Melbourne City Baths | Barking Spider

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In 2014, Bathing Beauties premiered first as a site-specific theatre work at Melbourne City Baths, and then as a radio play for ABC Radio National in July.

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Through the lens of competitive swimming and including synchronised swimming as part of the choreography Bathing Beauties is a meditation on the ageing process, with a critical eye on what women are “expected” to look like and be as they age.
This work digs into the heart of the aesthetics and experience of ageing, of grace, and the meaning of true beauty.

The work is based on both fact and fiction: the playwright, Penelope Bartlau interviewed swimmers, and researched sports psychology and women’s experience in professional sport.

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“The pool at the gorgeous Melbourne City Baths is old enough to still be measured in feet. We sat wearing headphones in the gallery above the pool and listened to stories about women who swim – the pressure, body shape issues, pain, joy, competition and freedom – while watching women who fit their own images swim: synchronised, racing and pleasure. Place, theme and story merged beautifully and it felt like the stories belonged to the space”

Anne Marie Peard: Sometimes Melbourne

CREDITS:
Lead Artists:
Writer/Director: Penelope Bartlau
Composition and Sound Design: Darius Kedros
Production Design: Emily Barrie
Lighting Design: Bronwyn Pringle

Performers:
Leah Scholes
Caroline Bock
Caitlyn Barclay
Anna Lowendahl
Heidi Wetherald

Extras:
Kristina Verhagen
Hayley Toth
Bronwyn Davison

Voice Overs:
Georgina Naidu
Petra Kalive
Marie Louise Walker
Penelope Bartlau

Production Assistants:
Jason Lehane
Chris Buzzard
Zsu Zsa Mihaly Gaynor

Bathing Beauties was first produced by Metanoia Theatre as a part of the 24 Hour Experience, Melbourne 2014 with Gorkem Acaroglu – Executive creative director and Raimondo Cortese as script editor