The award-winning contemporary theatre provocateurs, The Danger Ensemble have arrived at Theatre Works and begin previews tomorrow night. Meet the Team in our latest blog post below get in quick for this strictly limited season.
What is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen at a wedding?
Polly: Me in a pink swishy prom-like dress in diamanté heels and a curly updo and waaaaaay too much makeup.
George: I once went to a crystal-themed wedding, with a crystal chandelier, a wall of crystal behind the bridal table and an invitation which had to be shipped in a box because of the enormous crystal on the cover.
CB: Two people feeling they need to declare their love before some imaginary higher power. Too brutal?
Peta: Surprise flash mob - from all the guests at a 400 person wedding on a beach.
Ben: Probably myself late in the night.
A line in the show with no context?
I was waiting here for you, like you said, and I just felt so alone. So I danced.
I can’t hear you over this ballroom dancehall disco nightclub rave mosh pit bush doof festival thing.
Trying to keep the monsters under the bed.
The woman's name was Memory.
The pavlova!
Prodding my glottis.
If your life were a time-lapse, what image would appear most frequently?
Deborah: A grand piano descending slowly from a high roof into the centre of an empty large space.
Eidann: Me searching for my lost lip balm.
SMW: It's not very poetic but it's probably me sitting at my laptop or with my face against the wall in the shower.
George: Me, staring at a wall of index cards, willing a show to come together.
CB: Steven and I in rehearsal rooms; sometimes with others while creating and rehearsing, other times in the midst of dramaturgical discussions and writing sessions.
What draws you to working with the danger ensemble?
Steven Mitchell Wright: I love working with and only want to work with people who are committed to exploration and pushing the edges of what theatre is and isn't. I believe Theatre should be an ever evolving/shifting form not a literary monolith and the people we work with more often than not share that philosophy. It's those people.
CB: I could go on for ages.
I've worked with Steven for many (many) years (don't tell Steven I added a many). We've worked together in a few different contexts and The Danger Ensemble is the main context. And we've been doing that for over a decade.
There are numerous things that keep me enthralled by and excited about working with Steven and the company. To name a few:
We rarely walk into a room with just a script. The material is drawn from so many different sources, including various texts - plays, novels, poems, from images drawn from visual art, photography, fashion, from songs as both a form of text and a kind of energy. We start with stimulus material. Some stays, some falls away. And the company adds to that. There is a sense of contribution and ownership over the material that I've never felt outside of this company.
The process serves the material. I've been involved in so many processes outside of my work with Steven and The Danger Ensemble that tread the same path over and over again. The same approaches. The same methods. The same habits. This doesn't make sense to me. It's dull, it's boring, it's death. With The Danger Ensemble, the sources and inspirations for each work are disparate and varied. Sometimes they stand in agreement, sometimes it's a fight to the death. And each process, each investigation and each method for creating a show from this has been vastly different. This makes sense. It's vital and alive. And never boring.
Training is the cornerstone of the methodology. A commitment to exploring what it is to be a performer, to stand with an audience and share a big idea. Here and now.
We work with artists who are restless and curious, who want to ask big questions, who want to reach the sublime and risk the ridiculous. Not those who are looking for the next big break in their career. The company of these restless, curious souls is a big part of what keeps me around.
Deborah Leiser-Moore: The work is brave. And attached to a training sensibility which feeds the work. This, for me, is important. Ok – so some things don’t work – but I’d rather be in a theatre space with a work/company/people who a willing to embrace theatricality than those who make easy theatre, or who follow trends. That’s exciting. When I think back on the work that, over the years, remain with me, in my dreams, they are all physically arresting, and push their theatricality. These works are exciting and move me emotionally. Danger Ensemble follows this theatre making path.
Polly Sara: The process of devising and collaborating is one that uniquely comes from the makers in space. More than fulfilling the demands of a script, we start from scratch. Use the training methodologies as the blueprint for the creation work that will follow. We develop a language and physicality that is unique to us. We unravel together.
Much like romance, there is great risk- will this be something extraordinary? Will it move us, transform us, turn us on, repulse us? Will it transport us to something greater than bodies in space?? Or will we simply crash and burn like some beautiful affairs do? You don’t know unless you try, with everything you have, put your whole self on the line and take a risk. And you find out in front of an audience.
Eidann Glover: There are so so many things that draw me to work with this company; the work ethic, the training, the devising philosophy, and especially the people. I'm truly honoured to be working with this bunch of truly brilliant and beautiful creatives, it's a truly special space and despite a lot of heavy material, there is always so much play and fun to be had in the room.
Ben Hughes: That we are always exploring and investigating... it's never boring!
Peta Coy: The creation process, training practice and rigour as an ensemble . Their commitment to constantly pushing the boundaries of what theatre can be.
George Lazaris: The Danger Ensemble build new theatre experiences which feel visceral and real, affecting audiences and moving away from simply text to create experiential worlds. I chose to complete my Associate Artist Secondment with The Danger Ensemble because I want the experience and understanding of how work like this is created, so I can start to integrate this methodology into my own way of working.
