Stompin

Home

…is a performance installation by young artists of dance and architecture about the place we live and the living we create. The creation of Home was inspired by artists Luke George and Bec Reid’s dual experiences between their relationship to Tasmania as their original home, and the ever-growing ‘design for living / lifestyle’ culture in a media savvy and mass consuming, contemporary society.We wanted to create a dance work that was an immersive experience where the audience views and engages the performance in a physical and intimate way. By “installation” we mean a performance and set design that is installed in a fixed place in which an audience journeys through over a period of time. We took inspiration from the way you catch a theme park ride for the design and performance concept of Home and the way in which younger people are experiencing and defining a highly mobile and personalised sense of home (ipod, myspace.com…) – Luke George and Bec Reid

Each ride fits up to 10 audience members and a new ride departs every 5 minutes. Audience groups are guided through 5 rooms of separate homes by an individual guiding dancer: living, dining, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Each room is a new home and new people, as if audience were walking through the walls between houses in a street or apartment building.

Ideas behind the work and choreography ::: Home and living as a commodity, modern obsession with achieving the ultimate lifestyle, surrounding ourselves with luxury ::: seeking independence, leaving the family home, breaking with tradition but bringing all that history with you and colliding with others’ ideas and values ::: visiting the past, what is our sense of origin and connection to where and whom we come from? histories, memories, heirlooms and traits. as we race forward, are we repeating the past or ignoring it? ::: shutting off and closing up, the individual trapped inside fear of the world beyond the safety of the roofs, walls, fences and borders we put up ::: what would happen if everything we trust, depend on and take for granted is suddenly ripped away, leaving us with nothing but fractured memories, each other and the instinct to start again :::

click to enlarge the images below…

Stompin collaborated with 25 students from the University of Tasmania School of Architecture to design, make and install an enormous 40 meter long set made entirely out of recycled cardboard.

click to enlarge the images below…

When audiences’ arrive for the performance, their initial contact is with the public lounge – a place to wait for their show to commence. Situated in the centre of the lounge is a group of community members having a dinner party - the Home Recipe Group. The Diners interact with audience members, sharing family recipes that are important to them, samples of food and their sense of home. The dinner party is alive throughout the entire performance duration.

Home was first created in Launceston throughout 2006 with its premiere season Nov 24 to Dec 2 at the Roberts Woolstore. In 2007, Luke and Bec will create the project’s next evolution by making a home by touring the extraordinary set design and Launceston dancers to perform a new version of Home with young dancers and community in Melbourne. don’t miss it!

Home presented by Stompin and Arts House at the Meat Market 12 - 16 Sept 2007.

check it out, our lovely Luke and Bec have received a 2007 awards nomination by the prestigious Green Room Awards for:

CONCEPT AND REALISATION Luke George and Bec Reid – Home (Stompin)

also congratulations to these fabulous artists who’ve worked with Stompin for their own work:

>>Antony Hamilton for Most Original Choreography The Counting (choreographer on We Don’t Need Another Mural choreographer ‘07)

>>Stephanie Lake for Best Female Dancer Year’s Work (Stompin alumni and choreographer on Joyride ‘02 and Citizen ‘05)

>>Bec Reid for Concept and Realisation 180 Seconds (Stompin alumni, former AD and choreographer of heaps of our shows!)

>>Luke George for best ensemble Brindabella (Stompin alumni, current AD and choreographer of stax of Stompin works!)
yeah yeah yeah! see them on the red carpet!

that’s right, Melbourne street zine Inpress recently published their arts writers poll and wrap up of the year’s shows and exhibitions.  arts writer Rebecca Cook named Stompin’s Arts House season of Home as the number 1 best performance for 2007!!  thanks rebecca.  glad you liked it.

Home and hosed - the show is over and it was a ripping success. lots of happy audiences and dancers, full tummies on yummy home recipe group titbits, tired by satisfied bodies, tonnes of great feedback, tears and fond fairwells.

here’s some bits from our review in The Age:

“Stompin takes their audiences on a tour through time and space in an immersive presentation that celebrates the bonds of community built around family, food and dance. In this close-up performance, the dancers are in the audience’s face. They stomp across the dining table at which we are seated, surge across the bedroom, forcing us backwards, colliding, to grapple and collapse, or conducting intimate non-verbal conversations with looks that could kill. Home is a thoroughly engaging encounter. Stompin is bursting with ideas and a terrific Tassie export.” - Hilary Crampton, The Age, 14 Sept 07.

and some stuff from Australian Stage Online:

“Audience members are subject to a rollercoaster of emotions as they move from room to room; from start to finish, the sense of anticipation and curiosity the work provokes is intense… Home is a rich hothouse of personal experience and intimate memories made physical… The conviction and depth of these young performers was impressive, the set an ingenious concept taking the movement to a new level. Here’s to many more return seasons of this stirring, engaging work!” - Jessica Thomson, Australian Stage Online 19 September 2007
Read the entire reviews… (more…)

no peeps from us for a while, that’s probably because we’re deep deep inside creative development and rehearsals for Home.

-living room

The spunky new Melbourne cast and have been in the studio making loads of cool new stuff. lots of new ideas and movement for the Living Room, Kitchen and Bathroom.

-kitchen

i’ve kept the original style and feeling to these rooms but we’re making brand new stuff - trying some new and risky approaches. loads of fun - great bunch of dancers.

-kitchen

the Launceston crew have been rehearsing the Bedroom and Dining Room hard, getting back last year’s great work, getting newcomers Justin (previously in the Kitchen) and Joel the roles and there’s a kickin new version of Dining Room!!!

-living room

Me and the Melbourne guiding dancers are heading down to Tas on Friday so they can rehearse with Launnie crew, then everyone comes to Melbourne!!

two weeks

arggh!! yeah!!

hey Launceston and Melbourne dancers for Home.

here is the Launceston schedule > > Home Lton cast rehearsal schedule.pdf
and the Melbourne schedule > > Home melb cast rehearsal schedule.pdf
see the Melbourne crew on Saturday 28 July for our first big weekend and the Launceston crew on August 13 to revisit some of the good ol’ stuff!

last Saturday we held an audition for a cast of Melbourne dancers to join the cast of Home for our big show in Arts House Meat Market this September.

i was completely overwhelmed by the 36 dancers that came - what a talented and interesting bunch of people! i wish i could have accepted them all.

stompin alumnus adam wheeler took them through their paces.

thanks to all those that came and on to making the show!

i wish i was a Stompin dancer…

**AUDITION**

Stompin, Australia’s hottest dance company of young people and young artists is seeking a cast of 12 young dancers from Melbourne for the remake and performance of its 2006 smash hit show from Launceston…

Home
Presented by Arts House 12 - 16 September 2007
Arts House, Meat Market - North Melbourne

“A must see… a powerful work… Stompin’s best work to date!” (Fiona Riley, review for the Examiner Saturday 25 Nov 2006)

“Anything but traditional… a performance like no other.” (Anne Heath, review for Portal online blog Monday 27 Nov 2006)

A brilliant opportunity to work with some of Australia’s hottest artists, collaborate with young dancers from Launceston and perform in a groundbreaking new dance work!

AUDITION
2pm - 5pm
Saturday 30 June
Arts House, Meat Market
5 Blackwood St. North Melbourne
Mel Ref: 2B A9

Dancers are to be aged 14 – 26, creative, enthusiastic, motivated and can commit to: Part time rehearsals July 28 – Sept 2 and Production September 3 – 16

Dancers must register their interest to take part in the audition by emailing luke@stompin.net or calling 0417 535 456. download the printable version of the audition flier > Home audition flier.pdf

Find out more about Home in our online diary of the project

Home is Supported by Arts House and being developed in the Culture Lab

hey check out the link to view all the sexy piccies that photographers Patrick Ronald and Shannon McDonnell took of Home > POW!

they’re going straight to the pool room

sadly, we had to pack up our home last week:

it was a strange feeling and to see the whole home dismantled so quickly

and for now it lives in two sea-containers until we make a home again

thanks so much to all the volunteers who helped us reassemble the woolstore to its former state - what an effort! YOU ROCK!

my posts are all going to continue completely out of order - such is our scrambled lives as we gradually put back together the pieces after finishing such an epic show.

here is a photo of the famous home recipes group in action. every night of Home, the recipe group had a dinner party in the public lounge. they cooked and prepared food which was special to them and then shared little morsels with arriving audience members who joined them at the table. they were the talk of the town!

thanks maggie, suzie, shirley, rhonda and claire!