By Karen Fredericks
SYDNEY — "So much of theatre today is about entertainment, rather than art and ideas", says Don Mamouney, artistic director of the Sidetrack Theatre Company. To help overcome such stagnation, the company's Performance Week 3, a now annual week of master classes, workshops, forums and performances, aims to provide an opportunity for young performers, and experienced performers from the mainstream, to explore their ideas and put the art back into performance.
The week is being held at Sidetrack's home base in Marrickville from October 14 to 18. Mamouney and Meme Thorne, both from Sidetrack, will be presenting classes on acting techniques, but participants will also benefit from the ideas, art, talent and experience of performers from other companies, including the New York based dance company That Was Fast.
"All the groups participating in performance week share our aim", says Mamouney, "although we all have a different practice. Karen Pearlman and Richard Allen [of That Was Fast] have an interesting way of integrating speaking, moving and poetry into dance. It seems to me that they are doing, in dance, something similar to what Sidetrack does in theatre. We started in acting and over the years have introduced a lot of physical movement into our work. We have moved towards dance and physicalisation, whereas they've moved towards the spoken word."
Pieces developed during the master classes and workshops will be presented at a performance, which will be open to the public, on Sunday, October 18, from 5 p.m. Besides these, there are also several performances open to the public during the week itself.
One of these is Sidetrack's own Sweet Laughter (Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 at 8 p.m.), a piece Mamouney describes as a "new musical" which explores the contemporary interplay between romance, laughter and anxiety. Honi Soit has said the performance "... brings you out of yourself, sets you sprawling on walls and floors and makes you laugh".
On Saturday, October 17, at 8 p.m., the Canberra-based Splinters will present As Free as a Bird. Mamouney describes Splinters as "a very very interesting collective of artists who largely have a visual arts background and then came into performance. Their works are almost contemporary rituals."
That Was Fast's Excerpts From the World, described in the program as "a live demonstration of guerilla methods for the cross-invading of the arts of dance, poetry and film", is the only other previously prepared performance to be presented during the week. Two forums are also open to the public. In "Conceptual Positions" on Thursday, October 15, at 6 p.m., several performance makers will discuss the political, cultural and aesthetic positioning of their work, and in "The Panel Show" on the following Saturday at 1 p.m., there will be 10 five-minute "statements/whinges/criticisms/attacks/calls to action/raves on the State of the Art".
Performers interested in the master classes may register right up to October 13. Anyone wishing to register, book, or obtain further information can contact Sidetrack on (02) 560 9167.