The Old Alice Springs Gaol
CONFINED premiered as a contemporary site specific music theatre installation on 16 June 2012, at the Old Alice Springs Gaol, to sell out audiences. CONFINED is the first chamber opera to emerge from the Northern Territory. The gaol performance involved 30 local, national and international artists. It was recognised at the 2013 APRA|AMCOS ArtMusic awards as ‘Work of Excellence in a Regional Area’.
Specialised speaker layouts, video projections, theatrical lighting, gripping sound design and physical extremes immersed and provoked the audience to travel an ageless narrative. Arresting live music performed across the old gaol site, hallucinatory visual installations, and lowly lit cells became portals into the mind of the main character Echo, and her trauma. The audience traversed a landscape of scattered old news papers, dead birds, a suicide scene, abandoned toys, a pederast father and cows huddling around fire drums as they were ushered across the six points of theatrical action.
An audience of 200 experienced the work, across two back to back performances.
Funded in stages by Arts NT and the Australia Council for the Arts, Tammy Brennan commenced work on CONFINED in early 2010 with acoustic instrument maker Steve Langton. Together they built a series of tuned and sand blasted break drums from reclaimed metal car wheel rims; a large stainless steel megaphone; and two ‘subs’ with suspended ¼ inch metal tone bars from recycled thermoplastic pool filters, inspired by the architectural and acoustic elements of the old gaol.
Remotely, Tammy was working with Sydney based Composer Barton Staggs on early stages music development. Barton also traveled to Alice Springs and worked with Tammy to undertake extensive field recordings and a series of durational recordings with local musicians inside the cells of the gaol. They too experimented with the architectural elements of the site, creating duets between the large metal gaol gates and the Kora; metal fixtures such as basins and small wall cabinets with varying mallets for percussive treatments; and vocal improvisations that explored natural acoustic across the site.
It was the development on the libretto, through Central Australian initiative ‘Bite Size Theatre’, that began to steer the work toward a more music theatre orientation. A very early showing of CONFINED and its elements formed part of the ‘Bite Size’ program at the Alice Springs Araluen Theatre, in May 2011. It was at this time Composer Sofie Loizou was invited to be part of the compositional team; particularly for her electronic programming and production techniques.
As the elements progressed and 'Production and Presentation' funding was secured, acclaimed international performance maker Younes Bachir was approached to direct the site specific version of CONFINED, at the Old Alice Springs Gaol. Younes is noted for his unconventional performance language [codified construct, constant dialogue and friction between setting, audience and performers] and specialized aerial suspension.
The Old Alice Springs gaol production and performance comprised a unique combination of artists [creative and production] that resulted in a style of performance never produced or performed in Central Australia prior. Leading up to the June presentation, Tammy also worked closely with Associate Producer Kieren Sanderson, who's contribution was integral to the production success.
The site specific gaol presentation of CONFINED is available for national and international touring.