Performing Authenticity
GENRE: Exhibition, Academic Research
ONE LINE: A multimedia piece and sociological experiment that explores the concept of authenticity in performance.
STATUS: Funded by Brittingham Trust. IRB approved. Project in process.
COLLABORATORS: Colleen Conroy, Aaron Granat
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: After collecting oral histories from the local community and filming actors performing these interviews verbatim, we are now preparing to run a sociological experiment to investigate audience perceptions of performative authenticity.
How to be an Anticapitalist
GENRE: Factual Entertainment
ONE LINE: “How to be an Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century” is a docu-series inspired by the book by American Sociologist Erik Olin Wright that explores how we can take concrete steps towards a sustainable, post-capitalist future.
STATUS: Book rights, pitch deck, production company
COLLABORATORS: Celia Haining, Keith Tunney
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Provocative, impactful and entertaining, this series brings the history and myths of capitalism and its alternatives to life through engaging animations, dance, interviews, and discussions.
The Many Bodies of Eve
GENRE: Experimental video art / multimedia exhibit
ONE LINE: A multi-media exhibit utilising choreography, verbatim theatre, and film projection techniques to explore how our bodies are shaped by and for society.
STATUS: Seeking funding
COLLABORATORS: Colleen Conroy, Aaron Granat
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The final films will be projected on life-size transparent fabric that is suspended in space. This allows the viewer to experience the feeling of having other bodies projected onto their own, replicating the experience of many women.
Masks All The Way Down
GENRE: Short Dance Film
ONE LINE: The rough-and-tumble world of politics is brought to visceral life in a dance film that explores the performed self, social masks and whether there is an ‘authentic’ self beneath them.
STATUS: Filmed, in post, online edit expected 2024
COLLABORATORS: Aaron Granat and students from The University of Wisconsin-Madison
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Inspired by ‘The Green Table’ and set in a smoky, hyper-masculine gentleman’s club; dancers move in and out of tableaux; they gesture emphatically; they fight and they fall and ultimately refuse to budge. A woman occasionally appears at the edge of frame, dancing soulfully in the margins. But no matter how hard she tries, she cannot break in or through.
A Dance Metropolis
GENRE: Meta-dance-scifi, immersive theatre
LOGLINE: In a post-human future, sentient AI beings who are obsessed with human artefacts, reimagine the silent film “Metropolis” as a dance film that tells their origin story.
STATUS: Production Company interest
COLLABORATORS: Arthur Pita
COMPS: Ex Machina, Black Mirror, Westworld, Altered Carbon, Pina by Wim Wenders
TONE: Meta, cerebral, cinematic, visceral, dance
TAG: A story about AI using AI to tell human stories about AI to other AI
Our Lot in Life
GENRE: Elevated reality, political, factual entertainment
ONE LINE: Set in a small town in Wisconsin, this show is a disruptive social experiment that pushes the edges of representative democracy in an effort to make it truly inclusive.
STATUS: Pitch & treatment, seeking partners
COLLABORATORS: Academic advisor, John Gastil, Welsh journalist/tv presenter Mai Davis
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: What if our local political representatives were selected randomly? In our show, everyday people, not politicians, weigh in on the rules, laws and norms that impact them and their community.
The Pareto Principle
GENRE: Dance film, political-horror, feature
LOGLINE: An unlikely friendship between a sexually fluid Brit and a wealthy debutante ends in horror - when a spell spirals out of control on prom night and turns a throng of dancing teens into a deadly danse-macabre.
STATUS: Script complete, director attached, shopping
COLLABORATORS: Sean De Sparengo
COMPS: It’s Stephen King’s Carrie with a contemporary dance twist, inside a dark mirror version of a classic 80s teen movie.
TONE & THEME: Cinematic, visceral and character driven, the Pareto Principle is a classic coming-of-age story, a love triangle and an origin story all rolled into one. It is also a celebration of movement and music featuring an evocative soundtrack of Chicago House.
Safety in Numbers
GENRES: Mind-bending, sci-fi, musical, animation, dance
LOGLINE: A genre-bending anthology series inspired by the towns and citizens of Wisconsin created in collaboration with Chris Walker and the Division of the Arts at UW Madison and Communication Arts.
STATUS: grant applications in process.
COLLABORATORS: Chris Walker, Aaron Greer
COMPS: Pulp Fiction, LoveCraft Country, Schmigadoon, Being John Malkevich, Blind Spotting
PROCESS: We will interview Wisconsin citizens to create composite characters and story arcs that build on these personal narratives. The project will engage students from film, dance, theatre, music, animation and visual art.