What is it to break? What is it to fall apart? Ceci travelled the world as a professional acrobat for many years but after a series of accidents and complex injuries, the career she carefully crafted fell to pieces.
Now she’s somewhat healed, somewhat broken, actively defiant and left asking: what is the cost of our ambition?
Intensely personal and raw, Break is an autobiographical work that sits between dance, theatre and circus, an investigation into how we define ourselves and how we recover when our dreams shatter.
Cecilia Martin is an Australian multidisciplinary artist grown from Argentinian roots. Movement is her principal artistic language and circus has been at the core of Cecilia’s life for longer than she can remember. Growing up in Canberra she attended Warehouse Circus in her youth and co-founded Poncho Circus, a company with whom she performed self-directed circus shows nationally and internationally.
Studying at the National Institute of Circus Arts in Melbourne, Cecilia trained as an aerialist and found a passion for pushing the limits of duo and ensemble acrobatics. In 2016, Cecilia joined Circa Contemporary Circus and toured the world with the company for five years, performing in notable venues and festivals in New York, Lyon, Guadalajara, Edinburgh, Paris, and Montreal.
In recent years, Cecilia has been creating new circus works with companies such as Arc Circus and A Good Catch as well as collaborating with dance and physical theatre company The Farm to create her first solo show, Break.
Kate has created and performed in works within the realms of dance, theatre, circus, performative installation and in projects created with amateurs and young people. She is a frequent collaborator with The Farm and with them has created the works Cockfight, The Ninth Wave, Throttle and Helpmann Award winning
TIDE. Her practice currently focuses on the notions of authenticity and connection, in the context of performance. This is focused through a view of the body as a container of histories and stored experiences both personal, genetic and socio-cultural. Her works have been presented nationally and internationally in the contexts such as Dance Massive, Darwin Festival, Bleach Festival, Festival 2018 (for the Commonwealth Games), the United Kingdom through Dance Touring Partnership and GAM, Chile. As a performer she has been nominated for a Greenroom Award. And through her work with The Farm has won a Helpmann, Drovers and most recently an Australian Dance Award.
Gavin is one of four Artistic Directors of The Farm, a company based on the Gold Coast, whose work has been described as the gateway drug to contemporary dance. He started dancing late after many lost years spent hitch-hiking, skiing, writing, camping and studying. Eventually he decided to start making art instead and joined Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre and following that, Belgian company Ultima Vez.
Throughout his career Gavin has worked between Australia and Europe and was Artistic Director of Dancenorth from 2005 to 2009. He took the company from regional Australia to national and international touring and then left for Europe once again to join PVCtanz in Germany.
He has been nominated twice for a Helpmann Award, was awarded the Sidney Myer Individual Performing Arts Award in 2017 and had a sandwich named after him at Lucia’s Coffee shop in Adelaide in the 1990’s. In 2018 The Farm won a Helpmann for TIDE, in 2019 a Drover’s Award for Cockfight and in 2020 an Ausdance award for TIDE. Gavin still writes, camps and studies but the hitch-hiking and skiing are over for the time being at least.
Chloe Ogilvie is a Yamatji Nanda woman from Western Australia, where she graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts specializing in Lighting Design. Chloe works mostly as a designer but has crossed over into other areas such as Production Management and Event Coordination.
Chloe has been a resident Artist with Black Swan for three years and is currently co curating the Maali Festival. Chloe Ogilvie is also a member of the arts collective The Farm where she has designed and production managed a range of shows including Throttle, Cockfight (Drover Award Winner), Ninth Wave, Tide (Helpmann Award Winner) and Depthless. Other highlights of hers include, Spinifex Gum (LD/ALD), Bungul (ALD), The Visitors (LD), Winyan Boga Yurringa (Belvoir, ALD), Fever and the Fret (Yirra Yaakin, LD), Bayala (Sydney Festival, Event Coordinator) and Toast (Maiden Voyage Theater Company, LD).
Ben Ely is a musician and artist, best known for his work with multi ARIA Music Award winning rock band Regurgitator. He has been playing in bands for the past 25 plus years. From the earlier Huxley Family through Pangaea to the short lived The Stalkers, as well as his various solo initiated but still band orientated projects – Jump 2 Light Speed and Radio5.
And most recently he has worked on solos albums SOLO and Strange Tales of Drugs and Lost Love. In recent years Ben has been composing for live performances in dance and circus, most notably for, The Farm, Casus, Dancenorth and Co3. Ben Also co-wrote the AFI Award winning score for the film Somersault. His visual art has also been commissioned and exhibited around the country.
Anna Whitaker is a multi award-winning Queensland based sound designer and composer with a palate for experimental, acousmatic works and surround sound composition.
She graduated from Queensland Conservatorium of Music with a Bachelor of Music Technology, and since has designed and composed for productions including MONA FOMA, Bleach* Festival, The Farm, tasdance, Stompin’, Sydney Dance Company, La Boite Theatre Company, Brisbane Festival, HOTA Gold Coast, Festival 2018, Vulcana Circus and Playlab.
Her vast background in classical music and technology-based sound art result in musical concoctions from the traditional and contemporary worlds. Anna received the 2020/2021 and 2019 Matilda Award for Best Sound Design for her work on Michael Smith’s ‘Cowboy’ and The Farm’s ‘Throttle’ respectively. Anna’s unique voice is also evident in her installation works which have exhibited at Bleach* Festival, HOTA, MetroArts and QPAC Museum.
Rozina Suliman is a theatre designer, community artist, facilitator and maker with a background in installation art, independent curating and arts administration. Rozina’s work as a designer for live performance spans dance, theatre, opera, festivals, musical theatre, puppetry and outdoor spectacle theatre.
She has worked with both large-scale companies and independents in Queensland and interstate, including; Opera Queensland, Black Swan State Theatre Company, Woodford Folk Festival, Brisbane Festival, Dark Mofo, The Farm, Phluxus 2 Dance Collective, Lisa Wilson Projects, The Last Great Hunt, Ochre Contemporary Dance Company, LINK Dance Company, Ballet Theatre of Queensland, Timothy Brown Choreography, Claire Marshall Choreography and Connect 2 Productions.
Rozina has designed and facilitated community art projects in both urban and regional locations and run workshops for primary and secondary students as well as adults. These include as an independent artist and with organisations including; State Library of Queensland, Gympie Regional Council, Woodford Folk Festival and Reverse Garbage Queensland. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Queensland College of Art (2005) and a Bachelor of Performing Arts (Production & Design) from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (2017).
Briana Clark (she/her) is a Meanjin based technical production artist. While at QUT, she has been fascinated with lighting design and its multi-dimensional power to transform space, time and atmosphere. Although her specialisation is lighting, she strives to be an all-rounded technician and programmer. Throughout her career she has been involved in over 15 productions where she has experimented with management, technical and design roles. Her most recent roles include, Lighting Designer for Tight In The Bud and Lighting Designer / Head of Lighting for The Wolves. Outside of University, she is a Lighting Technician at La Boite and Brisbane Powerhouse. As a Queer, Asian, Australian women, her passion is uplifting BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices in the arts. She hopes to create art that is fulfilling and ignites politically important conversations in Meanjin. For her future practice she wishes to explore lighting design in festivals, concerts, circus and dance!
Josephine Reid is an emerging interdisciplinary designer and production artist with a keen interest in experimental, experiential and holistic scenographic practice. Her most recent work has included theatre-based spatial and performance design, however she has begun to transition into exploring the notion of expanded scenography through interdisciplinary collaboration.
A recent graduate from Queensland University of Technology’s Bachelor of Fine Arts (Technical Production) program, highlights of her design career thus far include the The Great and Grand Rumpus (State Library of Queensland, 2021), Ecoscenography Reading Group (2021), Parasocial Parallax (Anywhere Fest, 2022), Bunker (Metro Arts, 2022), and ITEAC Horizon Event (2022).
Commissioned by HOTA and Metro Arts. Break is supported by the Brisbane City Council. The Farm acknowledge support from the City of Gold Coast, and Arts Queensland.
Image: Jax Oliver
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