Flesh And Bone
March 2013
For the first time in a decade KAGE co-founders Kate Denborough and Gerard Van Dyck have returned to the stage for a performance that both explores and blurs traditional gender roles.
Revisiting some of the pair’s earliest ideas and focusing on the power of illusion, Denborough says Flesh And Bone is also very much a celebration of her 20-year-long creative partnership with Van Dyck. A visually stunning performance and a real feast for the eyes, the new work also sees the duo collaborating with Melbourne fashion designer Lisa Gorman, lighting designer Paul Jackson and feminist writer Clementine Ford.
“Gerard and I haven’t performed together for about 10 years so, for us, Flesh And Bone is about going back to our roots and remembering why we started this company in the first place,” Denborough says. “We’re going back to our roots. We also relate to this issue of gender equality because our own partnership revolves around male and female issues in a physical sense. We’ve got young children and so we’re looking into gender in terms of perception, too – we’re focusing on the code of conduct of little girls and little boys and what’s enforced on them at a young age. There is a lot of intimacy and closeness in the performance and there’s also a focus on the carnal, animal need for connection and closeness. Also, Gerard and I are similar height and weight so we’re able to easily switch and revolve the prosthetic make-up and the costumes, which is kind of humorous as well.”
Although Denborough claims she has missed the physical performance aspect of theatre over the past 10 years, the award-winning creative director and co-founder of KAGE says time away has given her a fresh perspective on the discipline.
“I think just directing and not performing has changed my view on certain things. I haven’t had the desire to perform until now so that’s given me a fresh perspective on things. That time away has given me a bit more freedom to experiment and to create a work of risk, which is exactly how this feels because Gerard and I haven’t performed together in a long time. It’s been much more enjoyable than I thought it would be, so I’ve loved it and I’ve been really excited about getting back into the training. It’s been invigorating to go back to how we started and have that attitude of not caring about money and time – just being in the studio and creating our vision. It’s really been a trip back in time.”
Working with Clementine Ford and a range of students in a process Denborough describes as “reverse mentoring” has been a highlight, too, as it helped investigate the contemporary realities of gender roles in today’s society.
“We really wanted to find out how things have changed, or if indeed they have changed,” Denborough says. “What does it mean to be male or female in 2012? In what ways are we freer or more constrained? We worked with these young people and Clementine for about four months. They would come into our rehearsal space to watch the show and to think about issues of gender and identity. It was a very different way of working for us because these young people had no background in the arts but they came along to give us feedback anyway.
They were all in their 20s and we are in our 30s, so it was very interesting to see how the different age groups have different perspectives on specific issues. We decided that the most fitting name for it was ‘reverse mentoring’. We just feel like we’ve got a new lease on life, we’ve got lots of big ideas for KAGE, we’re feeling very energised at the moment and it’s good for myself and Gerard to be back on stage. It’s nice to shake off the cobwebs, to be out there in the thick of it, to feel the sweat again.”
Flesh And Bone shows until March 24 at fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane. This performance is presented as part of the 2013 L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival Cultural Program.
kage.com.au/project/flesh-and-bone
fortyfivedownstairs.com
lmff.com.au
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