Alon Ilsar, Diane Busuttil & Matthew Hughes (not pictured), Meeting of the Bodies
Alon Ilsar, Diane Busuttil & Matthew Hughes: Large Commission
Meeting of the Bodies
Various times, Saturday 13 & Sunday 14 April
Annex, Petersham Town Hall
Tickets not required
Meeting of the Bodies is a series of interactive audio-visual pieces performed by members of the Inner West Council community. Utilizing state-of-the-art motion capture technology, participants are invited to work with musician and instrument inventor, Alon Ilsar, dance artist, choreographer, and filmmaker, Diane Busuttil, and audio-visual artist and software designer, Matthew Hughes, to create short pieces reflecting their relationship with their local community. Musicians, dancers, painters, and even dogs, will premiere these new works at the Edge Festival on April 13-14, celebrating the different ways we move in and engage with our surroundings.
Saturday 13 April
2:30pm Meeting of the Bodies: Audio-Visual Installation - Open Interaction, 1.5 hour session
Meeting of the Bodies is an audio-visual interactive system designed by Matt Hughes, Alon Ilsar and Diane Busuttil. Taking elements from the interactive performances being premiered at EDGE, this Open Interaction session gives the audience an opportunity to create music and visuals by moving and dancing around the space. A chance to explore, play and meet the artists.
6:00pm Audionce, by Alon Ilsar, Matt Hughes and Diane Busuttil, 1 hour duration
Audionce is an invitation to make music together. Led by Alon Ilsar, the audience's bodies and presence become the musical instrument, learning and exploring to play the room as new sounds are unlocked.
Sunday 14 April
11:30am Meeting of the Bodies: Audio-Visual Installation - Community Presentations, 2 hour session
Meeting of the Bodies is an audio-visual interactive system designed by Matt Hughes, Alon Ilsar and Diane Busuttil. In this session, local emerging and established artists present new short open audio-visual works on the system developed during a creative development at Petersham Town Hall, showcasing the diversity of creativity and physicality in our local community.
4:30pm NIMBY YIMBY, performed by Diane Busuttil, 1 hour duration
NIMBY - an acronym for "Not In My Backyard"
YIMBY - an acronym for "Yes In My Backyard"
Diane invites locals to take a trip down the NIMBY/YIMBY debate. YIMBYism supports higher-density housing supply as the solution to housing affordability. NIMBY opposes this theory and does not want HD housing in their neighbourhood. Which side of the debate are you on?
|
About Alon Ilsar
Dr Alon Ilsar is a drummer, improviser, instrument designer and researcher. He is currently an ARC Industry Fellow at Monash University’s SensiLab researching the uses of the AirSticks, a gestural instrument he invented, in the field of health and well being, making music creation more accessible to the broader community. Alon has played the AirSticks at Sydney Festival, Sydney’s Vivid Festival, on Triple J’s Like a Version and at NYC’s MET Museum, with projects such as Trigger Happy ‘Visualised’, The Hour, The Sticks, Tuka (from Thundamentals), Sandy Evans’ ‘Ahimsa’ and ‘Rockpool,’ Ellen Kirkwood’s ‘[A]part‘, Kirin J Callinan, Kind of Silence (UK), Cephalon (US), and Melinda Smith's 'Conduit Bodies' and Speak Percussion's Before Nightfall. He has played drums in Belvoir Theatre’s ‘Keating! the Musical,’ Sydney Theatre Company’s ‘Mojo,’ Meow Meow with the London Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Western Australia Symphony Orchestras, Stephanie Lake’s ‘Manifesto,’ Alan Cumming, Jake Shears and Eddie Perfect.
|
 |
About Diane Busuttil
Diane Busuttil is a dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and performance artist whose work is recognised in Australia and internationally. Since 2019, she is the founder and lead facilitator of Creative Caring, a movement-based organisation that offers dance programs for seniors (50+) that increase physical and mental health through inclusive social engagement and creative exploration. These collaborative community programs are regularly delivered to aged care facilities, the Sydney Opera House, and dementia care units. Her own practice is steeped in somatic techniques that explore states of silence, listening and the practice of care that is integrated into her creative movement sessions.
|
|
About Matthew Hughes
Matthew Hughes is a creative technologist focused on the use of mixed-reality technologies in live music, dance and theatre. His work crafting audio-visual performances, interactive experiences and digital play-spaces has been showcased in festivals and galleries throughout Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe and South America, and has received accolades from institutions such as SIGGRAPH Asia and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently pursuing his PhD on mixed-reality performance at the University of Technology Sydney's Animal Logic Academy.
|
Alon Ilsar website
Alon Ilsar Instagram
Diane Busuttil website
Diane Busuttil Instagram
Image Credits
Banner: Legs On The Wall, image by Carlita Sari Photo