Renae Shadler & Co

The Project

Renae Shadler & Collaborators have invited stellar Austrian dancer and choreographer Mirjam Sögner to Australia for the first time to collaborate with an all female Aussie team of artists on a NEW version of Renae Shadler's award-winning solo, RESTORE. The artists will redevelop the work at Punctum Inc in Castlemaine and Dancehouse in Melbourne as well as run public movement workshops. RESTORE will then premiere at Dancehouse in Melbourne in an international double-bill with Mirjam's captivating solo, LARA, 11-13 May.  

This project has been selected for the MATCH Lab program where every dollar donated by you will be matched by Creative Partnerships Australia - so your support will go twice as far! 

The Shows

RESTORE is inspired by a residency in an Icelandic fishing village where an active volcano capped with a glacier lay dormant. Renae is compelled by Snæfellsjökull (the volcano/glacier) to reconsider her fast-paced 'go go go' lifestyle. In a world where being busy feels like success and nothingness instils fear, she finds herself hurtling towards the realisation of an already-imagined future. Dance, theatre and design are overlaid to create multifaceted images of whale migrations, glaciers and the digital realm. Renae shape-shifts her way through a myriad of worlds with skillful precision whilst inviting audiences into this intimate journey. 

• WINNER Regional Arts Victoria Market Ready Award at Melbourne Fringe 2016
• NOMINATED for Best Performance at Melbourne Fringe 2016

"This is an elegantly executed performance with stunning visuals and music, while Shadler, armed with a gentle smile and knowing eyes, proves herself to be a fascinating and enchanting performer that you can't take your eyes off."  - Aussie Theatre

After an extensive European tour and being selected as one of the TOP 20 Freshest Upcoming Chorographers in Europe for Aerowaves in 2016, LARA comes to Australia for the first time. This piece takes the pixelated movement patterns of early computer game characters as its starting point to explore digitally altered physicalities. Mirjam Sögner translates the unnatural qualities and glitchy image errors of digital avatars back onto her own body, which produces an uncanny hybrid. Imitating the imitation, she creates a physical body seemingly trapped in the digital world. As our digital and physical realities grow together, this solo offers a bodily response to our changing experience of the world.

"Moments like these remind me again why I go to the theatre. 'LARA' is [...] a successful and precisely worked movement study, which strangely touches me as a spectator and yet also alienates me." - Johanna Withelm

The Workshops

Renae and Mirjam have been working and developing their practice together since 2014. As part of their ongoing collaboration, the artists continue to explore how text and movement can collide to create new meanings. They are particularly interested in how spoken word and the moving body are capable of bringing fiction into being. In a series of public workshops in Melbourne and Castlemaine, the artists will share their individual and combined practices, connecting with local residents and artists who are intersted in furthering their understanding of the moving body. Together the artists and participants will investigate how these two disciplines can compliment and contradict each other to reveal the multiple power structures within the body, which we are often unaware of but immersed in daily.

The Team

RESTORE

Concept, Choreography, Performance: Renae Shadler
Movement Collaborator: Mirjam Sögner
Design Collaborator: Amelia Lever-Davidson
Sound Design: Korhan Erel
Creative Producer: Natasha Phillips
Previous development collaborators: Jess Keeffe (Sound) and Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy (Dramaturgy)

LARA

Concept, Choreography, Performance: Mirjam Sögner
Music: Andreas Völk
Light: Sandra Blatterer

Renae Shadler is an Australian actress, dancer and choreographer from Western Australia and now based between Melbourne and Berlin. Her work traverses dance, experimental performance, and embedded community projects. Since training at the VCA in acting and Adelaide Centre for the Arts in dance, Renae has continued to explore physicality as a key source of expression, intertwined with spoken word and the larger dramatic gesture. In 2012, she founded Renae Shadler & Collaborators, a project-based collective in Melbourne who create performance experiences that engage creatively with site and are created in collaboration with touring artists and local participants. Past projects have been presented in train stations, public spaces and theatres in Europe, Regional Australia and urban centres. Since 2013 Renae has been expanding her practice in Europe through a DanceWEB 2014 scholarship, performing with Dewey Dell and Alexandra Pirici and as an acting coach for Kaori Ito produced by Les Ballets C de la B. Her recent guest performances and residencies include Hellerau - European Centre for the Arts Dresden, Tanzfabrik and Dansomètre, among others. www.renaeshadler.com

Mirjam Sögner is an Austrian choreographer and performer based in Berlin. Her work is deeply rooted in movement research and driven by the urge to create with and through bodily knowledge.She has been studying dance, choreography and artistic research both in Vienna and at Artez Arnhem / NL. Her solo-work LARA tours extensively throughout Europe since its selection for Aerowaves 2016 (Dansens Hus Oslo, Brut Vienna, Frascati Amsterdam, Rote Fabrik Zürich …). Mirjam has been awarded with a DanceWEB Scholarship, the STARTStipendium and a Research-Scholarship by the Austrian Cultural Council, the Tanzstipendium by the Berlin Senat and with a research-residency in Montreal by the Goethe Institute. As a choreographer she created work for Tanztage Berlin, Dschungel Wien and Kibbutzim College Tel Aviv a.o.Recently she has been working with Siegmar Zacharias and just premiered her new evening filling solo-work RAYS at brut Vienna. www.mirjamsoegner.com

The Timeline 

Week 1 // 16-21 April

20 April: Dancehouse design planning 

21 April - International collaboration & movement workshop at Dancehouse
Week 2 & 3 // 23 April-6 May: 2-week Punctum Inc Seedpod Residency.
5 May - Performance of RESTORE and audience/artist discussion at Phee Broadway Theatre

6 May - Community workshop exploring movement practices and relationship to landscape, Castlemaine

Week 4 // 7-13 May: Dancehouse Production Week
11, 12, 13  May: Double-bill Performances at Dancehouse of RESTORE and LARA.

The $3,000 we raise through crowd funding + the $3,000 matched by Creative Partnerships Australia MATCH lab program will go towards covering the production costs for our presentaion season at Dancehouse including lighting, sound hires, costume, crewing and operating hire as well as a portion of the venue hire. 

See below graph for the full budget breakdown:

To keep costs down friends are hosting us in spare rooms, Renae self-invested for her international flights, most of the team are donating much more time than allocated here and our partner orgs are giving us marketing shouts-outs and free mentorship to get this project off the ground.

Income

Your donation will be the final step we need to get our project over the line. Adding to over a year of fundraising and self-investment on behalf of the artists.

We are grateful to have this project supported by these great organisations below. 

As an independent production and highly ambitious project, raising more money than our target can only be a good thing. Any extra funds raised will help pay for digital marketing spend, time with technicians to install / dismantel the show and building the set.

After rigorously fundrasing for the project, the money and in-kind support we have received is just below what we need to make this project happen without leaving us completely out of pocket. As independent theatre/dance practitioners who are no longer emerging but not yet established, it is this tricky in-between space that many of us in the sector find ourselves working in. We are working internationally and finding creative solutions to have a sustainable career in the arts and contribute to a culturally vibrant sector but are struggling to overcome this highly saturated market and limited amount of funding available. In saying that, fuelled by our passion and determination, it is projects like these that give us the opportunity to present our work in a professional context that allows for continuing audience development, community participation and potential longevity. 

We are thankful for any bit of support you can give us and can't wait to see you at the premier!