Tuesday 29th June, 5 pm: Opening ceremony

ANU Arts Centre foyer

Tuesday 29th June, 8 pm: Go By Night

Performance of Go By Night by Stephen House. Performed by Jamie O’Connell. Stephen House will be present at the performance. $10 entry for conference delegates

Stephen House – Writer / Director / Actor:

Stephen has had 6 plays and 4 short films produced, and 4 Solo Exhibitions. He is commissioned often and directs / performs his work. He has won AWGIE awards from The Australian Writers Guild in 2002 & 2004, Adelaide Fringe Award in 2000, many press awards and was Shortlisted – 2002 Patrick White Award & 2006 Queensland Premier Drama Award. He has received International literature residencies from The Australia Council to Canada, USA and Ireland, a 2007 Asia-link literature residency India and a 2008 Island Of Residencies to Tasmania. His plays have been read, toured / produced and he has performed nationally and internationally. His plays have been profiled, published and are available from The Australian Script Centre and Currency Press.

2005 – 2009: 8 new commissioned plays funded & produced:
Miss Blossom Callahann (Commissioned by ABC Radio National & produced for stage at The Bakehouse Theatre SA – sold out / 2nd season / regional tour - Sunday Mail Award SA)
A Thing Called Snake (The Adelaide Festival Centre’s In Space program – sold out)
Vin (Commissioned / produced by Jigsaw Theatre Company Canberra 2005, Adelaide Come Out Youth Festival 2007 – sold out / 2004 AWGIE, USA production 2009)
Just Like That (Commissioned by Radio Adelaide 101.5fm / Produced for stage at The Bakehouse Theatre SA / Messenger Press Award SA)
Meeting Reg (Commissioned by Hepatitis Australia / collaboration / forums)
The Whyalla Monologues (d faces theatre of youth Whyalla / Country Arts SA)
The Yum Yum Room (City Mount Gambier commission / production, Come Out 2009 production, Whyalla d faces youth arts production) Published by Currency Press 2009 / 2010 production scheduled – University Wisconsin USA 
Borrowed Time (Positive Ageing / Arts SA funded / Bakehouse – sold out)

Wednesday 30th June, 2 pm: ‘Directing Inspiration’

Seminar/demonstration by Egil Kipste (Head of Directing, NIDA) of the application of Stanislavsky’s  later-developed approach to the craft of directing (known here as Active Analysis). Directing students from NIDA’s Directing course will role-play a typical rehearsal to illustrate the process.

Egil Kipste, head of Directing, NIDA

After graduating from NIDA’s directing course Egil has worked with most theatre companies in Australia as director, assistant director, dramaturg or casting director. He was Associate Director at Nimrod and Artistic Director of the Q Theatre. He worked as casting Director at STC for over 6 years before joining Disney Theatrical in New York as Global Casting Director. Since his return to Australia Egil worked as Artistic Associate/Company Manager at STC and is currently Head of Directing and Post-graduate Studies at NIDA. He holds an MA in Theatre Studies from UNSW.

Egil’s area of practice-led research interest is adapting Stanislavski’s Active Analysis to contemporary theatre practice. In 2009/10 he visited St Petersburg to survey director training and has been invited by the Ernst Busch theatre school in Berlin to teach Active Analysis to their acting and directing students at the end of 2010. Egil is also working on compiling a sourcebook of Maria Knebel’s director-training exercises.

Wednesday 30th June, 8 pm: “masked corroborees of the northwest”.

Dominique Sweeney will introduce his film and research.

Dominique Sweeney: Dominique trained and works as a performer.  His education included two years in Paris at L'ecole de Theatré,  Jacques Lecoq, while his work has seen him on stages, screen and  other locations throughout Australia. Dominique is a core member and chairman of the board of Theatre Kantanka, a company that specialize in site specific performance (www.kantanka.com.au). He has directed for and was a teacher in theatre studies at Griffith University and in masked performance at the Institute for Cinematography and Dramatic Art, St. Petersburg, Russia. Dominique was the artistic director of The Anvil Theatre, Melbourne, producing a number of masked productions performed nationally and internationally.  Most recently he works with the Fine Line, a Lecoq based Sydney theatre group.

Working with masks, (directing, devising and performing) led to Dominique’s PhD research and the making of this film. He raises concern over whether the conceptual categories 'performance' and 'mask' are sufficient to describe what is happening in Australian traditional performances? The relationships between the living and the dead, the creation, the people involved in the creation, the preparation for performance and the potential for trading corroborees are the subject of the film.

http://www.anu.edu.au/culture/students/sweeney_d.php

Wednesday, Thursday (9 am), Friday (10 am): workshops by Tjanara Goreng Goreng

Tjanara Goreng Goreng, MSA, PDM, Grad. Cert, Soc.Sc. (Couns.) PhD Candidate. Founder of FIRDA, Foundation for Indigenous Recovery and Development, Australia

Tjanara is a Wakka Wakka/GorengGoreng woman and carries the traditions of her clan through Ngungkari medicine practice, being a Songwoman and teaching Aboriginal Law & Spirituality to people throughout the world.   Tjanara has family ties to Anangu Pitjanjatjara people of the Central Desert, Australia through Uncle Bob Randall (www.kanyini.com) a Yankunytjatjara Elder and Traditional Custodian of Uluru in Central Australia and his extended family. Tjanara has been a meditation practitioner for 28 years.

Tjanara has worked in Australia, Denmark, France, Italy, the USA, Mexico, and Canada and is currently based in both Canberra and Sydney, Australia. Tjanara is a published poet, writer, a performer of traditional song and dance and contemporary artist. 

For 30 years Tjanara has been working with groups and organisations in Australia, the USA, Europe, Mexico and India with a focus on systems change in self, groups, families, government and corporate bureaucracies and in Universities. She has been an academic at three Australian Universities, a Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister and a senior manager in a number of community base, government and corporate organizations.  Each year Tjanara spends time ‘on country’ at Uluru/Kata Juta, and in Central Queensland learning and being with her Elders, studying and learning the knowledge which sustains the Earth and each other in order to pass this knowledge onto all who want to learn to sustain the Earth, their relationships, communities and organisations into the future.

The Workshop Process:

An experiential process of sharing Indigenous cultural dance, song and story in a CIRCLE in which Tjanara will engage all the participants in sharing based in her community cultural traditions so that you experience what it feels like to be with Aboriginal culture on country.  Each day will have a new theme embodied with dance, music/songs, performance and sharing for all participants. Everyone will be taught and engage in the performance and process so they have a deep experience of BEING with Aboriginal business, on country, in performance and ceremony.  This is intended to be ‘a ceremonial sharing of culture’ with all.

DAY 1 Dadirri –Deep Inner Listening/Contemplation. We begin the CIRCLE with Dadirri to establish our relationship to each other, to the Land you walk on for the conference, to the people of the Land and to each other.  Dadirri is the deep inner listening and contemplative tradition of Aboriginal culture - it will be shared and you will create the CIRCLE for your conference through dance and song.

DAY 2 – Munyina – the Three Laws of Respect. We continue the journey of experience and learning by sharing an important Foundational Law for all clans.

Day 3  Kanyini – the Law of Harmony with all things – Finally an experience of inner harmony, harmony with self, others, the Land, and the Tjurrkurrpa through sharing, dance and ceremony.

NB. This is an abbreviated version of the workshop outline.

Friday 2nd July, 7 pm: Conference Dinner

Teatro Vivaldi Restaurant, with a special performance by two of the cast from the acclaimed The Burlesque Hour. $60