CONTACT GONZO Performers / Creators Yuya Tsukahara Keigo Mikajiri Takuya Matsumi Masaru Kakio Performer / Sound Masamitsu Araki

ZEPHYR QUARTET Cello / Artistic Director Hilary Kleinig Violin Emma Luker Violin Emily Tulloch Viola Jason Thomas

DURATION 1 hr WORLD PREMIERE PHYSICAL THEATRE JAPAN AUSTRALIA Please be aware that this performance has simulated smoking and violent themes/imagery. Audience members are required to walk through backstage areas and use stairs. STUCK IN THE NARROWEST PATH contact Gonzo & Zephyr Quartet

FOLLOW US 29–31 OCT DUNSTAN PLAYHOUSE FOYER #OzAsia 17 OCT – 3 NOV 2O19 ozasiafestival.com.au IMAGE | contact Gonzo STUCK IN THE NARROWEST PATH contact Gonzo & Zephyr Quartet

CONTACT GONZO ZEPHYR QUARTET SYNOPSIS Founded in 2006, contact Gonzo is a Formed two decades ago in 1999, A ‘Gonzo’ can be considered ‘eccentric’ collective from Osaka, Japan, which combines Adelaide’s Zephyr Quartet are Australia’s or ‘hooligan’ and in the case of Japanese improvisational physical contact with leading explorers of dynamic, cross- collective, contact Gonzo, it is also a legendary journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s artform, music-focussed collaborations. reference to 1970s ‘Gonzo’ Journalism in “gonzo” aesthetics. They work in public The musicians in this award-winning the United States. This was a style of writing sites mountains, rivers, galleries, museums, string quartet – Hilary Kleinig, Belinda often described as ‘reckless’ in that it did not theatres and alleys around the world, with Gehlert, Emily Tulloch and Jason Thomas – obscure its subjectivity and favoured first- performances that may seem to be either a compose, arrange and improvise to make person storytelling. street mosh or a sophisticated dance. genre-defying pieces. This unique skill In the same way Gonzo journalism ignores set, together with Zephyr’s open-minded Besides being a company, contact Gonzo the rules, contact Gonzo disregards the approach, allows them to skilfully traverse is also a name of a method they have frameworks for existing dance forms. This musical worlds and gives the quartet its own developed by Masaru Kakio and Yuya group of untrained dancers has instead distinct voice. Tsukahara starting in 2006. As well as urban developed a specific mode of improvised interventions, they work on creations of A firm believer in the power of the string contact which borrows inspiration from a installations, videos and photography and quartet as a medium to communicate and range of sources including martial arts and creating performance pieces for theatres explore complex relationships between Internet trends. With physical strength, and international dance festivals. society and art, Zephyr has achieved an agility, trusting relationships and a good enviable reputation for artistic excellence, dose of humour, contact Gonzo powerfully In recent years contact Gonzo has innovation and audience development as balance elements of contemporary dance, increasingly become the focus of attention well as for being considered as, ‘arguably performance art, and urban and popular in the performing arts and contemporary art Australia’s most lateral-thinking and cultures. scenes. Currently contact Gonzo consists of inventive ensemble,’ by Music Australia. four members with different back grounds, In this world premiere performance for including NAZE, Takuya Matsumi, Keigo Zephyr Quartet have performed previously OzAsia Festival, contact Gonzo collaborate Mikajiri, Yuya Tsukahara. at OzAsia Festival, collaborating with Hong with Adelaide’s own Zephyr Quartet, who Kong’s Gaybird Leung in 2017 on a piece will provide a melodic counterbalance to the titled Music in Anticlockwise, which was tense yet playful constant physical contact of commissioned by OzAsia Festival. After its the performers. Expect surprises, twists and world-premiere at OzAsia Festival 2017, turns in this special performance event, which “Anarchic, mesmerising, the project was selected to be performed is at once explosive and tender, very funny at the 2019 Classical:NEXT showcase and very serious. terrifying and in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Billed as a gloriously fun” ‘global meeting for all art music innovators’ Classical:NEXT 2019 saw only three acts Bristol24/7 from Australia in the showcase.