Four local creatives have been given residency at the Phee Broadway Theatre in Castlemaine as part of the 2020-21 At Home program.
The Mount Alexander Shire Council program provides industry development opportunities for creatives through a three-week residency opportunity, artist fees and marketing and technical support.
Alex Kelly and her Melbourne-based collaborator David Pledger will further develop The Things We Did Next, a multi-platform exploration of a world to come in the era of climates changed and changing and based on collectively imagined futures.
For Coming Home, local artist Aimee Chapman is producing a multifaceted online and real-time sound project that will encompass workshops, masterclasses and live performances celebrating the commute from the big smoke to our home in Castlemaine and surrounds.
Lz Dunn and Casey Rice will explore the intersection of gender, sexuality, doctrine and faith through HYMNAL – a choreographic-sonic investigation of how formative religious experience might reside in and be transformed through queer bodies.
The At Home program has an ongoing partnership with Castlemaine’s experimental arts enterprise, Punctum Inc. which brings some of the nation’s most cutting-edge emerging works for testing with local audiences.
In 2021, Punctum will bring Hobart and Sydney-based performance collective re:group to the Phee Broadway, for a new work in final development stages called Coil.
Featuring as part of Punctum’s Weird Sanctuaries residency program, which also partners with Bendigo Venues and Events, Coil speaks to the impacts of technology on how ensembles create experimental new works through a live cinematic performance experience.
Public performances for the At Home projects are currently in planning for February (Coming Home), April (Coil), May (The Things We Did Next) and June (Hymnal, by invitation), 2021.
After an incredibly challenging year for the arts, council’s cultural development officer Vicki Anderson said the At Home program announcement would build confidence across our hard-hit creative industries, through direct investment in our local talent.
“In 2020, when the desire to rethink how we activate public spaces has become commonplace, we can’t wait to welcome another year of projects that do exactly that,” Ms Anderson said.
