Choreography by Merce Cunningham
Arranged and staged by Melissa Toogood
Music by Cameron Deyell

Set and Vision Designer: Alice Huxtable, after the original design by Marsha Skinner
Costumes: Tim Rutty, after the original design by Marsha Skinner
Lighting: Viv Hargreaves, after the original design by Marsha Skinner

Ocean (1994) by Merce Cunningham © Merce Cunningham Trust.
All rights reserved.

"This year’s interdisciplinary project is a rearrangement of material from Merce Cunningham’s Ocean (1994), a work he conceived with John Cage, although Cage died before it could be produced. Celebrating 30 years since its premier at the Cirque Royal in Brussels, the Cunningham Trust, through dancer Melissa Toogood, has given permission for us to work with elements of the work and to respond to its teeming offers. A two-part programme sees the dancers perform an arrangement of the original choreography directed by Toogood and their response to its teeming offers, conceptually and choreographically, through a group devising process.

The title Ocean comes from the suggestion by Joseph Campbell that the next work James Joyce would have written (after Finnegan’s Wake) would be about water and the ocean. Cage’s idea was that the dance be presented in the center of a circular space with the audience surrounding the dancers and both audience and performers submerged in sound. The ocean is thus a potent symbol for redefining audience relationship to the theatre. For this iteration, we invite you to engage with the signature moves and compositional processes of Cunningham’s choreographic oeuvre and experience the student’s response to the dance. In 2006 I had the honor of working with Dance Umbrella on a response to Ocean at London’s Roundhouse with young artists from North London, I am thrilled to see how VCA Dance, Design and Production students embody this work for the first time within an Australian context."

- Carol Brown, Head of VCA Dance

CREATIVE & PRODUCTION TEAM

Stager and Choreographic Advisor: Melissa Toogood

Set and Vision Designer: Alice Huxtable

Composer & Musician: Cameron Deyell

Costume Designer: Timothy Rutty**

Rehearsal Director: Nicole Corea

Lighting Designer: Viv Hargreaves

Assistant Costume Designer: Seah Lok

Stage Manager: Phi Phi Nguyen

Assistant Stage Manager: Poppy Gordon

Workshop Head of Department (Staging): Lokan Woerz

Costume Manager: Sarah Browne

Costume Assistant: Jamie Garcia

Head Electrician: Georgie Donnelly

Lighting Programmer and Operator: Alex White

Deputy Electrician: Madelaine Garwood

Workshop Head of Department (Scenic): Nellie Summerfield

Workshop Assistant: Ryder Blizzard

Senior Costumier: Ella Barrett*

Workshop Assistants: Lachlan Jones, Ivy Miller, Rory Willingham

Costume Assistants: Mia Gionfriddo, Alex van Der Bergan

Workshop Head of Department (Props): Nigel Chua

CAST

Madeline Belli, Alyse Canton, Yinuo Chen, Tash Dotti, Indiana Gordon, Stephanie Kewley, Anastassia Krstevska, Jaden Lal, Elliana Martelli, Toby McKnight, Kamryn Mcrae, Tessa O'Toole, Ebony Olsen, Wen Chen Ong , Bei Preston Taylor, Opal Russell, Rena Sangawa, Lily Turner, Emily Yamashita, Melody Zhang