ABOUT THE SHOW

“I am deeply consumed, I am deeply committed, I am becoming, A Cowboy.” Michael Smith

​ Cowboy is an interactive, solo contemporary-dance work that unpacks one’s ability to have a ​ complete, genuine and meaningful experience as an imagined self. An original sound-score composed by Ben Ely transforms our surroundings into that of a Western Film.

​ “From surfing trains and taming horses to wandering the desert, Cowboy holds a deeper inquiry into ​ ​ the existence of human persona beyond fantasy. By committing entirely to the iconography of a cowboy, I seek to expose desires and vulnerabilities that exist in our pursuit to form identity.” Michael Smith

​ Cowboy utilises its performance space to create both intimate settings and vast, open landscapes ​ with a free-roaming audience. The work is site 'adaptable', tailoring the imagined reality to both indoor and outdoor locations, day or night. Michael operates the show from the inside, using a bluetooth remote to cue tracks and sound effects that transform active audience-members into saloon doors, brawlers, pianists, and other instruments of the Western world. Cowboy is poignantly humorous yet sensitive, where Michael's personal attempt for self-realisation and connection resonates beyond the Cowboy fantasy.

IMAGES Additional imagery is available, click here>>> ​ VIDEO Promotional Trailer, click here>>> ​

CREDITS

Created and Performed by Michael Smith Mentored by Gavin Webber ​ ​ Music Composition by Ben Ely Dramaturgy by Gavin Webber, Martyn ​ ​ Sound Design by Anna Whitaker Coutts, Liesel Zink ​ Lighting and Production by Chloe Ogilvie Special Thanks to The Angry Mime and ​ ​ Produced by The Farm South Bank Corporation’s ‘Flowstate’ ​

TOURING HISTORY 2019 AGITART, Figueres MOU Festival Figures, Spain 2019 TanZiet Berlin, Germany ​ ​ ​

BIOGRAPHIES

Michael Smith is a Brisbane-based dance artist who seeks to elevate our experience of live ​ ​ performance by intuitively and intelligently creating meaning through the body. To date his practice has encompassed contemporary dance, dance-theatre, film, performance art and installation.

Michael is currently an artist with The Farm, a dance-theatre company under the artistic direction of Gavin Webber and Grayson Millwood. He has also worked for companies and organisations such as STRUT Dance (DecaDance, Ohad Naharin), QAGOMA (William Forsythe's 'Fact of Matter', Nick Caves 'HEARD') and Opera Australia (King Roger).

As a freelance performer, Michael has worked with independent choreographers including Liesel Zink, Cass Mortimer-Eipper, Paul Selwyn Norton, Jack Ziesing and Robert Crispe, Yilin Kong, Jenni Large, Guy Shomroni and Yaniv Abraham, Matt Cornell (Dirty Feet), Lizzie and Zaimon Vilmanis (Prying Eye), Nerida Matthaei (Phluxus2), Gareth Belling (Collusion Music and Dance), Amalia Pica (IMA), Vanessa Mafe-Keane, Courtney Scheu and Liz Lea.

As a choreographer, Michaels work often questions the traditional roles of audience and space - traversing active participation and audience as allies. He uses imagined realities, fantasy, and imagery based explorations as a means to access deeper, human states. Michael's work has been performed across platforms such as Dance Massive Site Responsive Showcase, Ars Electronica (Austria), TanzZiet (Berlin), AGITART Figueres Festival MOU (Spain), Japan Media Arts Festival, STRUT Dance WA SEED Residency, Metro Arts, Sunshine Coast Arts Prize and South Bank Corporations 'Flowstate'. In support of Michael’s emerging choreographic practice, he is currently undergoing a Brisbane City Council Lord Mayors Fellowship (2019-2020) to enable opportunities across Europe and Israel.

​ Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours, First Class - Dance Performance in 2014 from Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Ben Ely has established a 20-year career in music primarily working with the group Regurgitator. He ​ has branched out into film scores, TV theme music, Remixes, Live scores, Music Production and various other endeavours. Regurgitator received at least 8 ARIA Awards for their album releases over the years and sold close to a million albums in Australia alone. Regurgitator composed a new reinvented score for the 180min long Japanese anime film AKIRA, which was performed to a sold out crowd at the Sydney Opera ​ ​ House for the very first Graphic Comic Festival held in Australia. We also invented the live performance-band recording project, Band in a Bubble in Federation ​ ​ Square, Melbourne where we lived in a purpose built glass house for three weeks without leaving once to record the MISH MASH album. ​ ​

Ely has worked in other groups such as Decoder Ring, composing and producing the soundtrack and score for the Australian film title, Somersault, which won an AFI Award for Best Picture. For this ​ ​ same production, Ely received an AFI Award and an Australian Screen Film Award. Ben has worked in countless other bands and smaller projects including collaborating on the Dancenorth & Tasdance’s production, Threefold with contemporary dance works by choreographers ​ ​ Gavin Webber (AUS), Raewyn Hill (NZ) and Huang Yi (TWN). He also performed in and composed for Gavin Webber’s Rockshow (2009) in Brisbane and has been a member of The Farm since 2013, ​ ​ co-creating TIDE and The Last Blast.

Anna Whitaker is a Brisbane based sound designer, composer and audio engineer with a palate for ​ experimental, acousmatic works and surround sound composition. She graduated from Queensland Conservatorium of Music with a Bachelor of Music Technology, and since has designed and composed for productions including Festival 2018, Bleach* Festival, La Boite Theatre Company, tasdance, Brisbane Festival, MELT Festival, and The Farm. Her vast background in classical music and technology-based sound art result in musical concoctions from the traditional and contemporary worlds. Anna's unique voice is also evident in her installation works which have exhibited at Bleach* Festival, HOTA, Flowstate and MetroArts. She has an extensive knowledge of sound and audio, working as an audio engineer at Queensland Performing Arts Centre since 2016 and landing roles as Local Keyboard Programmer for Beautiful: The Carol King Musical and Book of Mormon.

Chloe Ogilvie is an indigenous (Yamatji Nanda) lighting designer originally from the mining town of ​ Tom Price. She moved to Perth in 2013 to commence her studies at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. While at WAAPA Chloe completed her Advanced Diploma of Live theatre and Events (Lighting) and worked on a variety of shows including, Legally Blonde (Assistant lighting Designer), and Macbeth (lighting designer). Chloe has designed and worked on a variety of Professional shows since graduating such as Toast (Maiden Voyage Theatre Company), Fever and the Fret, and Boodjar Kaatijin (Yirra Yaakin), Depthless, Throttle, Ninth Wave and Tide (The Farm), Spinifex Gum (Marliya/Gondwana Choir) and Good Little Soldier (Ochre Contemporary Dance Company). Chloe is currently a Resident Artist at the Black Swan State Theatre Company.

Gavin Webber is co-Artistic Director of THE FARM, a company based on the Gold Coast, ​ Queensland. Throughout his career, Gavin has worked between Australia and Europe and directed theatre, dance, circus, film and installation. He spent the majority of his early performance career with Meryl Tankard ADT and Belgian company Ultima Vez. As Artistic Director of Dancenorth he took the company from regional Australia to national and international touring and his work has received many awards including six Greenroom awards in a single year. He was co-founder of Collaborative ensemble Splintergroup and Animal Farm Collective, early incarnations of THE FARM, whose work has been seen across four continents. He has been a regular guest choreographer with CO:3 in Perth since the company’s launch in 2015. THE FARM currently have two shows ready to tour; Cockfight and Frank Enstein, and two in the making, The Last Blast & Quarantine. In 2017, he was awarded the Sydney Meyer Individual Performing Arts Award and in 2018 The Farm won a ​ Helpmann for TIDE.

BASIC TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

● sound system, 2 x speakers (to run from a laptop) ● existing lighting (depending on venue/location and time of day) ● appropriate flooring

Detailed Technical Specifications document can be provided on request.

ADDITIONAL LINKS

● Michael Smith ● The Farm