CreateA’s performance project, DENDRON: the forest in us, is an immersive performance work that takes the audience deeply into the emotional and mythic currents within the theme of forests, both local and global. Images and gestures, movement and sound are used to explore these themes in a way that creates an immersive world for audiences to enter and engage with.
DENDRON explores our relationship to the forests around us, in our physical environment and in the stories and images of our cultural environment. DENDRON travels through the woods, guided by both what is known and what is unknown, to conjure the spirit of our forests.
The word ‘dendron’ has its origins in the Greek word for tree, and gives rise to the word ‘dendrite’ which describes the branched extensions to our nerve cells where synapses connect and transport impulses. The community of the forest offers many vivid ways of talking about the connections within our bodies and the connections between bodies. There is a conscious use of forms that are not reliant on words and text to deliver meaning. Having found ways to use both physical exploration and visual arts methods in our work we are interested in the bridging of performance and visual art approaches. There is a conscious use of forms that are not reliant on words and text to deliver meaning.
DENDRON premiered at Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo as part of the program for Regional Centre for Culture 2018
“Amazing! Emotionally very moving. Transformative. Thank you so so much! Thanks from the trees!”
Directed by Kate Stones and Sam Thomas
Produced by John Willis
Music and Sound Design by Eliza Hull and Sam Thomas
Lighting and Set Design by Tim Preston
Costume Design by Aislinn Naughton
First Peoples Welcome by Rebecca Phillips
Musicians: Eliza Hull and James Rigby
Filming by Miles Bennett/Storyland
