Multicultural Arts Victoria in association with Tony Yap Company present

Palimpsest - Buddha My Body

13-14 November 2008, Kraton (Royal Palace) Jogyakarta, Indonesia

11-14 December 2008, ARKO Theatre, Seoul, Korea
Time: 20:00 (Thursday 11 Dec) / 19:00 (Saturday 13 Dec) / 16:00 (Sunday 14 Dec)
Venue: ARKO Theatre
Tickets: KRW 25,000 (Adults) /KRW 15,000 (Youth)

Tony Yap Company will be performing Palimpsest at Kraton (Royal Palace) Jogyakarta in Indonesia 13-14 Nov 08 and at ARKO Theatre Seoul Korea in 13-14 Dec 08

Palimpsest will be performed by TYC at Taman Sari - Water palace, collaborating with Agung Gunawan and artists from Paguyuban Seni Surya Kencana for the performance in Indonesia and with Theatre Nottle in South Korea.

The project is a precious opportunity to ascertain the fundamental meaning of collaborative work. Artists from a variety of cultural backgrounds (Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Australia) met to produce dynamic inter-cultural work in a perfect balance.

IN2OZ - Creative Australia coverage of event

http://www.dfat.gov.au/in2oz/other.html

Austrlian Embassy, Republic of Korea coverage of event

http://www.zimbabwe.embassy.gov.au/seol/events.html

The Background

Stage-one (07-08) Creative collaboration with Theatre Nottle, at the Hooyong Performing Arts Centre, Wonju South Korea and Paguyuban Seni Surya Kencana Indonesia.

Australian artists form TYC were supported by The Australia International Cultural Council an initiative of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The creative development

Tony Yap Company (tyc) comprising choreographer/dancer Tony Yap, composers/musicians Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, and visual artist Naomi Ota spent several weeks in Munmak, Sth Korea in December 2007 working on a creative development with the Hooyong Performing Arts Centre Resident Company, Theatre Nottle and Indonesian dancer Agung Gunawan of Paguyuban Seni Surya Kencana.

The project is directed by Young-Oh Won, with playwright Hyun Woo Kim and performers Dae-Gun Kim, So-Young Lim and Jee-Hyun Lee.

The Concept

A palimpsest is a manuscript page, weather from a scroll or book that has been written on, scraped off, andused again. The word 'palimpsest' comes through Latin from Greek ('again' + 'scrape') and means scraped again. Ancient Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be reused, and a passing use of the term 'palimpsest' by Cicero seems to refer to this practice.

Generally, in contemporary creative practice, a writer works first in the creation of a play. In the process that has emerged in the three country collaboration of Palimpsest however, all the members - writer, actors,composers, sound artist, dancers, visual artist and choreographer - began their work at the same time. This means that there are all the steps of development in the script. It is based by the structure for the study of the present art situation for the activation of the script. The writer finds new materials and tools for creation by the collaboration movements, sounds, installation, space and suggestions from the director. The result is'palimpsest' of the whole process of collaboration.

Archeologists talk of palimpsest depositswhen referring to the deposition of artefacts across varied geographies and over different time-scales. In our investigation of identities across inter-cultural time and space we see interweaving patterns that will forge the collaborative work emerging from the collective palimpsest deposition of our combined passage through contemporary and ancient histories.rectroand verso refers to the 2 sides of a palimpsest in positive and negative imprints.

The Tony Yap Company (tyc)

http://www.tonyyapcompany.com

All participating artists in the Tony Yap Company have strong international profiles in both collaborative, multi-modal projects and their particular art-form specialties.

Tony Yap is the current Australian Council Dance Fellow, and has a long and distinguished history within Australian contemporary dance.

Naomi Ota, is an internationally-represented sculptor who most recently exhibited at the Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore.
Artists website:http://www.naomiota.com.

Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey are also award winning high-profile artists within Melbourne and further a field. They have most recently been working with the Garvan Institute for Medical Research on an ANAT Synapse Residency funded by the Australia Council, sonifying latest data from the expression of genetic function.
Artists website: madeleineandtim.net.

All tyc artists have strong international profiles in both collaborative, multi-modal projects and their particular art-form specialties.

Indonesia

The production at the Kraton Palace is the core of the Indonesian project. Agung Gunawan and artists and production staff from Paguyuban Seni Surya Kencana are hosting both a creative engagement for the international guests with the soul of Javanese traditional dance and voice works (Agung Gunawan and Ibu Kadar) fulfilling in turn the desire of the entire team for a distillation of traditional approaches into a contemporary physical theatre production.

The specific site at the Palace is a central part of the layering of influences for the production - the incredibly rich cultural heritage offering a great resource for the visiting Tony Yap Company. The production itself will benefit from a local team experienced in staging traditional and contemporary productions in Jogjakarta, providing further insights for the international guests as the creative process in this site-specific work is intimately tied to the local material context.

South Korea

Nottle Theatre Company founded in 1993, has been endeavouring to find a new theatrical language and to make experimental performances.Nottle tries to find a new form of 'universal' theatrical language. It spreads across a wide range of theatre language such as voice, contemporary dance, mime, percussion. Theatre Company Nottle's goal is an accessible and sympathetic theatre and denies esoteric view or mysterious Orientalism. It means wherever Nottle Theatre visits, the audiences can relate with the stage and share a universal truth beyond any distinction. Nottle theatre aims to accomplish its goal through continuous communication with artists in a variety of different background. In France, Nottle had its own studio and participated of Avinon OFF in 1997, 2001 and 2002. In Korea, the director, Won Young-Oh, established Hooyong Performing Art Centre at a peaceful countrysite in northern area andconcentrates on a robust art environment. Nottle runs an international creative theatre workshop festival with invited innovative foreign artists .

Nottle Theatre Company

http://nottle.co.kr/englishnottle1.htm

ARKO Arts Theatre (performance venue)

ARKO is the Arts Council of Koread, an English website, which also describes the ARKO facilities and theatre, is available at www.arko.or.kr

The Korean web site for the threatre can be found at artstheater.arko.or.kr/artstheater/introduction.asp

Location of ARKO Arts Theatre

The Theatre is in the Daehakro area, immediately ajacent to Hyehwa Station (line 4). For how to get to the theatre the map of Seoul HiSeoul is helpful, see asp.congnamul.com/seoul/english/map.jsp

Supporters

TYC is proudly supported by Multicultural Arts Victoria, Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria