Bold, Brave and Ambitious: Two Artists You Shouldn't Miss at Liveworks 2017

Unless you've been leading an Ostrich-esque October with your head buried in the sand, you'll have heard the buzz about the epic lineup for Liveworks 2017 by now. To get a sense of what's in store, we chatted with performance artists Agatha Gothe-Snape and Nat Randall: two fiercely talented women preparing to bring their respective — and already highly acclaimed — shows to Carriageworks crowds for the first time.

AGATHA GOTHE-SNAPE: RHETORICAL CHORUS

"I'm not sure if Rhetorical Chorus is ambitious or deranged," confesses Agatha Gothe-Snape. Inspired by an encounter with renowned conceptual artist Lawrence Wiener, the piece sets Wiener's distinctive hand gestures to a musical score of sorts, which is embodied by singers, dancers, actors and musicians. Exploring the concept of the 20th century male artist — including Gothe-Snape's love for Weiner's work and her willing, polite surrender to his pontificating — the piece embraces what she describes as "a multi-layered multi dimensional conduiting of material".

After a less than perfect premiere performance for New York's 2015 Performa Biennial, Gothe-Snape nevertheless felt "the inkling that something quite powerful was possible if I kept pushing the idea to its absolute limit". Since then Rhetorical Chorus has become more complex: originally an exclusively choral piece, it now crosses multiple disciplines, thanks to collaborations with composer Megan Clue, choreographers Brooke Stamp and Lizzie Thomson, performance artist Brian Fuata and the legendary Joan La Barbara. As each element develops, the source material is relinquished in favour of its own logic, shapes and images. "I love that sense of momentum and transcendence away from the original impetus of the work," Gothe-Snape explains.

As for the space at Carriageworks? Gothe-Snape suggests its vastness may sharpen what she traditionally perceives as a fuzzy distinction between art and reality. "There is a quote that always echoes in my mind — 'We can only see clearly from far away — and I'm excited to experiment with a sense of distance in the work that Bay 17 and its epic scale offer."

Rhetorical Chorus will take place on Friday, October 20 at 9pm, Saturday, October 21 at 3pm and 9pm and Sunday, October 22 at 7pm. Tickets are $35 and can be booked here. 

NAT RANDALL: THE SECOND WOMEN

So here's the premise: Randall invites 100 male participants to perform opposite her as she re-enacts a scene from 1970s film Opening Night on loop over 24 hours. The whole thing is captured on camera and projected live alongside. How is such a show humanly possible? An incredible team, says Randall. Vetting of male co-stars. And zero tolerance for bad behaviour: "I'm more than happy to kick someone out if they're being a dickhead."

After enthralling audiences at 2016's Next Wave Festival and this year's Dark Mofo, Randall says "there's something really intoxicating about the slippage between different realities of acting and being". The Second Woman operates on several levels, revealing everything from the nature of control to the performance of masculinity, from the endurance of the female body to the complex relationship between performance, gender, reality, and identity. Although Randall is powerfully drawn to the volatility of 'liveness', she is nevertheless bracing herself for the demands of the show's third outing. "I think every time you do it, it gets harder, because you actually know. You know how it feels. I really thought I wasn't going to make it at Dark Mofo at about 10 o'clock in the morning."

But she did. Working closely with cowriter and director Anna Breckon, Randall will strive to remain "really open and really present for each exchange", maintaining a vulnerability that honours the unique energy each new male co-star injects into the space, despite her inevitable exhaustion. Like Gothe-Snape, she's eager to bring the piece to Carriageworks, which feels like home. "This is where so much of my work has been presented…it's been my stomping ground for a really long time."

The Second Woman will start at 6pm on Friday, October 20 and run until 6pm on Saturday, October 21. Tickets are $15 on the door. 

Images: Agatha Gothe-Snape, Rhetorical Chorus; Nat Randall, The Second Woman.