Public Actions
Lead artist, Concept: Luke George
Choreography: Luke George
Sound & Video artist: Nick Roux
Performers: Alexander Powers, Latai Taumoepeau, Leah Landau, Luke George, Melanie Lane, Nick Roux, Russell Walsh, Timothy Harvey
Lighting design: Matthew Adey for Beizj Studio
Photography: Gregory Lorenzutti
Dramaturgy: Daniel Kok, Nicola Gunn
Production Manager: Emily O’Brien
Creation Producer: Alison Halit
Images: Pippa Samaya, Gregory Lorenzutti
Art as an avalanche in an unstable landscape. Provoked by the debilitating culture of individualism today, Public Actions rallies the audience as mobilised citizens. When the lines between observation and participation become blurred, artist and audience may enter into a collaborative relationship and work together to reconsider the question of art as a force for social cohesion.
Public Actions is a social choreographic project that highlights situations where bodies and objects, the artist and the public, negotiate the social codes behind their collective actions. An ongoing work that encounters artists, public participants and audiences through iterations in the theatre, gallery, public spaces, private homes and online.
Since 2018, Luke and Public Actions have encountered people in Melbourne, Sydney, Toulouse and Nottingham through: A Call To Actions; Public Action; Group Action; Distant Theatres; and Private Spaces.
Parts 2 & 3, Public Action and Group Action are performative ruptures that terraforms the theatre and instigates a mass displacement and relocation.
Performances
Aug 2022 | Part 1: A Call To Actions | University of Sydney x Performance Space | Sydney
Oct 2021 | Parts 1, 2 & 3 | Liveworks Festival | Performance Space | Carriageworks | Sydney, Australia (POSTPONED)
June 2021 | Part 5: Private Spaces | Théâtre Garonne and ThéâtredelaCité | IN EXTREMIS Festival | Toulouse (Online)
Oct 2020 | Part 4: Distant Theatres | Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art | Sydney (Online)
Oct 2019 | Part 1: A Call To Actions | Nottdance Festival | Nottingham
Oct 2019 | Part 1: A Call To Actions | Théåtre Garonne | Toulouse
Mar 2019 | *Premiere: Parts 1, 2 & 3 | Dance Massive | Arts House | Melbourne
Nov 2018 | Part 1: A Call To Actions | Abbotsford Convent | Open Spaces Festival | Melbourne
Mar 2018 | Part 2: Public Action | Keir Choreographic Award | Carriageworks | Sydney
Mar 2018 | Part 2: Public Action | Keir Choreographic Award | Dancehouse | Sydney
Essay
People Watching People - ‘Public Actions’ as Social Choreography by Daniel Kok
Recognition
Greenroom Award for Best Ensemble - Contemporary and Experimental Performance 2019
Supporters
Public Actions is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. The three parts were developed through residencies at The Abbotsford Convent Foundation; Liveworks Lab (Performance Space/Bundanon Trust); Temperance Hall; Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse); Tanzhaus Zürich (Zürich); and the City of Melbourne through Arts House.
Part 1: Public Action was originally commissioned by Carriageworks, Dancehouse and The Keir Foundation and premiered as part of the 2018 Keir Choreographic Awards
Part 2: Group Action is commissioned by Arts House CultureLAB
Part 3: A Call To Actions was developed in partnership with The Abbotsford Convent Foundation
Reviews
"It’s a fascinating, multifaceted work that is an ambitious attempt to think about how performance might intersect with its audience, amplifying this experiment to the larger questions of how human beings conduct themselves in public space... The risk of venturing oneself into relationships with others, especially with strangers, is delicate and complex: when something succeeds in disrupting our imposed boundaries... there’s a lightness and freedom that registers in how your body exists in space, in relationship to everything and everybody else. And that is a beautiful opening of the self, that perhaps we can carry out into the world, into our other relationships: the faith that such a thing is possible, and that we can make it."