Keep Everything 2012
Keep Everything was a genre-defying fusion of dance and performance from one of Australia’s most innovative choreographers, Antony Hamilton. Joining forces with ARIA award-winning musicians Kim Moyes and Julian Hamilton, Keep Everything spliced choreography, electronica, spoken text and improvised movement to trace human evolution from primates to robots and back again. Keep Everything was a scrapbook for the stage – a collection of things that don’t fit. Via a series of divergent offerings, it presented a glimpse into the human psyche, ultimately offering a broader understanding of the individual. It championed the absurd and sometimes vulgar nature of the spontaneous by understanding that, sometimes, it’s important to keep everything.
Keep Everything was part of Next Move, a Chunky Move initiative presenting performances created by the next generation of Australian dance makers.
Creative Team
Direction & Choreography Antony Hamilton
Lighting Design Benjamin Cisterne
Sound Design Julian Hamilton & Kim Moyes
AV Design Robin Fox
System Design Nick Roux
Costume Design Consultant Paula Levis
Original Performers Benjamin Hancock, Lauren Langlois, Alisdair Macindoe
Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek
Executive Producer Catherine Jones
Business and Program Manager Hillary Coyne
Production Manager Michael Carr
Stage Manager Blair Hart
Sound Operation Nick Roux
Costume Construction Naomi van Dyck
World Premiere
14 June 2012 Melbourne
Touring Season
2014 Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Hobart
Awards
2012 Green Room Award For Best Female Dancer For Lauren Langlois
2012 Green Room Award For Best Design For Benjamin Cisterne (Lighting)
2012 Green Room Award For Best Design For Robin Fox (Audio Visual)
2012 Betty Pounder Award for Choregroaphy For Antony Hamilton
A note from Antony Hamilton
The development of Keep Everything began with the premise that from a single point of departure, an endless array of events can unfold when the subconscious is given permission to lead. With this in mind, I used remnants of creative material from the cutting room floor of previous works as starting points. I was interested in attempting to keep everything created and edit nothing. I was also interested in avoiding contextual analysis of the content as it unfolded, consciously attempting to avoid organising events into a logical and well crafted dramaturgical narrative. What emerged was a realisation that I could not avoid this organising, crafting and contextualising of ideas alongside each other. A larger issue however, emerged from this creative problem – the realisation that as a species we apply this same rule to everything.
We organise. We devise elaborate ways to understand our surroundings, and we can only contextualise events based on past experience and what we already know. We believe we are on the one and only path, and we believe that path is the right one. This has arguably imprisoned us in a concept of our universe that is ultimately fixed and unchangeable. I wondered whether the human invention of recording history through storytelling, art, myth and symbolism was the catalyst for our concept of linear time, defined by past, present, future and an unchangeable universe.
What I found so unsettling about this was that perhaps ideas such as forward, up and tomorrow are not necessarily positive in and of themselves. With the weight of history on our shoulders, will we ever be able to truly find contentment in the present? These questions have become the main drivers of the work’s narrative.
“Rejected ideas find brilliant second life ... an exhilarating and hilarious work.” The Guardian.
L-R: Lauren Langlois, Alisdair Macindoe, Benjamin Hancock Image: Jeff Busby
