The collaborative dance creation between Melbourne and Singapore, made across two countries separated by oceans, reflects on the anxiety of our time and invokes collective memories across cultures in the hope to mending broken myths and finding human connection.
Staged at the iconic Art Centre lawn, this site specific piece embraces the energy of Melbourne’s arts epicenter and ties it to the Chinese animal zodiac with 2016 being the Year of the Monkey under the element of Fire. Fire Monkey also involves different communities in Singapore and Melbourne by asking participants to use 3000-year old Chinese oracle bone script to create hand-dyed fabric strips as modern text messages across oceans. The colorful strips made by community members are incorporated in a spectacular installation at the performance site.
SHARE A STORY - MAKE A MYTH
3 December 2016
A community artmaking workshop organised by Multicultural Arts Victoria
TELL YOUR STORY using 3000-year old Chinese oracle bone script and see how your bone script turns out as creative expression in hand-dyed fabric strips! Join the convivial gathering of diverse cultures in an artmaking workshop for all ages.
SHARE A STORY – MAKE A MYTH is a community engagement event in conjunction with the cross-culture performance FIRE MONKEY by The Arts Fission Company (Singapore) and Choreographer Victoria Chiu and Dancers (Melbourne Australia). The artworks from the Melbourne community artmaking workshop, together with their counterparts from community participation in Singapore will be part of the site installations for the performance.
ABOUT MAPPING MELBOURNE 2016
The Mapping Melbourne Festival is a celebration of the unique Asian Australian identity that the citizens of Melbourne share and is a platform for contemporary asian artists to network. The festival will unfold across the city and will be filled with mutliple events daily, two of the muliplte events would be Share A Story and Fire Monkey. These two events are a collaboration with Multicultural Arts Victoria and will be presented in the festival by Arts Fission.
flowers of lamentation 2:
PETALS IN THE CROWD
17 & 18 February 2012
Salihara Teater, Jakarta, Indonesia
The apparitions of faces in the crowd;
Petals in a wet, black bough.
- Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro (1913)
Inspired by Ezra Pound's cryptic text as well as the late T’ang poem Faces & Peach Blossoms, the performance connects the poetic image and contrasts it to the digital sensibility of the 21st century.
No stage, no seats:
An empty theatre will greet the audience upon entrance. The creative team intends to break down the mono-focus of the conventional performance and curate a highly spontaneous and immediate theatre experience that literally wraps the dances around the audience.
The performance aims to excite with intriguing spaces carved out by special lighting that evolve and dissolve the idea of “stage” between audience and performers.
INDEX OF PAST PERFORMANCES
2018
Fire Monkey Tour
23 September to 7 October
Northcote Town Hall
189 High St, Northcote VIC 3070, Australia
Collaboration with Choreographer Victoria Chiu
2016
Fire Monkey
9 & 10 December
Arts Centre Melbourne Lawn, Australia
Site-specific performance
Collaboration with Choreographer Victoria Chiu
2012
Flowers of Lamentation 2: Petals In The Crowd
17 & 18 February
Salihara Teater, Kakarta, Indonesia
2007
Ghost Exchange Series II Jakarta Premiere
9,10 November 2007
Art Summit Indonesia 2007
Teater Studia, Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jakarta, Indonesia
Ghost Exchange Series I Budapest Premiere
30-31 March 2007
Budapest Tour, Hungary
Co-production with Hungarian TranzDanz
2006
Scarlet’s Room Toronoto Canada Premiere
6,7,8 July 2006
Winchester Street Theatre, Toronto, Canada
2004
Mountain and a Flower
18, 19 December 2004
6TH Bangkok Fringe Festival
Patravadi Theatre, Thailand
12 SMS Across The Mountains World Premiere
10 October 2004
Seoul International Dance Festival, SIDNACE
Towol Theatre, Seoul Art Centre, South Korea
Collaboration with Korean Choreographer Park Ho-bin
2003
Shadowhouses (second restaged) Laokoon
28, 29, 30 August 2003
Kampnagel Hamburg, Germany
Collaboration with two classical Javanese Dancers
2002
Borrowed Scenery II
19, 20, 21 September 2002
Asian Comments Festival
Jorcks Passage, Copenhagen, Denmark
Site Specific performance
Collaboration with Musicians Samuel Wong (Pipa) and Adrian Wee (Erhu)
Borrowed Scenery I
21 June 2002
Asian Comments Festival
Banjarmili Studio, Indonesia
Site-specific performance
Collaboration with Sculptor Han Sai Por
1999
Lost Light II: “The Temple of Dawn”
17,18,19 December 1999
Patravadi Theatre, Bangkok, Thailand
Collaboration with French Artist Philippe Laleu
1996
Flower Eaters III: “ The Double Chamber”
25 July 1996
Indonesian International Dannce Festival
Graha Bhakti Budaya, Jakarta, Indoesia
Collaboration with Indonesian Choreographer/Dancer Sukariji Sriman,
Percussionist Ivy Tan and Pianist Shane Thio