Kate Brown, First breath...

‘First breath… is a dalliance with telecommunication and live audience. The first breath in conversation is the birth of an idea. Magnified to taste, hear and gasp at. Who is listening to your airwaves? This Scream meets Talking Heads aesthetic takes you through a cacophony of sounds and gestures and visual inhalations and exhalations, planting you in your seat and heaving you into action.’

Performance Space conceptual statement: In its 6th season, with a cult following and a beloved intimacy with artists practice and process, Performance Space and Carriageworks are thrilled to present LIVE DREAMS May 2023. Taking place both in physical space and online, come and get a glimpse at the future of experimental art from across the Asia Pacific. As Performance Space gears up to celebrate its 40th anniversary, LIVE DREAMS reflects on the rituals of time as a way of thinking through the development of exciting, new performance work. Bringing artists and audiences together in dynamic and responsive ways, LIVE DREAMS is a series of curated performance events across three nights: BIRTHS, DEATHS and MARRIAGES. Taking its theme from the government registry that records significant life events, curators Rosie Dennis and Daniel Mudie Cunningham have selected works that speak to the rituals and markers of time as they shape a diverse spectrum of lived experience and the human condition. Each theme is a prompt for artists to consider the correlation of art to life. From starts and origins, beginnings and conception, LIVE DREAMS artists will literally birth new ideas for audiences, while others will consider how the natural cycles of existence give way to departures and endings, and loss and cessation as metaphoric notions of death are offered up for consideration. Though lifespans are inevitably measured from where they start and end, they are coloured in by collaboration and togetherness, companionship and commitment, marriages of self to other, artist to audience, idea to action. This innovative platform allows the artists to present ideas- and works-in-progress, so you can see first hand into the creative process, getting a glimpse into current developments in experimental art, and engage in a conversation about their next steps.

Kate Brown performed with Angie Garrick on guitar and a planted audience chorus responding vocally to the flash cards performed by James Mckersie, Rachel Levine, Priscilla Bourne and Elliot Waugh.