Facade is a dance theatre work, originally created by Chrissie Parrott AO, at the Moores Building for the 1986 Perth Fringe Festival. In September, this unique work is re-imagined, re-scored and re-scaled in a return season and embedded as a precious jewel that sits inside a striking visual masterpiece conjured up from Chrissie’s Parrott’s landscape of imagination.
Facade
The Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery, Fremantle 12-20 September 2021
‘Brutal Baroque’ – Exhibition of portraits by Chrissie Parrott – 10-20 September 2021
Featuring six virtuosic dancers: Stefan Karlsson who performed in the original Moores season; Claudia Alessi, David Mack, Nicola Wade, Ava Hart and Talitha Maslin. Along with performer extraordinaire, Opera singer and comic Paul Rowe; extraordinary actor Bruce Denny and live musician, theorbist, Matt Jones. Facade invites the audience into this imaginary world filled with dance, puppetry and comedy as seen through the kaleidoscopic lens of this internationally acclaimed choreographer.
“The restaging of this work is timely and deeply relevant in contributing to questions about colonial histories, the prevalence of visual culture and the place of the body in society. Chrissie’s unapologetic risk-taking results in visceral visual poetry that sparks rigorous conversation and keenly embodied experiences for audiences. Restaging this work at this time will enable a new audience to be impacted by a lineage of dance theatre that pitches audacious vaudeville scoring with satire, and humanness with the more-than-human,“ said Dr Jo Pollitt, artist, dance scholar, and postdoctoral research fellow, ECU, she has documented Chrissie’s work for the last 10 years.
A five by eight metre Baroque style “proscenium arch” created by Chrissie, clad with up cycled and found objects d’art including 1000 decorated pointe shoes, will fill the downstairs gallery and become the stage that showcases a series of outrageous short, snappy, vignettes.
An exhibition of 15 portraits created by Chrissie Parrott, celebrating performers who have worked closely with her, will adorn the downstairs gallery walls. The installations, costumes and artworks combine to create a “Brutal Baroque” aesthetic perfectly suited to this historic building.
The audience will be coaxed to take a journey and discover one more unique feature of Facade, the Simulacra Lounge upstairs in Gallery 6. Renowned artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman has created a laboratory filled with curiosities including automata, figurative artworks, and a collection of vintage technological objects. An extraordinary installation where human dancers perform and interact with a robotic ballerina.
This is the culmination of a decade-long association between Chrissie and Geoffrey and their first opportunity to showcase the crossover between their arts practices. Other collaborators working on Facade include artist and designer Deborah McKendrick, artist Chris Edmund, renowned set builder Janet Carter and milliner Susi Rigg.
Chrissie Parrott AO is a creative artist who works across the disciplines of dance theatre, digital art and decorative design in a career spanning four decades, (see biography). Chrissie is a 2021 recipient of an Order of Australia. Facebook: www.facebook.com/chrissie.parrott3
Opening of ‘Brutal Baroque’ – an exhibition of portraits by chrissie Parrott
Date: Friday 10 September, 6pm, Free event – bookings essential at trybooking.com
Exhibition Continues daily to Monday 20 September, 10 am to 4pm
Facade performance season
Dates: Preview Sunday 12 September, Season continues 13- 20 September (no show Saturday 18 September), Exhibition open at the performance
Time: Doors Open 7pm, Show 7.30pm – Cost: $40-$55 plus booking fee
Tickets: www.trybooking.com/BTGEY
Venue: The Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery 46 Henry Street Fremantle