Arts House announces Future Tense

Arts House Artistic Director, Steven Richardson, today announced the programme for the venue’s second Future Tense season.

The programme includes six premiere seasons and represents a snapshot of exhilarating contemporary theatre practise from emerging artists alongside established artists from both Australia and abroad.

Opening in August is the second work in Melbourne-based writer/director Jenny Kemp’s triptych on mental illness, Madeleine, which follows the sellout Melbourne Festival season of Kitten in 2008.

Following Madeleine is Superheroes, a provocative reflection on globalisation from Jo Stone and Paul Castro which builds on their reputation for creating humorous and corrosive contemporary theatre.

Mid-August features three bold Australian works toured by Mobile States: Fleur Elise Noble?s 2 Dimensional Life Of Her, a multi-disciplinary work and winner of Best in Show at Brisbane Festival; Fraudulent Behaviour, Rosie Dennis’ one-woman show exploring Nietzsche’s assertion “We need lies in order to live” when the truth is too complicated; and lecture-style performance The Bougainville Photoplay Project, Paul Dwyer’s homage to his father and world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon Dr Allan Dwyer, who was stationed in Bougainville in the 1960s.

August ends with the premiere of Pin Drop, an audio-sensory exploration of the phenomenon of fear from Playback Theatre Company’s Tamara Saulwick.

October sees Arts House host two Melbourne International Arts Festival works, the remount of Genevieve Lacey’s sell-out Adelaide Festival show en masse, and epi-thet, a mixed-media sound installation from Melbourne artists Madeleine Flynn, Tim Humphrey and Jesse Stevens.

November kicks off with Melbourne-based dancer Carlee Mellow’s new work, Expectation, followed closely by Irony Is Not Enough: Essay on my life as Catherine Deneuve, investigating the frailty of desire and the nature of identity and love.

Future Tense – Season Two ends with Basically I Don’t But Actually I Do, a collaboration between German choreographer Jochen Roller and Israeli Saar Magal which explores their relationship through phantom memories of the Holocaust.

Arts House is also proud to announce the launch of 6 Degrees, an artist residency programme which invites sound artists to create works which reflect on the challenges of climate change and global warming and the inter-connectedness of humanity.

“Future Tense continues Arts House’s bold commitment to art that challenges our preconceptions and values,” says Steven Richardson.

“We celebrate artistic practise that expands the traditional relationship between artist and audience and introduces an element of creative exchange.”