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Eulogy for the Living

 

tyc present the Australian premiere of Eulogy for the Living.
The notion of a living eulogy was originally inspired by the little wooden tablets that hang in the Cheng Hoon Teng temple in Tony’s childhood hometown of Melaka, Malaysia. The tablets commemorate loved ones who have passed on. ‘Eulogy for the Living is a devotional work for making our way in the world. Here we transform and reconnect a deeper part of ourselves, within the fleeting transience of contemporary life. We the living both preserve the past and allow things to pass – we eulogise ourselves in each moment. Life goes on…’
The work of nine artists, including Tony and long-term collaborator, dance artist Yumi Umiumare, is integrated in Eulogy for the Living. During the rehearsal period each artist generated a deep, personal and individual work, which is woven into a collective whole and will use the stunning space of Ballarat Mining Exchange.
Eulogy for the Living was envisaged by Yap as a series of works to be presented over a number of years, evolving in their treatment of theme in the same way our lifelong understanding of life, death and spirituality evolves with age. Each iteration will respond to its performance site, creating a series of works that commemorate and are inspired by their fleeting physical home as much as what they are eulogising outside of it.
In November of last year, Eulogy for the Living premiered with great success in the ruins of St Paul’s Church in Melaka, as the keynote work of the 2010 Melaka Art & Performance Festival.  For this iteration in Ballarat, the soaring spaces of the Mining Exchange provide similar atmosphere of reverence, of rarefied air floating with particles of memory and significance.

ONE NIGHT ONLY
WHEN 8pm Saturday 5 March, 2011
WHERE Ballarat Mining Exchange, 8 Lydiard St Nth, Ballarat
TICKETS CLICK HERE
or from Art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard Street Nth, Ballarat. Ph: 03 5320 5858
$22 / $15 concession

Directed by Tony Yap Creative collaborator Yumi Umiumare Created & performed by Tony Yap, Yumi Umiumare, Adam Forbes, Janette Hoe, Yoka Jones, Geraldine Morey, Daniel Mounsey, Ben Rogan, Brendan O'Connor Video Design by Matthew Gingold Fabric installation by Pia Interlandi Lighting and production by Dori Dragon Bicchierai Sound by Gus Macmillan TYC Producer Kath Papas TYC is incubated by Multicultural Arts Victoria

 
.......O God, Your Morning Is
Perfect. People are alive
......in your world... - Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

 
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ARTISTS BIOGRAPHIES


Matthew Gingold Multimedia artist

Matthew Gingold’s work in audio/visual installation and performance has largely focused on perception, the body, and the various meanings ‘live’ and ‘alive’ can have within these contexts. Working across art forms and media,

Gingold’s practice spans installation, exhibition, performance, public and community outcomes. His most recent work, Circuit, a Made by Melbourne Fringe commission that networks and transforms photographs of gallery

visitors, was shown simultaneously at 8 independent and artist run initiatives across Victoria.

Other projects have been presented at CarriageWorks; Northcote Town Hall 2008; Melbourne University Theatre 2008; Bus Gallery 2006; Tap Seac Square, Macau 2007; BlackBox 2006/07, ACMI Memory Grid 2004/5, the State Library of Victoria 2004 and as part of the Nextwave 2004, Melbourne International 2006, Melbourne Animation 2005, Dance Massive 2009 and Gertrude Street Projections 2009 festivals. Matthew was the Director of Seventh Gallery from 2005 2008, is a founding member of the audio-visual jam collective Outpost and was the inaugural recipient of the Aphids/CIA Tactical Media Residency in Perth, 2009.

Forthcoming work includes The Perfect Artist, a mass video portrait project documenting Australian creative culture to be presented at the National Portrait Gallery in May 2010.

Pia Interlandi Fabric Installation

Pia Interlandi is a fashion designer whose work often incorporates death as a scientific and psychological concept. She has a particular interest in textile manipulation and garment transformation, informed by her time in Japan under the instruction of Yoshiki Hishinuma. While studying fashion, she began experimenting with dissolvable fabrics as method of exploring life’s transient qualities. This became the basis of her current PhD study at Melbourne’s RMIT University. Entitled 'Dressing Death: Garments for the Grave', the doctoral study has evolved into the design of funerary garments and even the dressing of the deceased.

Part of this study has involved a residency at Perth’s Symbiotica, where she researched the effects of clothing and textiles on decomposition. Involving rigorous immersion in the rituals associated with preparing the body for interment, garments from this investigation are currently on exhibit at the London Science Museum. Concurrent with her doctoral research and production, Pia teaches within the Fashion School at RMIT, is the head designer of cutting-edge Melbourne fashion label ‘Hhhh...’ and is a certified funeral celebrant.

 

Yumi Umiumare performer

Born in Hyogo, Japan, Yumi is the only Japanese Butoh Dancer in Australia and the creator of provocative Butoh Cabaret works. Originally as a member of the seminal Butoh Company DaiRakudakan in Tokyo, Yumi has lived in Australia since 1993 and has appeared in numerous dance, theatre and film productions in Australia Japan, Europe, Malaysia and China. Most recently Yumi has premiered critically acclaimed full length solo work EnTrance, one-woman dance theatre with multimedia and installations, at Malthouse theatre, toured to OzAsia festival in Adelaide and about to have national tour founded by Kultour.

Her own productions including Fleeting Moments (1998) received two Green Room Awards, as did Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl (1999-2003) a sell-out Butoh Cabaret work performed at the Melbourne Fringe and touring around Australia. Other repertoires include DasSHOKU Cultivations!! (Osaka2003) and DasSHOKU Hora!! (Malthouse Theatre2005 and Sydney Opera House2006).

Her solo dance; INORI-in-visible and Dis-Oriental and collaborative dance work with Tony Yap; How could you even begin to understand? were presented around Australia, Japan, Malaysia and Denmark.

She performs in the smash-hit The Burlesque Hour (Finucane&Smith) which has set critics raving and 45,000 audience members around the world in raptures. Yumi’s other performance credits includes Burning Daylight with Marrugeku, Broome based indigenous dance theatre group, Love Suicides, Meat Party, Miss Tanaka and also multi award winning production Ngapartji Ngapartji.

She has featured in acclaimed short documentary film by Sean O’Brien, Sunrise at Midnight, Butoh Cabaret and Full Moon Trance and Dis-Oriental.

Her choreographic works includes Beyond Butoh series, Ngapartji Ngapartji, Girls on Boys and Once Upon A Midnight, rock’n’roll musical performed in Okinawa (Japan) and OzAsia Festival in Adelaide.

Yumi teaches Butoh regularly and curates the Beyond Butoh Festival with Tony Yap in Melbourne.

 

Dori Dragon Bicchierai Lighting Designer/Production Manager

Dori works a s a freelance production manager and lighting Designer.

During 2009 she worked with Judith Lucy on a 6 month national tour, technical coordinator for Melbourne International Arts Festival, production managed St Martin’s ‘1989’ and lighting designer for Women’s Circus ‘Herstory’.

2010 has seen Dori as  production manager/lighting designer for Midsumma@Gashouse, production manager for 'Magdalen Asylum' at the Abbotsford Convent, techinal stage manager for the Regent Room at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, production manager for a national tour of 'Driving Miss Daisy' with hit productions, production manager for VCA Dance School and lighting designer for Westside Circus.

Dori has worked and toured nationally and internationally with numerous performers, companies, venues and events over the past 20 years including Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Back to Back Theatre, Yumi Umiumare, Handspan, Circus Oz, Judith Lucy, Rove McManus, Moomba, Ross Noble, Big Day Out, Midsumma Festival, Women’s Circus, Tony Yap Company and Snuff Puppets.

Dori was lighting designer for 'Ladies prefer Brunettes' (Women's Circus) for Midsumma Festival in January 2011 1nd currently is production manager and lighting designer for 'Rendition of the Soul' (Gasworks) and 'Eulogy for the Living' (Ballarat Mining Exchange).

 

Ben Rogan performer

Ben Rogan Graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 1993 and moved to Melbourne where has continued his training and performed in numerous productions to this day, including; A Ham Funeral directed by Micheal Kantor at Belvoir St Theatre; Art and Soul directed by Kate Cherry with Melbourne Theatre Company; A Natural Life directed by Micheal Kantor at Playbox; A Dogs Play directed by David Bell at Playbox and Hideous Portraits directed by Tom Wright at La Mama.

Over the past 12 Years he has trained extensively and performed with dance/theatre practitioners Tony Yap and Yumi Umiumare, working specifically with a combination of Grotowski theatre training excercises and Butoh dance techniques. During 2004-09 Ben has also collaborated with contemporary dancer Phillip Gleeson on projects that explore the meeting points of Dance and Theatre.

In 2006-09 Ben has been involved with co-coordinating and teaching a Solo Performance making course with Greg Dyson and Emma Straps at the Victorian University of Technology. He is currently a board member of Strange Fruit street theatre company.

 

Adam Forbes performer

Adam Forbes is a Melbourne based performer with rich and varied history of work in theatre, dance and music. His work is centred on exploring structures, and contexts, that allow authenticity to arise within, and between, performer and audience. 

Adam has worked intensively with Tony Yap since 1994, initially as a member of Mixed Company, ongoingly training, developing and performing dance/physical theatre.

Over the last fifteen years he has developed a strong grounding in the visceral physicality of butoh and Grotowskian training methods. Adam has worked with leaders in the fields of authentic movement including Deborah Hay and dance therapy pioneer Dr Marcia B. Leventhal, and undertaken dance/movement training with IRAA Theatre Melbourne,  Yumi Umiumare, Tetsuro Waguri, David Wells, Al Wunder, Deborah Hays, Sylvia Staheli, Tess de Quincy, Stuart Lynch, John-Paul Wobati, Agung Gunuwang.

Performance credits include:

Dance/physical theatre productions –devisor/performer; ‘Icarus’, ‘Icarus II’ ‘Narcissus’ Dream’, ‘Metamorphosis’, ‘Print of a Pulse’, ‘Echo’, ‘A Place to Sit’, ‘Laneways’, ‘Children of Lear’, ‘St Sebastian’, (Mixed Company). 

 Beyond Butoh series- ‘BBO2’,’ BBO4’, ‘BBO5’, ‘BBO8’, (Tony Yap, Yumi Umiumare), ‘Two To One’ (Deborah Hay) Dusk Til Dawn (2007, John Cage’s Musicircus MIAF), ‘Whispers From the Secret World’ (Le Quy Doung), ‘Garden’ (Ilan Abrahams) Eulogy of the Living. (Tony Yap, MAP, Malaysia) Cognizance and Raptured, (self-devised solo works).

Most recently Adam created four site-specific solo dance works as part of the 1st Melaka Arts and Performance Festival in Malaysia; ‘Fraught’, ‘Here’, ‘Descent’ and ‘Milk Stone’.

He has also appeared in audience-interactive productions utilizing Theatre of the Oppressed methodologies, composed and performed music for theatre and dance productions, and facilitated creative expression for severely disabled clients. Recent projects include facilitating Weave Movement Theatre, a mixed abilities physical theatre/ dance company, in image–based movement training. 

Adam is also a qualified counsellor and shiatsu practitioner, and works with drug and alcohol service The Buoyancy Foundation of Victoria, and produces a weekly community radio program.

 

Brendan O’Connor performer

Brendan graduated in dance at the College of Dance, Monkstown. He was excepted to the Laban Centre London and the Fontys Dance Academy in the Netherlands. Fontys suited Brendan well and worked on his technique and found his place in Dance theatre using choreography that allowed him to express his strong, personal ideas and concepts in his physicallity.

After a dance trip to Ghana he found his interest in strong and psychi-physical energy and pursued this direction in his consequent connection with India with his work in the slums of New Delhi.

Brendan continued with his own unique work which linked him to opportunities various  dance companies in The Netherlands, as well as some of the leading dance companies in Ireland such as Dance Theatre of Ireland and Modern Irish Dance Theatre.

In Melbourne Brendan performed in a improvisation project with Sue K at the back door space and also has also performed in an improvisation, ‘Time, space, place’ devised by Mike Hornblow with Tony Yap Company (TYC). In November 2009 Brendan at the site-specific Melaka Arts and Performance (MAP) Festival, Malaysia.

Brendan is still currently working with the TYC focusing on the approach of looking from inner landscape to choreography. He is pushing his boundary to find a personal, pure and authentic movement language.

His past works include Exodus', created by Loretta Yurick and Robert Connor and 'Grand Junction' by Charles Linehan,  Dance Theatre Ireland which toured Ireland. In 2007 he cherographed 'Life Goes On' with the Kathputli Colony in new Delhi India. In 2006 he danced in a film for Irish television in a piece called  'Buail' choregraphed by John Scott founder of the Modern Irish Dance Theatre. He performed in a duet that he created with Fiona Keenan O Brien called 'Cara Mo Chara' at the Pavillion in Dun Laogaire Ireland for Dance Youth Ireland Festival. In New Delhi he also choreographed 'Life Is A Dance' with young artists from the Kathputili Colony and danced in 'Chain Of Collaboration' for Festival Mundial choreographed by Joshua Trebia performed in Netherlands and also in the National Theatre of Dance in Ghana, Africa

 

Yoka Jones performer

Yoka is currently training in Butoh, trancedance, Grotowski, Suzuki and Bodyweather methods.  She graduated from VCA/Melbourne Univesity majoring in film  and theatre in 2000 and completed Solo Performance Artist course at Victoria University and presently in VU solo residency.  Her has also trained in dance and physical theatre with Tess de Quincy, Yumi Umiumare, Gretal Taylor and Alice Cummings.  Yoka now trains and continues to explore and investigate the authenticity in dance and performance with Tony Yap Company. 

Yoka has a background in film, theatre, script writing and visual arts.

She has a deep passion for elaborate old world and other-worldly aesthetics esapecially in fabrics and costumery. She has performed with Metamorphic Ritual Theatre for over 10 years in Australia and abroad. She performed both as a solo artist and in collaborated works in Australia, Scotland, England, Italy and the USA.

Works with Metamorphic Ritual Theatre include: Loom of Lilla (2008 LaMama, Melbourne; Edinburgh Fringe, Scotland;  Modena, Tuscany, Palermo, Italy and Speaker Place in London); Oedipus, La Pendu (LaMama). Feast of Vallhala (Monsalvat, Melb) Three Fates (Melb Fringe Festival.  Her solos include: Wolf Woman (07), Lillith (08), Seal Skin (’09), The Bone Girl (08) and Babylon (04). 

With TYC she performed in Beyond Butoh, BB08 and Eulogy for the Living (Melaka Festival, Malaysia ’09).  She also performed She feeds her many hungry faces as a site specific program in the festival.

 

Daniel Mounsey performer

Daniel Mounsey is New Zealand born artist living and working Melbourne since 1998. After considerable recognition in New Zealand, 12 solo painting exhibitions and various award winnings he attended Otago University and began studying dance and performance art.

Moving to Melbourne he spent the next ten years intensively working  in the area of Butoh and movement art. Teachers include Tess De Quincey (Syd Uni), Tony Yap, Yumi Ummerie, Lisa Shelton (VCA), Rainsford,  John Paul Hussy, in Butoh, Corporeal mime, performance art  and theatre.

He was a Member of Chapel of Change company which represented Australia in the opening of the La Paz Festival in Bolivia. He also studied Body Weather butoh and was invited to participate in ‘Triple Alice’, a 3 week symposium of Butoh and the multi media arts, as a guest performance artist, in Alice Springs (through De Quincy Comp. Syd Uni).

Throughout the decade of 2001-2010 he practiced & studied performance art in and around Melbourne solo and in groups, performing on the Melbourne burlesque circuit, while pursuing physical training in Butoh, Grotowski, Corporeal mime, Body Weather, Martial arts and Yoga.

In 2008 Daniel started working with Stelarc and virtual reality, organizing and performing conceptual performance via telematics to art galleries in Korea, France, Germany , Holland, the US & the UK.

He now performs independently and with groups in this area on many world wide collaborative virtual art projects, performing within galleries such as the museum of modern art in Chicago, American universities and galleries throughout Europe.

He is presently working on major work for Roy Ascott involving virtual performance.

Along side conceptual art Daniel continues to work and perform in areas of physical theatre and Butoh.

Janette Hoe performer

Born in Malaysia, Janette Hoe is a Melbourne based dance artist. She has performed in Australia and internationally for over a decade.

Janette has a particular interest in the ecstatic body. Her practice is driven by the psycho-physical interplay in performance. Her work is informed by Butoh, Grotowski physical theatre methods and Asian traditional dance forms.

In 2006 she was named ‘Dancer to Watch’ in Dance Australia Critics Survey for her self devised solo choreographic work No Candles Please in Terrain Multicultural Contemporary Dance Festival, Victoria. The work was later presented in the Lombok International Arts Festival and in Bali, Indonesia.

Janette has worked closely with Tony Yap since 2001 in developing and performing dance and physical theatre. She has performed in the Beyond Butoh series from 2001-2008.

She is currently working with Lella Cariddi (curator), Tony Yap (dancer) and Domenico de Clario (music/installation artist) in a series of improvised works entitled Its All I Ever Want To Do. The next performance in this site specific series will be at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide.

Other performances include Echoes and Eulogy for the Living (2009, Melaka Arts & Performance Festival, Malaysia); Silenzio (2009); Poetic Line (2009); Edge Pulse (2009, Tony Yap Company, Melbourne); White Froth (2008); The Drought Within (2008); PINK (2007, Kuala Lumpur); Dusk Til Dawn (2007, John Cage’s Musicircus MIAF); Pause – Where Are We Heading…(2004); Barbie Meets Butoh (2003); and short works for Melbourne Drag King Night (2004).

 

Geraldine Morey performer

Geraldine Morey loves dance, yoga and travel. She performed in Edinburgh Inernational Festival and Melbourne International Festival for over a decade. In Scotland (1995-2003) she performed regularly with Transfigured in site- specific works and with Metacorpus, a costume-performance-art company. She also performed in biannual ritual - based events of ancient Celtic tradition in Beltane and Samhuinne festivals.

She has studied with Butoh artists in Europe and UK, performing in France, Germany, Scotland and Slovakia.

She attended Schloss Broellin in Germany (2006+2007) to work with Yumiko Yoshioka and an international, interdisciplinary team of artist on Ex..iT Festival.

In Melbourne she continues her research with Tony Yap and Yumi Umiumare exploring emotional landscapes and body memory through movement. She has performed in Beyond Butoh Series since 2006 and performed Ripples and Eulogy for the Living in Melaka Festival, Malaysia, 2009.

In 2007 she completed a Diploma in Visual Arts and has worked with Melbourne dust artist Hannah Bertram installing works at Linden Gallery, Westspace and Dianne Tanzer Gallery where she collaborated in transforming the drawings by dancing on them.

She taught classes in expressive body awareness to drama students at Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh and dance students at Northlands Secondary College in Melbourne. Now she is training to be yoga teacher and will visit India this year to further her studies.

 



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Eulogy for the Living has been supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria, the Sidney Myer Fund, and City of Ballarat Arts and Culture.
 

 
Email: tonyyap@netspace.net.au > Ph: +61 412 019 876
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