David and Jacob will perform at The Little Con, a night of improvised dance, at Cecil St Studio on Sunday 12th February. They will be performing a 30 minute work focussing on overlapping duets with Joey Lehrer and Paul Romano. Also performing in other works on the night will be Ann-maree Ellis, Dianne Reid and Anne O’Keeffe.
The Little Con is on the second Sunday of the month at 6.30pm at Cecil Street Studio, 66 Cecil Street, Fitzroy.
David and Jacob applied for a residency through the new Culture Lab creative development initiative at the end of 2005. They were successful in their application and will be using the residency to continue their working practise and begin forming ideas for a new work.
The first week of the residency is from Jan 9 – 15, 2006. This week will be used for reconnecting with material and forms from their previous work Excavate, as well as continuing their training regime.
The second week of the residency is from Feb 20 – 26, 2006. During this week there will be a daily showing (except Sun) at 5.30pm, 7 Blackwood St, Nth Melb.
Supported by Arts House developed in the Culture LAB
During second semester 2005, Jacob and David worked with the first year dance students to create their end of year piece.
The result was called we’re not responsible.
The project began with five words; feed, magic, rules, creature, net. As the work developed these words dissolved and the discussions turned to responsibility, the ability to respond. In the context of Performance Workshop (the name of the subject), this evolved into an awareness of personal responsibility, responsibility to the group and responsibility to the audience.
In teaching a subject that is directed towards the development of performance ability, we challenged the students to raise their level of focus and attention to the act of performing. We set tasks to allow the students to generate their own choreography and then shaped it as was our want.
We had the stage manager and a live dj on stage.
All the students performed very professionally and the work was well received.
Images and footage to come.
Excavate was originally developed through a residency at the Australian Choreographic Centre in Canberra, August 2005.
You can view the blog from this period at http://www.slightly.net/excavate/. It contains information about the development process and theories informing the work as well as still and moving images created during the residency.
We performed with Invention in Time, Ariel Valent and Kate Adam, at The Boite World Music Cafe. They played two sets with five songs in each and we danced to two in the first and three in the second. Louis Porter projected photos during the night. The audience was warm and the night was well received.
David and Jacob have both been heavily involved in the work of Y Space and Jillian Pearce (who founded and directs the company).
Space and Place was performed on the side of the wheat silos in Natimuk and featured aerial performers interacting with live computer animations (throw in a choir, the local kids doing shadow puppets, a band, a found object sculpture and some extreme weather for the full picture). As aerial performers David and Jacob were responsible for generating material and leading rehearsal sessions.
photo by David Fletcher
At the end of 2002 David and Jacob formed The Boys. The first performances were at Conundrum in 2003 followed by a show at Dancehouse and then a 6 night season as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. This season was produced by David and Jacob with the assistance of Ranters Theatre.
The concept for The Boys was simple – get as many men to dance together as possible. It’s a rare thing to see large male ensembles in contemporary dance – in fact in any performance arena (apart from team sports). The Boys is an ongoing project and they have performed in a number of different settings.
Members of The Boys:
Josef Lehrer, Telford Scully, Colin Sneesby, Martin Hughes, Paul Roberts, Paul Dumais, Shaun McLeod, Ashley Macqueen, Tom Andrews, Andrew Grey, Michael Hurwood, Justin Holland, Andrew Morrish, Paul Romano, Ilan Abrahams, Richard Lawton, Christo Everingham, Philipe Defwa, David Corbet, Jacob Lehrer
(and on the bench, Simon Ellis – yet to make an appearance)
+ 
+ 
+ 
Photos from Video Footage by Dianne Reid
In 2002 David and Jacob were employed by Legs on the Wall to be a part of the celebrations for the opening of The Esplanade in Singapore. Under the direction of Brendan Shelper they performed in a short choreographed physical theatre piece (with French Canadian company Théâtre de la Dame de Coeur providing puppetry and video projection) as well as in the spectacular finale on the side of the Maybank building – a 500ft skyscraper.
+ 
Photos by Roger Graham
That’s David on the right in the first image – and a slightly closer view in the second image. Jacob was at the other end of the rope, belaying David during the performance which required three full runs down the side of the building.
Will be was presented in a season at Dancehouse alongside a work by Dean Linguey, Ben Rogan and Julia West called Near. This work was performed during January 2000. It was the first piece Jacob and David made together – they also designed and made the costumes, created the sound score which included live music and worked with Nic Pajanti as the lighting designer.
It is a 30 minute piece.
Choose your format (video will open in new window):
Both files are around 6MB and are a short excerpt from Will Be.
Jacob and David have been a integral part of a regular improvised performance event called Conundrum. It is a showcase for improvised dance, theatre and physical performance that occurs on the last Sunday of the month (except during December and January).
Conundrum was established in 1996 by two Melbourne based groups State of Flux and Five Square Metres. Currently State of Flux consists of Martin Hughes, Wendy Smith, Janice Florence, Jacob Lehrer and David Corbet – founding member Llewellyn Wishart left the group in 1997. Five Square Metres currently consists of Michael Hurwood, Andrew Grey and Clare Bartholomew – previous member Sandra Pascuzzi now lives in Canada and founding member Jarrod Benson left the group in 1997.
Conundrum will have it’s 10th birthday in May 2006.