Thomas Hutchins

After an exciting three year journey, Dust Covered Butterfly (DCB) will be making its full-length, mainstage debut at Metro Arts in June, 2015! A directorial debut for Thomas Hutchins, this season will be a culmination of the years that have been devoted to creating this visceral, new performance work. It was originally performed at the Festival of Australian Student Theatre (2013) and after striking the right chords during a Shortfuse Residency with provocateur David Fenton and further Creative Development with Metro Arts, the premier of DCB is now ready to take over the Sue Benner Theatre this June.

INCEPTION:
Dust Covered Butterfly was born as an performance experiment which sought to tell story by any means but spoken word. During the first development at Visible Ink in 2013, Thomas was obsessed with 'The Collector' by John Fowles and naturally the themes of the book began to heavily inspire the creation process. Soon after, in May 2013, The Cleveland Kidnappings became an international news headline and was quickly pulled apart in a rehearsal room where love, power, and freedom were being used and abused. Since then, DCB has widened it's inspiration to all documented kidnappers and serial killers within the last 50 years and presents the most through-provoking parts through three character archetypes: The Captor, The Bait, and the Captive. The show takes these three unlikely protagonists and presents them in an experimental theatrical form driven by live original music and facilitated by The Host.

WHY:
The amount and intensity of abuse in the world is at an all time high. The news is riddled with abuse whether it's on a domestic level, a national political level, or internationally where wars are becoming more and more commonplace. We don't claim to know the answer but DCB suggests that the reason may be that we have forgotten how to love. While investigating the perpetrators and mourning the victims of these sick people from across the globe, things became personal very quickly as we started drawing countless parallels to our own lives. At some point in our lives, we had all been the victim. Victims of love, hate, passion, seduction, manipulation, and abuse. This show became a vehicle to share our experiences in hope to help others.

1. Design (Materials, Professional Lighting Designer, Professional Sound Designer)
2. Documentation (Production Shots, Archival footage)
3. Dramaturgical Support 


(For Use/Numen, Tape Installation, Odeon, Vienna, 2010 photo c-cyte.blogspot.ro)

1.0 DESIGN
The design for Dust Covered Butterfly will consist primarily of packing tape and plastic drawing heavily from installation works by the design collective ‘For Use/Numen’ and Rowan Mersh’s work ‘Invisible Boundaries’. With your help we can build a super sexy geometric, textural installation in the Sue Benner Theatre creating a bridge between the inspiration of the work and the content of the show. The installation will subtly allude to death by threatening suffocation and the implications of being tapped in a spiders web before being taken away in a body bag. The transparency of the material will lend itself to beautiful images with lighting and shadow.
(Rowan Mersh, Invisible Boundaries (detail), 2009. Photo courtesy Gallery Fumi)

2.0 DOCUMENTATION
As artists we sometimes do not get the chance to record the work we spend our whole lives creating. With your generous funds we will have the chance to try and capture this glorious moment in time and make it count for the future.
Morgan Roberts is a shit-hot photographer based in Brisbane, Australia and has taken all of our steaming promotional imagery. We want to get him back to take some shots of the production to capture the final product as well as to give you a little preview of the show before you come. With your help, we can make this a reality. 

The ephemeral quality of live performance is something that can never truly be captured... but we need to at least try! Your funds will give us the capacity to have the show filmed in its entirety by the talented Markwell Presents. This footage will be used for future grant applications, further creative development and enabling another life for the work. We also want proof that it happened, that you were there, and that it was (hopefully) awesome.

3.0 DRAMATURGICAL SUPPORT
Dust Covered Butterfly has many different performance elements that sometimes work together and sometimes work against each other to provide access to the core of the work. With your help we can assure the work will remain as detailed, clear and complex as possible by engaging Chris Beckey as a professional dramaturge.