not yet it's difficult : performance events and cross-artform projects : melbourne australia
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Established in 1995 in Melbourne, Australia, not yet it's difficult (NYID) is a group of artists
who produce public performance events and cross-artform projects.
news
We are proud to announce the 2010 program.
FEBRUARY
A Chapter In A Really Important Book!
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The year kicks off in February with an Australian launch of Making Contemporary Performance, a new publication from Manchester University Press, which includes a chapter on NYID's Blowback (2004-2006) and places the company alongside such significant international players as Robert Le Page, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Theatre de Complicite and Forced Entertainment.
APRIL
From the Directorial to the Curatorial
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April sees NYID Artistic Director David Pledger and Dramaturge Peter Eckersall returning to Kuala Lumpur to continue the second development of The Meaning of Malaysia is Open for Inspection with Instant Cafe Theatre. The Meaning of Malaysia is based on an original concept and dramaturgical template developed by David Pledger for NYID's 2008 Melbourne Festival presentation of The Meaning of Moorabbin is Open for Inspection.
MAY
Commissioning New Ways of Making Work
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In May, the company will commission X:MACHINE to develop Game, Set, a methodology based development project exploring the integration of live performance and digital technologies.
SEPTEMBER
Installing Memory
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In September, NYID presents HOIST, a day-night site-specific installation and public space project at Federation Square. Concerned with representations of suburbia and using film and object, the project builds on the company's history of performative and visual artworks which have dealt with the subject of suburban space.
NOVEMBER
Starting from Scratch
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November takes the company to Dresden to commence a long-term music-theatre research project The Clockwork Heart with the trans-continental Elision Ensemble.
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Keep an eye out in 2010 for the launch of not yet it's difficult Works on Video, the project specific websites for HOIST and The Meaning of Malaysia and more...
research, industry and education
research
Prior to the inception of not yet it's difficult as a company, a research group under the direction of David Pledger, operated out of the old Danceworks space at the Wesleyan Church in Albert Park, Melbourne. This group presented three training laboratories to invited audiences during two years' research.
This research philosophy has remained integral to the company's activities with research projects including Running Man, a lecture/performance/demonstration asking the question what happens to the brain when the body is subjected to the stress of physical endurance, The Body Listening Project, a development of the sensory potential of the body as a 'discriminating ear', a faculty for receiving, processing and responding to information transmitted by the body, The Desert Project, the company's application of physical training practices in Central Australian landscapes and NYID TV, the company's investigation of the place of multimedia in live performance.
The company considers performance research to be an integral part of its dramaturgy.
Future Research Projects
The company's practice remains driven by research imperatives. NYID projects are driven by investigations into the function of drama, film, dance, new technologies and architecture in relation to dedicated theatre environments and site-specific public spaces, in the context of live performance and installation.
Running Man (2007 - 2009)
Running Man is a proposition for the body and the mind. It asks: what happens in the brain when the body is subject to the stress of physical endurance work? Specifically, the question relates to what parts of the brain are affected at various levels and engagements of physical stress and what promulgation of thought and image may occur in direct response to this. The project will comprise two streams of research, Stream One: The Body on the Brain and Stream Two: Real-Time Interactive Software.
The Body Listening Project (2000 - 2003)
The refinement of the physical and vocal training practices over ten years led the company to a specific area of research: the development of the sensory potential of the body as a 'discriminating ear', a faculty for receiving, processing and responding to information transmitted by the body. The Body Listening Projects enabled the application of exercises in a more scientific, hypothesis-driven research environment involving company members including spatial-acoustic expert, Lawrence Harvey.
The Desert Project (1998)
NYID's investigation into, and on, the body remain central to its identity as a performance-making group. Initially influenced by sports practices, the work of Meyerhold and the training methodology of Japanese theatre director Tadashi Suzuki, the company's methodology is profoundly linked to theoretical questions of landscape and Australian 'space'. In undertaking The Desert Project in the Central Australian deserts, the company wished to explore what concrete relationships there were between the training exercises and the environment which initially inspired their application to the company's dramaturgy.
NYID TV (1996)
The company's early performances were agit-prop, physical theatre/dance-theatre explorations. The desire to be responsive to contemporary culture led the company to train itself in the production of audio and visual techniques associated with television and film production. This project was an attempt to learn those techniques and discover how they might have a performative mode within the company's evolving dramaturgy.
advocacy
not yet it's difficult is committed to industry initiatives which assist and develop the interests of contemporary artists and their relationship to social and cultural practice. Since 1996, the company through its founding members have instigated significant initiatives which have assisted artists in the making of work through the establishment of discrete programs of and through advocacy and lobbying through government and NGOs.
R and D Cubed
In 1996, David Pledger initiated, produced and managed R and D Cubed, an annual program roster giving project-based companies the opportunities to experiment with and develop their performance practice. The program ran until 1998.
Independent Performance Forums
In 1997, Paul Jackson initiated Independent Performance Forums, a series of public forums and publications on issues affecting independent performance including reconciliation, new arts practice and globalisation. Both programs ran until 1999 and were funded by Arts Victoria and Sidney Myer Fund and managed by NYID.
PAML Pilot Project
In 1999, the company participated in the Performing Arts MultiMedia Library Pilot Project (PAML). The PAML Pilot project was produced by cinemedia and the Federal Communications Department (DOCITA), and inspired by a program proposed by David Pledger to Arts Victoria and cinemedia to fund live recordings of contemporary performance. For PAML, the company produced the television documentary-drama, The UnMaking Of.
The Social Capital Fund
In 2001, not yet it's difficult inaugurated The Social Capital Fund that historically donates a percentage of the proceeds of dedicated projects to an independent social welfare agency or program. Recipients have included the Galliamble Recovery Centre for Indigenous Men, the Port Philip Specialist School for Children and the Bentleigh Bayside Community Health Service.
Dramaturgies Forum
Peter is a founding member of the Dramaturgies forum a research and development laboratory that aims to advance the creative and critical role of dramaturgy in Australian contemporary theatre. Founded in 2001, Dramaturgies has produces seminars workshops and publications on dramaturgy. A national event focused on 'Dramaturgy in C21' will be held in Melbourne in 2010. A further event exploring dramaturgy in intercultural contexts is planned for Tokyo in 2011. Industry partners in the Dramaturgies forum include NYID, Malthouse Theatre, Real Time, Asialink, The University of Melbourne and The Australia Council.
The International Network
In late 2006, David Pledger and then Asialink Performing Arts Manager, Swee Lim convened the Melbourne-based International Network which works as an informal network of artists, producers and presenters working internationally. The group meets bi-monthly.
not yet it's difficult continues to be a key lobbyist for the interests of independent arts practice across government.
cultural dramaturgy
Since inception we have been committed to a process of thinking about the relationship between how we make art and how culture operates in society.
The philosophy behind this thinking has to do with the notion of a cultural dramaturgy which we may describe as culture's operating system. The question we ask is: What are the effects of our artistic practice on culture? This is in the broadest sense of the words 'artistic practice' and 'culture'. And it goes beyond, the creative process, the presentation of work, the critical response and cultural production. More directly, we might ask: how does culture operate within society and how do artists and their practice drive this operation? A constructive visual analogy might be the white program-text on the black background that is the dos-code driving the hardware of a computer, the invisible engine materialising content.
From our own investigations into the function of drama, film, dance, new technologies and architecture in live performance, we saw that artistic practice did not sit easily in a small set of distinct mediums and that this kind of organisation does not reflect the actual functioning of culture. We began to talk about an inter-disciplinary dramaturgy that recognised the function of hybridisation in artistic practice both within and between art-forms. This engendered a process of looking in the spaces between discrete art-forms, and identifying and experiencing the folds of their interconnectedness.
This way of thinking developed initially by asking certain questions during workshops (see below) that we presented for other artists as a means by which they might train their bodies and their minds to extend their own practice. Our thinking crystallised further around the more social idea of the artist as a cultural agent to resist and counter contemporary attempts to position the artist as an industrial unit. In this way, our discussions included conversations as much about the way the artist perceives their work and themselves, as it is about the work itself and how it is received.
The forum by which this thinking is currently communicated we call Meetings and Conversations. Essentially an opportunity for artists across art-forms to engage in discussion about their practice, the Meetings and Conversations program serves as an open and ongoing forum about the mechanisms of cultural production, the material itself and how it connects with, influences and determines the daily life of society.
David Pledger
MEETINGS AND CONVERSATIONS (ongoing)
Meetings and Conversations is a program designed to assist artists in the evolution of their artistic practice with special emphasis on inter-disciplinary work. The aim of the program is to establish a productive mode to maintain, develop and cultivate independent artists in a productive, discursive context. The meeting-and-conversations mechanism enables intensive discussion followed by a period of contemplation and feedback.
The artists participate by bringing a current or developing project to the table. The workshop leaders' role is to navigate the artists through a process customised to their specific needs which may be project-based or process-based.
WORKSHOP Body Listening (ongoing)
Body Listening is an intensive workshop for actors, dancers, directors, performers and choreographers wishing to develop their working process in physical, spatial and vocal contexts. The workshop offers a series of exercises with regard to concentration, focus and the application of physical and vocal energy designed to develop the participant's presence in the space.
Initial exercises are designed to articulate the awareness of the performer's physical centre by examining factors in the equation of motion: speed, stability and acceleration. These factors are developed through challenges to the performer's physical centre in vertical and horizontal planes. Specifically the exercises examine modes of locomotion such as walking and running, and require the learning of a series of tableaux or statues in static positions.
The physical exercises are designed to input breath, breath on sound, sound and text. The exercises are then transposed to the architecture of indoor and outdoor spaces. Physical and vocal energy is applied over distance and time, in relation to the dimensions of the space and the presence of other performers.
This work is directed toward the development of the sensory potential of the body as a \'discriminating ear', for receiving, processing and responding to information.
WORKSHOP Making Work (ongoing)
Making Work is designed to develop artists' individual dramaturgy in the making of artworks in discrete art-form practice and across a range of media: drama, dance, installation, video, performance. It is for performance-makers, designers, choreographers, dramaturgs, writers, directors and video-artists with an interest in performance.
Each participant is invited to bring a project as an idea, a concept or a work-in-progress. These may be in the form of text, video, movement or a verbal presentation. Participants may be individual artists or collaborating artists.
An emphasis is on developing modes and models of collaboration between artists and between art-forms. The workshop requires participants to actively contribute to each other's projects. This engagement is facilitated by the workshop leaders in consultation with each participant.
The process of the workshop allows for the workshop leaders to utilise case studies of current and recent company projects to provide dramaturgical strategies which may be of benefit to participants.
PROGRAM Collaboration Laboratory (2002)
Collaboration Laboratory was devised as a whole-of-college program around inter-disciplinary arts practice for the Victorian College of the Arts' six vocational schools – film, drama, dance, visual arts, music and technical production. The students participated in mixed workshops, lectures and seminars designed to stimulate their interest and expertise in the development of works across art-forms.
The educational focus was on assisting the students to think more deeply about their working processes. The program leadership proposes ideas and encourages activity that allows the student to inquire into their own practice, and then the relationship of their practice to other art-forms. The propositions are meant to be self-inquiring, and designed to disturb the industrial imperative present in much vocational arts training.
Necessarily, the program is as much about the way the artist perceives their work as it is about the work itself. The idea is to look in the spaces between discrete artforms, to identify and experience the folds of their interconnectedness so the objective is not to make works of art but to discover a process of seeing.
mission
mission
not yet it's difficult has a unique presence in Australia's contemporary arts culture as a research unit, a producer of industry development programs and a maker of contemporary artworks and events.
Our mission is to make critically engaged artworks of high artistic and discursive quality that arise out of ideas that reflect contemporary life.
Our objective has been to develop artworks that incite narratives of enquiry in the minds of our spectators. The desire has been to engage the spectator viscerally, intellectually and humorously about ideas, politics, art and the human condition.
history
Working under the artistic direction of David Pledger, not yet it's difficult (NYID) is one of Australia\'s leading independent arts companies recognised as a pioneer in the development of contemporary theatre. Founded in 1995 by Pledger, PeterEckersall and Paul Jackson who together form the core creative team, NYID has produced almost 40 local, national and international projects including original performance works, plays, public space projects, television and screen-based installations.
In the first five years of the company's life, our efforts concentrated on applying a unique methodological approach to the research, development and making of physical performance. Over the next five years, NYID focused on the integration of media in live performance. And in the present five-year period, NYID has developed screen-based visual art projects in which a performative element is integrated into the artwork through low and high-tech, and sometimes, interactive modes of presentation. These development streams are not mutually exclusive. They flow in parallel and often intersect causing change and evolution, developing an oeuvre which is both distinctive, innovative and adventurous.
This dedicated dramaturgical approach has placed NYID at the forefront of experimental companies in the independent arts scene. For our work in theatre, dance, opera and media arts, NYID has been recognised by the Victorian Green Room Awards, the Australian Writer's Guild and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.
In association with other companies, NYID have developed and presented workshop, forum and industry development programs such as independent performance forums (1996-1999) and r and d cubed (1996-1998), major contributions to the quality of discourse and practice in the national and Victorian performing arts community. The company was a driving force and participant in the PAML Pilot Project (1998-2000), which developed copyright models for performing arts companies in multimedia platforms.
NYID's funding history indicates a resourceful and strategic approach to producing and reflects the diversity of artforms with which the company engages. Contributing agencies in Australia include the Visual Arts Board and the Theatre Board of the Australia Council of the Arts, the Major Festivals Initiative, Arts Victoria, the City of Melbourne, the Victorian College of the Arts, Film Victoria, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Sidney Myer Fund, the Visual Arts Programs of the Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne Festivals and internationally, Japan Foundation, Vienna Festival, Arhus Festival, Cankarjev Dom, Expo 2000, Dublin Fringe Festival, the Seoul Performing Arts Festival and Liverpool Capital of Culture.
From inception, we have positioned ourselves as an organisation with a global view. We have created significant international collaborations and international partnerships to produce new works and present existing ones. This has allowed the company to forge artistic and producing relationships in Asia, the UK, Europe and South America which has brought with it significant contributions to the diversity of Australian theatre by bringing into the country artists, companies, ideas and artistic practices that hitherto had no relationship to Australia.
The company is a leading innovator, always pushing the boundaries of theatre pratice and has a sustained national and international presence and influence.
process
NYID is an ideas-based company. Productions arise from the formulation of ideas and extensive discussion concerning their value and potential application to a discrete or multi art form context. Ultimately, it is the idea that determines the medium by which it is best communicated. If we find ourselves without the skills to communicate the idea in the most appropriate medium, historically, we have committed to acquiring the skills and applying them to the idea. At the heart of our ideas is the question: what is theatre?
Over time we have built up a number of dramaturgical devices concerned with presentation, representation and mediation with which we experiment, develop and expand. These include performative forms such as direct address and monologue; spatial design \'actions\' such as spectator-performer interaction and the exploitation of a venue\'s architecture; theatrical elements such as chorus, choreography, Brecht\'s concept of alienation and technological interventions such as film and interactive media.
The development practice of NYID is based on a process of accumulation and disposal. The creation of each new work lays the foundation for the next. Experiments that are successful and are considered to have potential in the making of one performance are explored more deeply in the subsequent process. Motifs, modes of work or dramaturgical strategies that are no longer considered progressive are discarded or rested. This process of layering the successes of each new work onto the next has enabled the company to thoughtfully build a new language of arts practice over time.
In the case of performance projects, they normally have a three-year gestation with a five-stage development process: Reading/Research Group, Text Assembly, Development, Rehearsal and Presentation.
The Reading Group is central to the company's process of creation and revolves around the establishment of a group of key artists for each project. In a research environment, experts related to the project's fields of interest are also invited to challenge and inform key artists' positions and understanding of the project material.
Text Assembly involves the writing of a performance text on which the project is based. It may include scenes, sound and video briefs, design rationale, and an approach to physically integrating the work into the desired performing space. In this way it resembles a composition or score. Alternatively, the text may be written in a form more closely resembling a playscript. Either way, the content is distilled from information and ideas that have arisen during and after the Reading Group. Text Assembly is undertaken by the Artistic Director.
Development involves applying the text to a free, performative environment. The approach is to use the material as a flexible template on which exploration, experimentation and innovation are played out. The performance text may change dramatically by the end of this process or it may be reinforced as the Rehearsal format.
Rehearsal involves turning the decisions of the text into an iterative document, able to be learned, repeated and improved through a performance season.
Presentation is a process that involves producing and managing the production as it evolves over all stages of development. A producing model is created that best serves the artistic enterprise of the production. This involves raising funds, production management, marketing, publicity, engagement with venue and co-presenters and partners. This process sits underneath the other four stages and is a flexible and enabling one.
In the case of visual art/installation projects, the development process shares common elements with this performance-making dramaturgy but is often more singularly driven by the Artistic Director.
awards
2004 New Media
Australian Writer's Guild Awards 2004
Eavesdrop
Inaugural New Media Award for Writing Nomination, David Pledger
2004 Drama
Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2004
Blowback
Louis Esson Prize for Drama Short-listed, David Pledger
2004 Opera
Victorian Green Room Awards
Cosmonaut*
Best Direction Nomination, David Pledger
Best Design Nomination, David Pledger/Paul Jackson
Best Lighting Design Nomination, Paul Jackson
*Cosmonaut was produced by Danceworks and WaxMedia. NYID was the principal supporter of the production.
2002 Drama
Victorian Green Room Awards
K
Best Supporting Actress, Nomination, Vivienne Walshe
2001 Independent Theatre
Victorian Green Room Awards
scenes of the beginning from the end Outstanding Event, Nomination
1997 Independent Theatre
Victorian Green Room Awards
The Austral/Asian Post-cartoon: sports edition New Form Award, Winner NYID
The Austral/Asian Post-cartoon: sports edition Best Performer, Winner Paul Bongiovanni
1996 Independent Theatre
Victorian Green Room Awards
WS:HDQ Outstanding Event, Nomination
1995 Independent Theatre
Victorian Green Room Awards
Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy Outstanding Event, Winner
Nil, Cat and Buried Outstanding Event, Nomination
Nil, Cat and Buried Best Performer, Winner Shane Connor