From the team behind the Blue Room hit Everything Flickers comes a new story… or stories. Inspired by the stories, threads and relationships of this land’s ecology Love Stories is an interdisciplinary performance that asks “how can we better coexist with the world around us?”.
The stop drop + roll team consisting of Nathan Calvert, Eliza Smith, Clea Purkis and William Gammel banded together to give Magazine 6000 an insight into their show which opens at the Blue Room Theatre from July 1-5.
Stop, Drop + Roll where did that name come from? How does it reflect the theatre you make?
stop drop + roll is a form of choreography inside of crisis, and there is no shortage of crises within which we must make work.
There is something inherently absurd about staring down the multi-headed beast of capitalism, colonial power, political violence and ecological collapse, and deciding to throw on some costumes and play make-believe. Even so, stop drop + roll is about finding ways to dance, play and move through emergencies.
Love Stories promises to cram in a lot of themes and a lot of imagery- which one(s) are you most excited for?
I’m not sure if there’s any specific section I’m most excited for, I’m just really keen to see how audiences respond to the themes, images, and moments we’re piecing together. Our main performance languages are text and sound, but we also play around with a little bit of projection, animation and puppetry, and I’m really keen to see what moments audiences respond to most!
Give us a clue for a big spoiler, or a three word hint of what to expect
Love Song Dedications, Whales, and Butterflies!
Your company is known for highly visual and immerse work, what attracted you to working with composer Tao Issaro and animator Ken Meyer?
We wanted to engage with some different people to create this work. We all went to WAAPA together so we wanted to get some new faces, practices and voices into the space and into the work we create. Nathan met Ken through the Perth Festival Lab this year and William met Tao through his work with Sensorium. Both Tao and Ken are artists that work across a number of artforms and really respond to the type of work we are creating. We knew from the get-go that they would be up for any strange and weird ideas we threw at them throughout the process.
Who do you coexist with?
At this very present moment, the whole stop, drop + roll team. It’s a full on thing, putting on a show! But who better to do it with than your best friends. Clea says all the time “I never had brothers” but this sure damn feels like it.
When did you start thinking about coexisting?
I think the idea of co-existing has always been central to the work we make. Co-existing with each other, co-existing in the many various ecologies we find ourselves in; theatre, Perth, so-called Australia, environmental. Throughout the process of Everything Flickers, Eliza was doing her thesis on queer utopias and exploring the practice of making art with friends being a version of just that. We have chosen and continue to co-exist as a company and group of friends, and in this work we invite you to come on the journey with us.
Who should we not try to coexist with?
We try to coexist with everyone and everything, but we also question how we can coexist and grapple with uncomfortable and intangible things. How inseparable is personal and ecological grief? How can we make an environmentally-focused work in the face of enduring colonial-patriarchal ecological violence? How can we empathise with something beyond the power of aesthetics, beyond perceived ‘beauty’? So, instead of trying not to coexist with something, the work asks what it means to try.
If Everything Flickers was a love letter to theatre making- who is Love Stories for?
The Orcas, The Kyloring, The Eastern Bronze Azure, The Desert Blue, The Monarch Butterfly, The Xerces Blue, The Kaua’i O’O, The Lyrebird, The Australian Painted Lady, The Fish, The Yangtze River Sturgeon, The Frogs, The Swift Parrot. To name a few. But also to all of those who dream and hope for a future where all of us will still exist together.