A unique performance event for ideas in development.
The 2022 edition of KISS club is aimed at emerging young artists across live experimental art practice. Created by Sydney-based artist Karen Therese, KISS club has been presented by tactical media group pvi collective since 2010, evolving into a partnership with PICA in 2017, and now with Propel Youth Arts WA and Midland Junction Arts Centre in 2022.
The KISS club KickstART Edition Showing asks five artists to present 10 minutes of a work in progress to an audience, providing a chance to trial a new idea and receive immediate feedback, with the audience gaining access to a dynamic arts experience.
KISS club celebrates work in progress, giving audiences fresh insight into what is bubbling in the hearts and minds of Perth’s experimental performance makers, and the opportunity to help shape and support new work. KISS club KickstART edition features Aisha Samat, Sally Davies, Buckland x Undercurrent Theatre Company, Onset Productions, stop drop and roll theatre co.
This event will be shown live in-person to a limited audience at Midland Junction Arts Centre.
Details
When: Wednesday 13 April, 7.30 - 9.30pm
Where: Midland Junction Arts Centre, 276 Great Eastern Hwy, Midland
This performance will be held indoors with strict capacity limits. Vaccination status will be checked upon entry and mask-wearing will be mandatory for all audience members.
If you have registered and can no longer attend, please notify us by emailing rebecca@propel.org.au.
About pvi collective
Founded in 1998 and based on Whadjuck Noongar Boodja, pvi collective is a tactical media art group that creates playfully subversive and participatory artworks that creatively disrupt everyday life in public spaces. Our work invites collaboration from audiences, who are up for the challenge of social disruption through creative dissent.
We believe art is a tool for generating systemic change. Through our work, we examine and challenge the way that power and privilege impact on modern society.
Our team has backgrounds in intervention, visual art, activism, performance, live art, video, sound art, movement, performance, and programming. Each contributes their diverse skills towards creating artworks for galleries, public sites, and alternative spaces.
About the KISS Club artists and their works
Buckland - Broadcast to Space: David Stewart (with Claire Appleby), Buckland x Undercurrent Theatre Company
Buckland is an extra-terrestrial who hosts a radio broadcast on earth. Transmitted live around the world and into outer space, they hope to regain connection with their homeland. Audiences will see the vulnerability of Buckland dealing with isolation and loneliness, as the people of Perth and WA still live with mass trauma and enforced isolation caused by COVID-19
Artist Bio: David Stewart is an interdisciplinary artist residing in Boorloo. A regular on the music scene, Stewart writes with Man Sandal and Buckland and works as a Sound Designer and Composer. Also a Contemporary Theatre Maker, he co-founded Undercurrent Theatre company, who devise physical theatre at the intersection of different artforms.
Suits: Haylee Whisson (with Samantha Hortin), Onset Productions
Who wears the pants? What kind of pants do you wear? Welcome to two women warring with themselves inside a menswear store. The work will explore the ideas of power and how they relate to gender, class and age – looking at how our clothes can say more about us than we think or want them to.
Artist Bio: Haylee and Samantha are emerging Boorloo theatre-makers. Haylee specialises in writing and performance art, while Samantha’s practice is centred around dance and choreography. The practitioners are drawn together by a fascination with creating original, inventive theatre that pushes the possibilities of form and what can happen when different artistic disciplines collide onstage to tell kooky, insightful stories.
Rupert Murdoch and the Jellyfish Girl: Sally Davies
Your news bulletin into the world of Australia's biggest media mogul, and the Perth independent theatre maker who is determined to take him down. The idea will investigate how in Australia, 71% of the public watch televised news daily, and with over fifty percent of that news is owned by one man, how does this impact our wider views and actions. How are individuals forming their own opinions?
Artist Bio: Sally Davies is an emerging writer and theatre maker whose recent works include ‘Ugly Virgins’ presented by Lindstedt & Davies, and ‘Little Women’ presented by Mel & Sal. Last year she was part of Barking Gecko and ATYP’s Fresh Ink program, and this year participated in the Perth Festival Lab.
Everything Flickers: William Gammel (with Eliza Smith, Clea Purkis, and Nathan Calvert), stop drop and roll theatre co.
The lights flicker. The play fades. Your clothes have caught fire, but you haven’t noticed yet. Welcome to Australia’s so-called cultural crisis. This exploration will speak to the silencing effect of an underfunded arts sector. Without art, how can we communicate what it is to be human / the human experience?
Artist Bio: stop drop and roll theatre co, is an emerging theatre company comprising of Clea Purkis, Eliza Smith, Nathan Calvert and William Gammel. The members of the company are recent graduates of WAAPA and operate at the intersection of visual arts and performance art to create visually arresting experiences for audiences.
The Flowers Wilt: Aisha Samat (with Jessica Pettitt and Nadia Priolo)
The Flowers Wilt illustrates a ceremonial uncovering of oneself. What was once perceived as a beautiful flower, is now perceived to be wilted away. The work will investigate the theme of suffering and the possibility of being consumed by the pain. It will be an honest and vulnerable illustration of a slow mental deterioration.
Artist Bio: Aisha is a contemporary dancer and creator based in Boorlo/Perth. She graduated WAAPA in 2021 with a BA in Dance (Honours), alongside Jessica Pettitt and Nadia Priolo, where they worked with artist Bernadette Lewis on Bloody Hawaii. In 2021 they also performed in Raewyn Hill’s Archives of Humanity for the Perth Festival.
About the Youth Week WA KickstART Festival
Presented by Propel Youth Arts WA, the KickstART Festival has been the flagship event of Youth Week WA for 12 years running. KickstART offers over 60 free events - including workshops, talks, performances, mentorships, exhibitions, markets, and other special events - between 8 - 16 April, for young people aged 12-26.
Due to growing concerns about COVID-19 and the anticipated continued spread of Omicron across our communities in Boorloo (Perth) and WA, the Propel team has decided to pivot towards digital and hybrid formats for the delivery of the KickstART Festival this April.
The Youth Week WA KickstART Festival 2022 is presented by Propel Youth Arts WA and is funded by the Government of Western Australia through the Department of Communities and the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries. KickstART is also supported by Lotterywest, the City of Perth, the City of Stirling, the City of Fremantle, and the City of Vincent.