The River Eats – Justin Shoulder

Overview

Costume is often key to our understanding of a character on stage or screen — what era they live in, their age, their social status, whether they're a dag. But perhaps nowhere is costume so integral, so essentially hooked into the story, as in the work of Sydney performance artist Justin Shoulder. Each of his works revolves around a 'fantastic creature', such as Hubub, the black balloon trail formed by fossil fuels wanting to become life, or Woultham, a shaggy, tissuey innocent desperate to re-create the love he knew before being discarded by a child. There's a whole mythology behind each creature. It's a perfect fusion of art and craft.

Now Shoulder and his collaborators are presenting The River Eats, his most developed single work to date. It was a hit at last year's Next Wave festival in Melbourne, where theatre critic Alison Croggon called it "a beautiful exploration of the estrangements of desire". The River Eats' star is Pinky, an ADD-affected monster Skyping, performing and searching for his true, calm self, and the work is influenced by Taoist philosophy. Here, the costume is an evolving one, as Shoulder removes and adds elements that evoke the character's inner conflict.

The River Eats is part of Performance Space's Show Off season of experimental works that have made a strong impression at their recent premieres. BINGO Unit is an interactive, multimedia police procedural that was a fellow Next Wave success, while I'm Your Man, set entirely in a boxing gym, was one of the unforgettable highlights of 2012 at Sydney's Belvoir.

Photo by Jordan Graham.