Five Emerging Collectives to Look Out For
D.I.V.E. Theatre Collective
D.I.V.E. (Diverse Investigative Visceral Enlightening) Theatre Collective is a collective of theatre practitioners from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, wanting to investigate, experiment and create work in contemporary theatre that integrate different areas of knowledge, art and philosophy that, once touched, transform and reconfigure the theatrical scene.
The company recently received the Horizon Festival Anywhere Award for their show Exodus which was a collectively-devised contemporary physical theatre performance which was performed in different languages and revisited the episodes in history of mass migration in Australia.
I hope Dive Theatre Collective go on to tour this thought-provoking work maybe even take it to parliament officials and the figures that control detention centres; this
Check them out on Facebook.
Chance Collective
Chance Collective is made up of artists Olivia Brand, Victoria Barlow, Siobhan Gibbs, Milly Walker, and inter-state artist, Honor-Webster Mannison who have been working together for over four years, developing theatre works, interactive experiences, children's experiences, and cabaret shows.
The company is currently under creative development for their work Sludge Bank which will blend theatre, drag, and camp performance styles to create a fun show about climate change. The play will be set in a building here in Meanjin where a snarky slime-creature lurks in the pipes, filling each upper-class apartment, forcing the main residents to put their body-corporate bureaucracy, paleo vs vegan debates, and Instagram activism aside to save themselves and everyone in the face of climate disaster.
Doesn’t that sound like a wild time? Definitely adding that show to my bucket list of theatre that I want to see. If you don’t already have a bucket list, then you should definitely start one as it’s extremely therapeutic. And also, there’s nothing better than the feeling of supporting local artists.
Follow Chance Collective on Facebook and Instagram. Or you can visit them on their website.
The Drawer Productions
Winner of the Melbourne Fringe Tour Ready Award and the Brisbane Immersive Ensemble Anywhere Award for their work Shelter, The Drawer Productions is a theatre company that distorts the mundane and the theatrical, destroying the rules of traditional performance.
I think the premise for the work is so exciting and unlike anything Brisvegas has to offer at the moment. The company has already left a footprint on the independent theatre sector in our city and I can’t wait for them to further develop their works.
Find them on Facespace.
Observatory Theatre
Observatory Theatre is Brisbane based immersive theatre company which had its debut production Utopia! And The Caravan Calamity, a high-energy, experimental new circus work, at the Anywhere Festival. Full of welcoming energy, clowning and tap scenes the move the storyline along, the show was hit with many audience members both young and old. The company aims to bring new work to Brisbane audiences that tests boundaries and creates meaningful, vibrant experiences for their audiences.
Their next work Portraits, written and directed by Lachlan Driscoll will be making its debut at the Old Museum from October 1 – 2. Get all the deets on Facespace or web.
Spacefold Technology
Spacefold Technology is an immersive experience collective located in southeast Queensland, Australia that create using three values: to make our audience feel special, pay our artists and practise sustainably. Their debut work Time Travel Café, an open-ended 60-minute immersive theatre party, an absurd reminiscent of the Parisian salon culture of the early 1920's, featuring conversations about love, loss and the soul. It’s one of the most fun and innovate productions I’ve seen this year so far and I can’t wait to see what timey-wimey things they do next. Find them on Facebook.
