Demake/demaster
Choreography and performance: Sarah Aiken
Video: Sarah Aiken
Sound Design: Alice Humpries
Lighting Design: Lucy Birkenshaw
Curators: Sofie Burgoyne and Timothy Green with assistance from Ashleigh White.
Commissioned by STRUT and TURA for SITU8 City this short work responded to the abandoned Liberty Cinema in Perths CBD
An assemblage of body and cinema pairing human and superhuman, effect and special effect, past and present, living and non-living - developing patterns of unintentional coordination and multispecies, multitemporal, multibody collaboration.
Demake/demaster is a choreography which collages live movement and found footage from cinema history, finding unlikely connections to form new bodies and patchworking together complex and multi-form choreographies that are surprising, banal, absurd or disquieting.
Merging the corporal, contemporary body with visual history of cinema, the piece considers the influences that our bodies absorb and hold, and the chimeras we become as we interact with, embody and subconsciously imitate physicalities through cinema.
“One standout piece is by Melbourne choreographer Sarah Aiken, who worked with independent composer Alice Humphries to create Demake/Demaster. It’s a solo performance that pairs a mélange of Aiken’s astutely chosen Hollywood film imagery projections with her beautiful movements in real time.
Aiken’s gestures weave seamlessly in and around her filmed imagery, which is shown on two small screens on the stage. As she moves, the piece raises questions around screen icon worship and our desires to connect with and ultimately embody our superhuman, celebrity heroes. It’s a clever, thought-provoking work that is meticulously delivered.”
