• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

NEVER DID ME ANY HARM Produced by Force Majeure and Sydney Theatre Company Devised by Force Majeure EDUCATION PACK Image: Lisa Tomasetti ! 1. SEASON INFORMATION NEVER DID ME ANY HARM Produced by Force Majeure and Sydney Theatre Company Devised by Force Majeure Director: Kate Champion Set and Lighting Designer: Geoff Cobham Composer and Sound Designer: Max Lyandvert Dramaturg: Andrew Upton Audio Visual and Lighting Associate: Chris Petridis Choreography: The Company Cast: Marlo Benjamin, Kristina Chan, Alan Flower, Tracy Mann, Joshua Mu, Veronica Neave, Timothy Ohl TOURING HISTORY January 2012 Premiere - Sydney Festival, Sydney March 2012 Adelaide Festival, Adelaide October 2012 Melbourne Festival, Melbourne This project is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and by the NSW Government through Arts NSW. Toured by Arts on Tour. 2. ABOUT FORCE MAJEURE Led by Artistic Director Danielle Micich, Force Majeure produces critically acclaimed dance theatre. The company is based around a collective of multi-disciplinary artists committed to creating stimulating movement-based theatre. Artists include dancers, actors, writers, visual artists, musicians, composers and filmmakers. Since its inception Force Majeure has created six major works, two collaborative works and a short film series. This highly produced body of work engages with and questions contemporary culture using intelligence, pathos, humour and insight. The Company has toured work to the prestigious Lyon Biennale de la Danse, Place des Arts Montreal, Dublin Theatre Festival, the Seoul Performing Arts Festival and has received five major national awards. Force Majeure is dedicated to supporting the development of dance theatre in Australia, pursuing opportunities that enable emerging dance theatre performers, choreographers and directors in Australia to flourish. The company was established in 2002 by founding Artistic Director Kate Champion. forcemajeure.com.au @majeurenews 2 3. SYNOPSIS Never Did Me Any Harm aims to provoke discussion and question aspects of how people in contemporary Australia are raising children and how this upbringing is affecting young adults. In Australia today, people are tending to have fewer children, later on in life with more money to spend on them. A lot of parents have had professional careers before/whilst having a family and may bring a sort of ‘business mentality’ to the task of child rearing. ‘Helicopter parenting’, ‘smother mothers’ and ‘free range kids’ are all terms that have arisen in Australia in the last decade. These days, a child who comes last in a race can be celebrated as the 'last winner'; children are driven around the corner to school for fear of kidnapping; and young adults may be accompanied to a job interview by their parent(s). Would this have happened twenty years ago? This is the subject matter that inspired Never Did Me Any Harm, the co-production between Force Majeure and Sydney Theatre Company that premiered in 2012 at Sydney Festival. The production has had 53 performances across Australia to date and in 2016 there will be a further 23 performances across 10 venues. Interviews spanning a wide range of opinions from the general public in Australia provided the source material for the spoken text in Never Did Me Any Harm. Performers from both theatre and dance take on different personas during the show, speaking verbatim text drawn from these interviews. Some of the spoken text is an amalgamation of different interviews. This creates a slippage of ideas and interesting inconsistencies within the logic or argument contained in some sections. Throughout the production, choreographed sequences are used to further depict the struggles and contradictions of parenthood in a non-verbal, but highly evocative way. The production is set in a realistic looking suburban backyard complete with bird sounds and other familiar Australian noises. During the show, graphic projections overlay the set. This alters the otherwise domestic setting, amplifying the characters’ internal conflicts and thoughts. This production embraces humour in its observations, but it also explores the serious frustrations and possible consequences of 'over parenting'. The title of the show came out of an interview with an elderly man. This man recalled of being hit by his parents with a leather strap as a child, commenting that it 'never did me any harm.' On hearing this, the show’s Director Kate Champion remembers thinking how glad she was that such a practice was no longer condoned but at the same time wondering whether by over-protecting children, parents may be causing a different kind of harm. 3 4. PRODUCTION IMAGES Image: Lisa Tomasetti Image: Lisa Tomasetti Image: Jamie Williams 4 5. REVIEWS OF NEVER DID ME ANY HARM “Never Did Me Any Harm makes you laugh, cringe and possibly even cry.” Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/emotions-flow-in-heartfelt-exploration-of-parents- and-children-20120112-1pxbn.html#ixzz1n9xqRIBO “Go to be thrilled, entertained and emotionally engaged and you won't be disappointed.” Diana Simmonds, Stage Noise http://www.stagenoise.com/review/1811 “Candid, controversial and very clever theatre.” Hilary Simmons, Concrete Playground http://sydney.concreteplayground.com.au/event/43425/never-did-me-any-harm-%E2%80%93- sydney-theatre-company.htm “A joy to watch and as involving as any show I have seen.” Tony Busch, Theatre Guide http://www.theatreguide.com.au/current_site/reviews/reviews_detail.php?ShowID=anyharm&ShowY ear=2012 “The text is powerful enough, but for me the theatrical side of the performance was staggeringly effective, and increased that power immensely.” Nicholas Routley, Australian Stage http://australianstage.com.au/201203165253/reviews/adelaide/never-did-me-any-harm-|-force- majeur.html “This is a thought provoking work that engages anybody who is, or has been a parent and, in fact, anybody who has been a child or had children in their care, which means everybody.” Barry Lenny, Glam Adelaide http://www.glamadelaide.com.au/main/never-did-me-any-harm-%E2%80%93-2012-adelaide- festival/ “The genius of the production is the absence of boundaries between the various elements. This is what cross-disciplinary performance is all about.” Peter Burdon, Adelaide Now http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/festivals/never-did-me-any-harm/story-fnb4fehg- 1226300578678 “Thought-provoking, engrossing, entertaining and impressive production.” Chris Boyd http://chrisboyd.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/2012-melbourne-festival-prelude-or.html 5 6. DIRECTOR’S PERSPECTIVE Q&A WITH DIRECTOR KATE CHAMPION To what extent is Never Did Me Any Harm inspired by Chris Tsiolkas’ novel The Slap? We originally toyed with the idea of trying to put the book on stage, but it was a step too far towards narrative and specific characters, and I felt we would lose the essence of what we do. So this show is definitely not The Slap but rather a discussion of some (not all) of the subject matter in the book, focusing on the idea of children and boundaries. A key part of the development of this work involved the gathering of extensive interviews. How many interviews did you do? I didn’t tally them because we did it over a three-year period and Geoff (Cobham, Designer) and Roz (Hervey, Associate Director) did interviews as well. But in the end there was roughly 60 hours. How did you select your interviewees? It is such volatile subject matter that we found when we talked about it to friends or acquaintances, we were easily able to find people with strong opinions on the topic. What is most useful, theatrically, is people who feel passionately about the issues, so among us we would say things like “there was a father at the soccer match and he had really strong ideas about something or other”. But I also had a market research firm find me complete strangers so we could access some unpredictable opinions and backstories. Did all of the interviews make it into the final show? I find, now that I’ve done it so many times, I usually know 10 minutes into an interview whether I’m going to get something useful from it. But even so, I have to persevere with them because sometimes out of a 45-minute interview, I might get one really good phrase. It’s all about weeding out the bits we can use and it takes a lot of sifting to get there. After doing the interviews you then spend a long time editing them into the quotes you use in the play. Is this difficult? Editing is such an interesting process, like a cross between choreography and writing. It’s all about choosing the right phrases but trying not to manipulate the opinion. It’s so exciting when you get a quote that makes you realise “I don’t think anyone could have made that up”, because it’s so truthful and from the gut. *Source: Never Did Me Any Harm Sydney Festival/Sydney Theatre Company program, 2012 6 7. COMPANY AND CREATIVES Kate Champion, Director Kate Champion has worked as a Director, Choreographer, Dancer, Teacher and Rehearsal Director for various companies including Australian Dance Theatre, Belvoir, Legs on the Wall, Dance North, English National Opera and London’s DV8 Physical Theatre. She has also created, performed and toured two critically acclaimed solo shows – Face Value and About Face. As Artistic Director of Force Majeure, Kate directed Same, same But Different, Tenebrae – Part 1 and 2, Already Elsewhere, The Age I’m In, Not in a Million Years, Never Did Me Any Harm, Nothing To Lose and the film series The Sense Of It. In 2012 Kate co-directed Force Majeure and Belvoir’s co-production Food with Steve Rodgers. In 2013 Kate was the Associate Director for Opera Australia’s production of Wagner’s Ring.

Load more

  19

Copy Link