Bianca Martin - Company Upstairs
Bianca Martin is a WA choreographer driven by questioning what makes up 'the lucky country'. Bianca's contemporary dance theatre brings issues that are often sidelined in Australian society to the fore, prompting audiences to re-evaluate comfortable assumptions about their own lives.
Company Upstairs is a vehicle for Bianca's dance theatre and installation works. www.companyupstairs.com.au
Bianca is the 2012 recipient of the WA Department of Culture and Arts Mid-career Dance Fellowship. During this period she will be working with Austrian /French political theatre group Superamas, and then begin development on The Bagpacker Project in Perth.
In 2008 Bianca premiered her full-length work HOME ALONE (the suburbs dream tonight) as part of the Artrage Silver Festival (Perth WA). HOME ALONE was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography and won the Award for Design and/or Composition in Dance at the 2009 WA Dance Awards. Also in 2008 Bianca presented the first Australian version of Thomas Lehmen's Schreibstück at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts for which she was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography at the WA Dance Awards.
After attending 2009's Time_Place_Space Hybrid Art Lab in Queensland, Bianca began a working relationship with Sydney mezzo-soprano Annette Tesoriero, which led to Use By Date (2009) and the mid-length work The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself) (2011).
In Australia, Bianca has performed for Hydra Poesis, Buzz Dance Theatre, Co Loaded for the Perth International Arts Festival, Aimee Smith and for various independent Australian choreographers. In 2010 she performed the Deborah Hay solo In The Dark as part of STRUT dance's Bundanon Project with Dancehouse and Critical Path.
In Europe she has performed dance theatre work for Compagnie Abyla (France), Sebastian Prantl (Austria) and Company Bettina Owczarek (Germany), and presented her own work Availability Still to be Confirmed (2006) for the Lucky Trimmer Mini Festival, Berlin.
Bianca's current projects include research and development with a motion controlled robot camera collaborating with Margie Medlin and Julie Robson, and The Bagpacker Project.
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A man packs his suitcase. A woman carries a boat. After all, it might rain. How much do you need when you don't know where you are going? Or how much would you purchase if you were just staying still? Bagpacker looks at how we know when we have all we require; when we are at the train station, when we are at the mall, when we are at the pub.
The project manifests as a full length dance work to be performed 3 times a day within a small geographical area of a city. All necessities are carried by the dancers, including their small boat.
Audience members are approached by the performers wearing regular street clothes but painted white to stand out from their bodies. The performance begins with enough formality to engage further potential audience, and the choreography is energetic but versatile enough for any floor surface and urban surrounds.
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Premiere season, Rechabites Hall, Perth WA, Nov 2008.
Directed and Choreographed by Bianca Martin
Delivering an abstract image of everyday life and contemporary Australian domestic normalcy, HOME ALONE (the suburbs dream tonight) places itself amid the proliferation of weekend do-it-yourself projects and debt consolidation.
It's a tale of gratification via material goods, a housing squeeze and life in the lucky country.
The performance wades through Australia's favourite pastimes via a mixture of hard-core dance theatre and impeccable percussive accompaniment.
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Premiere season, The Dolphin Theatre, WA 2011
The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself) ponders what Australia has left without footy, backyard barbies and beer. Surely our culture is not as shallow as the rehashed icons and imagery we so often use to portray and promote ourselves?
Each performer plays a variety of Australian female character types, in an exploration of some of the murkier aspects of Australian culture, flipping our notions of Australian identity.
The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself) questions where Australian women fit into a culture obsessed with sport and its peripheral activities. By exploring gender stereotypes through Australian cultural values, the work questions our acceptance of such identities as quintessentially Australian. The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself) is social commentary, provoking cultural debate and dialogue.
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Premiere season, Blue Room Theatre, WA, 2007
Excerpt version, PICA, WA, 2012
WA choreographer Bianca Martin uses her unique brand of satire, drama and political symbolism to craft contemporary dance theatre work that is at once entertaining and provocative - challenging audiences to take a fresh look at their everyday lives and their place in Australian society.
Packed Like Sardines in a Football Stadium transforms familiar landscapes into unexpected, highly amusing scenes where Australian values are unhinged and collective assumptions are put under the microscope.
"At times it made me laugh out loud, at others I couldn't help but despair at the darker aspects of Australian culture this work revealed as bubbling quietly away...right under our noses" - feedback from audience member 2012.
Company Upstairs is a vehicle for Bianca's dance theatre and installation works. www.companyupstairs.com.au
Bianca is the 2012 recipient of the WA Department of Culture and Arts Mid-career Dance Fellowship. During this period she will be working with Austrian /French political theatre group Superamas, and then begin development on The Bagpacker Project in Perth.
In 2008 Bianca premiered her full-length work HOME ALONE (the suburbs dream tonight) as part of the Artrage Silver Festival (Perth WA). HOME ALONE was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography and won the Award for Design and/or Composition in Dance at the 2009 WA Dance Awards. Also in 2008 Bianca presented the first Australian version of Thomas Lehmen's Schreibstück at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts for which she was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography at the WA Dance Awards.
After attending 2009's Time_Place_Space Hybrid Art Lab in Queensland, Bianca began a working relationship with Sydney mezzo-soprano Annette Tesoriero, which led to Use By Date (2009) and the mid-length work The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself) (2011).
In Australia, Bianca has performed for Hydra Poesis, Buzz Dance Theatre, Co Loaded for the Perth International Arts Festival, Aimee Smith and for various independent Australian choreographers. In 2010 she performed the Deborah Hay solo In The Dark as part of STRUT dance's Bundanon Project with Dancehouse and Critical Path.
In Europe she has performed dance theatre work for Compagnie Abyla (France), Sebastian Prantl (Austria) and Company Bettina Owczarek (Germany), and presented her own work Availability Still to be Confirmed (2006) for the Lucky Trimmer Mini Festival, Berlin.
Bianca's current projects include research and development with a motion controlled robot camera collaborating with Margie Medlin and Julie Robson, and The Bagpacker Project.
Bagpacker (after all it might rain)
(full length work in development, designed for performance in public spaces with 5 performers)A man packs his suitcase. A woman carries a boat. After all, it might rain. How much do you need when you don't know where you are going? Or how much would you purchase if you were just staying still? Bagpacker looks at how we know when we have all we require; when we are at the train station, when we are at the mall, when we are at the pub.
The project manifests as a full length dance work to be performed 3 times a day within a small geographical area of a city. All necessities are carried by the dancers, including their small boat.
Audience members are approached by the performers wearing regular street clothes but painted white to stand out from their bodies. The performance begins with enough formality to engage further potential audience, and the choreography is energetic but versatile enough for any floor surface and urban surrounds.
HOME ALONE (the suburbs dream tonight)
(full length dance theatre work with three performers & one drummer)Premiere season, Rechabites Hall, Perth WA, Nov 2008.
Directed and Choreographed by Bianca Martin
Delivering an abstract image of everyday life and contemporary Australian domestic normalcy, HOME ALONE (the suburbs dream tonight) places itself amid the proliferation of weekend do-it-yourself projects and debt consolidation.
It's a tale of gratification via material goods, a housing squeeze and life in the lucky country.
The performance wades through Australia's favourite pastimes via a mixture of hard-core dance theatre and impeccable percussive accompaniment.
The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself)
(30 minute mid-length dance theatre work with two performers and one mezzo-soprano)Premiere season, The Dolphin Theatre, WA 2011
The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself) ponders what Australia has left without footy, backyard barbies and beer. Surely our culture is not as shallow as the rehashed icons and imagery we so often use to portray and promote ourselves?
Each performer plays a variety of Australian female character types, in an exploration of some of the murkier aspects of Australian culture, flipping our notions of Australian identity.
The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself) questions where Australian women fit into a culture obsessed with sport and its peripheral activities. By exploring gender stereotypes through Australian cultural values, the work questions our acceptance of such identities as quintessentially Australian. The Bikini Eye Short Show (dressed to kill yourself) is social commentary, provoking cultural debate and dialogue.
Packed Like Sardines in a Football Stadium
(mid length work)Premiere season, Blue Room Theatre, WA, 2007
Excerpt version, PICA, WA, 2012
WA choreographer Bianca Martin uses her unique brand of satire, drama and political symbolism to craft contemporary dance theatre work that is at once entertaining and provocative - challenging audiences to take a fresh look at their everyday lives and their place in Australian society.
Packed Like Sardines in a Football Stadium transforms familiar landscapes into unexpected, highly amusing scenes where Australian values are unhinged and collective assumptions are put under the microscope.
"At times it made me laugh out loud, at others I couldn't help but despair at the darker aspects of Australian culture this work revealed as bubbling quietly away...right under our noses" - feedback from audience member 2012.
