Sanja Gacic - performance - multimedia and technical assistant

Adelaide Festival Centre
Devolution
Location: Her Majesty's Theatre
Dates: 02 August 2007 - 04 August 2007
Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes
Interval: None

Behold: the future of dance. 2006 Helpmann Awards for Best New Australian Work & Best Lighting Design (Louis-Philippe Demers) & 2006 Inaugural Ruby Award for Innovation. Garry Stewart has deservedly built a reputation for pushing dance beyond convention into new, daring realms.

But nothing ever as imaginative, as jaw-droppingly inspired as this. For Devolution, Stewart collaborated with Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, Louis-Philippe Demers, and UK video artist, Gina Czarnecki, to create a unique world, the likes of which Australian theatre has never produced before. In this world, humans commune and interact with robotic machines of every size on a massive robotic, kinetic set.

The mechanised lighting design is interspersed with extraordinary video art. And the dancers perform symbiotically with a multitude of robotic prostheses and ambulating robotic constructs. Devolution totally redefines the relationship between machine and body; between dance and performance art. Filled with symbolism and ritualised process, Devolution underlines that for all of our technology, we are still primitive, living, flesh-and-blood, instinctive biological beings. Share this radical and thought-provoking vision of the future of Australian dance.