Pearls from the Blue Oyster

Alex Bennett

A brave new world of art is unveiled in Dunedin today.

The Blue Oyster Performance Series will stretch the boundaries of what performance and live art is and what it can be.

"We do this every two years for the Fringe. This is the third, and by far the biggest, that we've done yet," Blue Oyster director Jaenine Parkinson says.

"It's a really exciting mix of local, national and international content. It's completely outside the realm of what people think live arts fits into. It encompasses a wide spectrum of what is, or can be, live art and performance art."

The performances, talks and films move between visual art, music and sound, dance, architecture, lighting, theatre, film and radio.

"We treasure this space, because it lets us go outside what the Blue Oyster usually does," Parkinson says.

"We want to present new territories and new possibilities for generating ideas and discussion. Discussion is the most important thing. We want to extend discussion about performance art in this series.

"A lot of the performances are based heavily around collaboration, which generates new ideas and possibilities.

"The idea of human presence is mediated through technologies, or other disciplines - like theatre, music, radio, film and photography - all fed into working with body, action, time and space. It's drawing on all those different sources," she says.

The Full [expletive] Moon collaboration, I Am A Strange Loop, on Saturday explores the concept of radio in art.

Radio One 91FM and Toroa Radio 1575AM will broadcast different material simultaneously, during a live music performance in the Otago Pioneer Women's Memorial Association building.

"The two radio stations are merging their programming especially for the performance," Parkinson says.

"The public can either attend the event on location, or listen in at home on Radio One or Toroa to create their own composition."

Another highlight will be Katrina Thomson's Core, a one-night performance at 169 High St, which will evolve into a month-long exhibition at the Blue Oyster.

Thomson has a string of previous Dunedin Fringe hits to her credit, including Ghost Train, Mothhearts in the Nighthouse and last year's epic 3rd Horse.

"The idea is to present a performance work that blurs the boundaries of theatre and performance art," Thomson explains.

"I see this style of work as an installation, which has moving parts. The uses of tableaux, or vignettes, are like choreographed stand-alone samples of scenes, imagery or action.

"Seemingly disparate, it is the rhythm of how they are presented that informs the overall feeling of the work. In a way it can be both cinematic and sculptural."

Joshua Rutter, Motoko Kikkawa and Kimberly What collaborate in Unacceptable Archaeologies tomorrow at the Dowling St steps, in an outdoor performance with live action and sound.

Australian multi-media sound and installation-based collective Aerolineas presents In Mono, which explores "the abstract possibilities of the monolithic" through improvisational performance and devices such as percussion, electric guitar, props, projected super-8, 16mm and data-projected films, soundtracks and samples.

On Saturday, Alex Bennett rolls out his bizarre wind instruments in Stagpipes and Wheeze Box.

The "stagpipes" are a fully-functional set of bagpipes constructed from taxidermied deer parts and the "Wheeze Box" is a toy button accordion/respiratory device strapped to his chest.

Large bodily convulsions are performed to make the box breathe, which keeps him alive while also producing music.

"This performance is a macabre look at modern thought, culture and its diminishing effect on mythology, the artisan and acoustic music," Bennett says.

Meanwhile, the Havana Club and Cinema, on the corner of Moray Pl and Filleul St, will host free performance-art films during the series.

Breathing In Time: Bodies and Theatres from Richard Serra to Warwick Broadhead features a documentary by Warwick Broadhead, directed by Florian Habicht, accompanied by short filmic works by United States sculptor Richard Serra.

Wonderment of the Bleak: Noisy and Rhythmic Audiovisual Arts from Mika Tajima to Mystic Eyes is a stark, Warholesque film featuring the electro-drone music of Australian Lisa MacKinney.

The film will be accompanied by short filmic works and selections by United States audiovisual-installation artist Mika Tajima.

The Choreography of Objects: Cross-Overs Between Dance, Visual Arts and Architecture from Lucy Guerin to Oskar Schlemmer features choreographer Lucy Guerin's Structure and Sadness, about the collapse of Melbourne's West Gate Bridge in 1970, when 35 workers were killed.

The programme includes a re-creation of Oskar Schlemmer's landmark dance of objects, machines and sculpted dolls, Triadic Ballet.

During the performance series a DVD station with headphones will be available at the Blue Oyster to watch international live art, including Canadian Black Hole Theatre's Coop, featuring dancing chicken carcasses and singing eggs, Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch's dramatic Orgien Mysterien Theater [Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries], United States artist Yvonne Rainer's Trio A and Sydney sound artist Nigel "Dr Sonique" Helyer's screaming theremin sculptures, Quint de Loup.

There will also be talks at the Blue Oyster this week by Catherine Dale on theorist and dramatist Antonin Artaud and by Dr Suzanne Little on "Performance and Representation".