BECAUSE OF GRAVITY
BECAUSE OF GRAVITY
Teaching & Facilitation
Youth & Community Projects
Theatre / Film / Digital /Music
TEACHING & FACILITATION
TEACHING & FACILITATION
Performance & Research
'They Gather...has the potential to encapsulate global politics and humanities empathy in intimate and bespoke site activations, in theatre performances and community engagement programs. The work places people at its core coupled with an exquisite immersive soundscape. It is visually stunning and an important contribution to the cannon of performance art.'
Kate Usher, Festival Director, Supercell Festival Of Contemporary Dance
'I could have watched variations and developments within the entire work all day - for hours’
‘Everyday Freedoms’ audience member
'They Gather'
Responding to shared and personal need, crisis and underbellies of now, ‘They Gather’ creates gatherings: in vulnerability, in celebration, to be heard, to find meaning.
Blending visceral and sensitive movement with original soundscapes and voice, 'They Gather' asks us to engage with each other, our environment and our humanity.
‘They Gather' is an evolving international multimodal and interdisciplinary project creating ‘gatherings’ of people, action, dance, sound and music that explore the boundaries between audience, participant and performer in public, festival and cultural spaces subsequently creating dialogue with environments, societies, politics, histories and creating speculative futurologies. 'They Gather' aims to empower and create dialogue around the complexities and polarities of contemporary living.
‘They Gather’ was developed through: observations formed across 20 years of socially and politically engaged artistic practice, ideas and reflections on the relationship between the individual and the collective, and being inspired by Nonviolent Communication and the feminist philosophy “the personal is political”.
'They Gather’ is created by a collective of artists with respected histories in dance, music, sound, interactive design, installation, performance art and facilitation. As artists with global experiences they are driven to create work that has international dialogue and relevance but local meaning. The artists have histories in politically engaged theatre and dance, socially engaged projects with a variety of communities (including with underrepresented and at risk communities) and are respected for their rigour and innovation in their fields of artistic practice.
'They Gather': BRIDGET FISKE & JOSEPH LAU with STELIOS MANOUSAKIS & STEPHANIE PAN and COLLABORATING PERFORMERS.
Recent credits and awards of co-creators Fiske, Lau, Manousakis and Pan includes:
Fiske and Pan both with extensive creative histories with Belarus Free Theatre on various international touring productionns (Fiske as Choreographic and Rehearsal Director and Pan as Performer/Collaborator).
Fiske having received commissions from the EU consortium BeSpectACTive! amongst many other and was recently Choreographic and Rehearsal Director on the acclaimed ‘Counting Sheep Staging A Revolution’ (VAULT Festival London 2019).
Lau has created works commissioned by FascinatE (BBC, Technicolor and University Of Salford), the EU consortia Dance Channels and Moving Dance Forward amongst others.
Pan's album ‘Have Robot Dog Will Travel’ has received universal critical praise including skug’s #1 Experimental Album of 2018 ‘The most breathtaking work of 2018!’ (Skug, Austria) – Alfred Pranzl). Pan was also featured on the cover of Gonzo (circus) magazine (the leading Dutch language magazine for contemporary music).
Manousakis has created new works for ZKM Karlsruhe and Seattle Art Museum among others. His compositions have received international awards: Gaudeamus, ECPNM, Cittá de Udine/Italian SenateC.
Outcomes from first stage research:
