Dispatch Artistic Rationale
In January 2007, I had the priviilege of touring the first show of this trilogy “Hatch” to India. One night, out at dinner, I met a man, who told me the three tenets of Hindu philosophy, one of which is “From nothingness we come. By nothingness we are sustained. To nothingness we return”. This became the premise for “Dispatch”.
Working at VCA in 2006 with Philippe Genty & Mary Underwood on “Landscapes Within”, we were pushed to look at our dreams, nightmares and memories as sources for our work. Carrying this idea forward in the development of “Dispatch”, I looked at my early childhood experiences – my flirtations with death through illness, and a near-drowning. I observed how these experiences have shaped my thinking and philosophy, and always my dreams.
Also, I grew up in a small country town and when I was eight my parents bought a real-estate agency there. Part of their job was to deal with deceased estates. As a child, I went with my mother to the houses of the old people – often town personalities – who had died, and we would have to sort through their belongings: it was a study in detritus, and a tracing and unpacking of each life. I have had a long-time fascination with death (and life) and how we think about it. What do we cling to, and why. It is what makes us most vulnerable. In “Dispatch”, each suitcase is a little trace of a life: the objects within each suitcase are symbols of the love, the hate, the need or the desire that was impossible for the owner to let go of.
“Dispatch” is a challenging work that brings together puppetry with new technologies via the use of Isadora software. Heavily-text based narrative puppetry is very unfashionable in both local and international puppet circles at present, yet narrative in cross-artform work continues to attract growing audiences. We wish to present puppet-based work that does not rely merely on spectacle to attract its audience.
The underlying subject matter of death and “letting go” touches most people, yet is little explored or expressed in theatre and especially to younger audiences. By using magic realism and clear metaphor through non-traditional puppetry, the opportunity exists to move audiences, to explore what many find a difficult subject to accept. “Dispatch” becomes a sad story with a happy ending that can appeal while still confronting audiences.
The creative team comprise of a mix of talents ranging from dramaturg, Gilly McInnes, one of the strongest narrative voices in Australian puppetry to designer, Tim Denton, a trans-Tasman artist who understands and integrates the essences of puppet theatre design and performance.
This project further reinforces the Barking Spider philosophy of building a team of artists that incorporates those with many years of international experience with emerging artists, like recent sound designer VCA alumnus, Ange Grant, talented AV designer Ed Dowling and emerging puppeteer, Justine Warner. The work was first developed as part of Artistic Director, Penelope Bartlau’s Masters in Puppetry at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2007 and was performed as part of her Masters presentation in September 2007. Whilst this showing was appropriate for an academic course, it was not a finished work, as such. Penelope has brought her intellectual property in the show to Barking Spider Visual Theatre to further her investigations into “Dispatch”.
