PARTNER ORGANISATIONS
Melbourne Food and Wine Festival
Monash University
The Birrarung Project
Monash University
The Birrarung Project
DATES
Process: Jan-March 2014
Performances March 1-2 2014
Performances March 1-2 2014
ARTISTS
Bronwen Kamasz
Dale Gorfinkel
Gretel Taylor
Helen Smith
Kevin Lo
Peter Fraser
Stuart Grant
Yoka Jones
Dale Gorfinkel
Gretel Taylor
Helen Smith
Kevin Lo
Peter Fraser
Stuart Grant
Yoka Jones
BACKGROUND
In 2014, the theme of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival was Water. At the same time, Monash University Vice-Chancellor's Professorial Fellow, Maudie Palmer began curating the Birrarung Project, to create a series of artworks along the Yarra river which runs through Melbourne. Palmer commissioned the Urban Water Authority, precursor to the EPA, to devise a series of performances.
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THE PLACE
Queensbridge, Birrarung (Yarra River), Naarm (Melbourne).
When colonists arrived in what is now Melbourne in 1835, the site of Queens Bridge was a waterfall where the fresh river water met the salt water estuary. The waterfall is thought to be a key reason reason for the place of the settlement because it allowed a crossing of the river. In 1860 a wooden footbridge was built across the river at the falls. In 1883, the waterfall was dynamited, and in 1889, the Queens Bridge was built. There are various reasons given for the blowing up of the falls, including opening navigation for larger vessels further up the river, and removing what had increasingly become viewed as a a hazard for crossing. Taunwurrung elder Uncle Larry Walsh, who collaborated with the EPA on the project tells the story that when John Batman's son died crossing the river, it was dynamited as punishment. |
Today, Queens Bridge links the Southbank precinct with the business quarter of the city on the north side of the river. The Southbank end of the bridge feeds into a wide paved plaza area gathering the Freshwater Place residential tower, the Sandridge rail bridge, restaurants, and the river itself. The Red Stair Amphitheatre dominates the plaza.
Southbank precinct was built over a former industrial area on the south bank of the river. It is a place where the river has endured ill-treatment: the demolition of the waterfall, the subsequent salination of its upstream waters, litter, industrial waste and suburban run-off.
During the 1980s, as part of the planning rejuvenation of Melbourne, architect Jan Gehl set the task to "turn this miserable scene into one of the most likeable cities in the world". Gehl suggested Melbourne should turn its face to the water. Southbank was developed as a string of restaurants along the riverbank featuring outdoor dining with river views and seating along the river's edge. Southbank also includes the arts precinct, featuring the National Gallery of Victoria, the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne Theatre Company and the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The Australian Opera and other arts institutions, with plans for a new contemporary art museum (NGV Contemporary). |
THE PROCESS
We spent about 15 days over a 2 month period walking around and training in the area, analysing atmospheres, studying the history, training and performing site-analysis exercises. The thing that struck us was that although the plan was to turn towards the water, there was no direct access. The water is at a distance as a spectacle, a kind of foreground the the view of the city on the other side. After a century of being used as a drain, the Yarra is not swimmable at the city end but it was clear that the aim of the architectural infrastructure was partly to prevent direct access.
The plaza is a place where people pass through rather than settle. It is an extension of the pedestrian crossing which links the V\Crown casino end of the south bank with the restaurant precinct. It is a fast and busy place. We concntrated on methods which worked with the flow of the people as well as the flow of the river. We examined the ways in which water moves, in its flows, ripples, torrents, eddies, currents, and splashes and devised work which worked with embodied, danced images of these kinds of movements. |
THE PERFORMANCES
We gave 6 performances of about 40 minutes each over 2 days, 3 per day.
The prime consideration was that our performances were interventions in the everyday lives of the people using the place. We needed to be sensitive to their flows and movements. We did not want to intrude or restrict their movement, but rather to offer invitations for them to take up in passing. It was not realistic to expect a large static audience to gather, despite the other activities being offered by the festival at the site. It was not a performance where we could expect much opportunity to engage audiences in direct participatory immersive sensory exercises, but demanded a more traditional theatrical frame where the audience were cast as spectators to the performance. Most of the performance consisted of ensemble dancing, working with images of how water moves, of sea plants grounded in the river bank, of swirls of litter gumming up the river. We took water from the river and measured it with buckets. We created a human waterfall, We collaborated with Dale Gorfinkel who played treated and extended instruments to create watersounds which we used to shape our choreographies. The opportunity to perform the same show 6 times in 2 days offered an opportunity to refine and develop our work from performance to performance |