The Faculty of the VCA and Music proudly presents
Theatre Company 2009 Graduation Season in collaboration with Production

Invisible Stains
A new work conceived and directed by Tanya Gerstle
Wednesday 21 October – Friday 30 October 2009

 ‘Life without memory is no life at all’
 Created by the talented Theatre Company 09, under the strong and spirited direction of Tanya Gerstle, Invisible Stains takes the audience on a roving trip through a palimpsest of memories from the 20th Century - traced through intergenerational memory and impacting upon contemporary youth caught in a culture of instant gratification. Fully produced by the School of Performing Arts’ Production students, a minimalist set, five palette costume design and an eclectic live and sourced sound score will form the backdrop for this gritty and enthralling dreamscape.

A month prior to rehearsals, Director Tanya Gerstle threw down three provocations to the twenty-three graduating actors of Company 2009: Memory, Photography and the 20th Century. Initially, this took the students down many different paths: they researched periods of political upheaval and war, investigated personal testimonials of suffering, as well as a multitude of concepts behind the science of memory.

Over a period of many weeks the Company began to realise the dramatic potential of their new found knowledge within the context of the ‘black box’. Working with a training methodology developed by Gerstle called ‘Pulse’*, intense and unyielding vignettes have been created, interwoven with dynamic ensemble work and text. The result is a non-sequential dreamscape where the ‘company of death’ is constantly apparent as more than thirty individual characters resonate through future generations.

“Being unencumbered by moral baggage, this ‘post-military, laptop generation’ of actors has explored the notion of memory and the part it plays in our perceptions of history. I believe we live the paradox of ‘invisible stains’. We must remember and forget at the same time,” says Gerstle.

The themes in this work are sure to resonate with a contemporary audience. In the words of Luis Buñuel, the father of cinematic Surrealism, “You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realise that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.”

Follow this link to watch a glimpse of Invisible Stains >>

* In New York in 1989, Tanya collaborated with Butch Morris, an improvisational jazz conductor and began her evolving research into improvisational performance structures and their application to theatrical performance practice. Pulse has developed as an improvisational tool for training actors to physically explore text. The roots of the training are based in challenging the performer to spontaneously respond to external sources and internal impulses, in an ensemble environment.  Read Tanya Gerstle’s biography on page 2 of this media release.

Season: Wed 21 - Sat 24 October, Mon 26 - Fri 30 October at 7.30pm
Tue 27 & Thu 29 October at 2.00pm
Venue: Space 28, Performing Arts Building, 28 Dodds Street, Southbank
Cost: $20 / $12
Bookings: vcam-theatre@unimelb.edu.au
Enquiries: 03 9685 9225 www.vcam.unimelb.edu.au

Media information, interviews, hi-res images:
Alix Bromley bromleya@unimelb.edu.au 03 9685 93 or Lisa Montague vcam-comms@unimelb.edu.au  03 9685 9371

 
Biography - Tanya Gerstle
Tanya Gerstle is a passionate, politically engaged theatre maker who tackles contentious subjects and makes surprising, unpredictable connections between narratives.

Tanya has been training actors for more than twenty years and has spent the last decade as a Lecturer in Acting at the Faculty of the VCA and Music; Acting Head of Acting 2007/8.

In 2002, Tanya received a ‘Teaching Excellence’ Award from the Victorian College of the Arts; in 2003 she was a guest Lecturer at Penn State University, USA and has a Masters Degree in Dramatic Art - Direction (by Research) from the University of Melbourne. Her body of work includes adaptations of texts by Barker, Brecht, Lorca, Churchill, Kushner, Wertenbaker, Tolstoy and Shakespeare as well as converting film and radio texts to the stage.

Tanya freelanced as a theatre practitioner in Europe and Australia for twenty years as an actor, director, trainer, theatre-maker, dramaturge, company manager, festival curator and was co-director of an Independent Acting Studio.

She is the founding Director of OpticNerve Performance Group. In 2009, the company was nominated for four Green Room Awards - including ‘Best Director’ for Tanya’s work on Five Kinds of Silence by Shelagh Stephenson. 

Tanya devised a training methodology called ‘Pulse’ – a result of her evolving research into improvisational performance structures and their application to performance training practice.

In 2008 Tanya presented a critically acclaimed performance piece at fortyfivedownstairs, adapting, designing and directing Yes, a film by Sally Potter.