SEPTEMBER 13 – OCTOBER 1

MALTHOUSE THEATRE PRESENTS
A SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE AND MALTHOUSE THEATRE CO-COMMISSION


Writing, Direction and Co-Design
Nigel Jamieson
Choreography Garry Stewart
With DJ Garner, Alexandra Harrison, David Mueller, Marnie Palomares,
Brendan Shelper and Paul White
Composition and Sound Design Paul Charlier
Co-Design Nicholas Dare
Lighting Design Damien Cooper
Video Artist Scott Otto Anderson
Costumes Genevieve Dugard
Created in consultation with Terry Hicks

Behind the gates of Guantanamo. Into the world of David Hicks.

A dynamic, passionate and confronting new work, combining theatre, dance and aerial performance.

In your cage there is a bed, no chair and no window. The lights are on 24 hours a day. There are two 15-minute periods a week where you are walked like a dog, shackled between two guards. This has been the life of David Hicks.

"When we allow torture to happen, doesn’t that downgrade us?"
Nigel Jamieson (SMH)

Honour Bound brings together two of Australia’s leading theatre visionaries, director Nigel Jamieson and acclaimed Australian Dance Theatre choreographer Garry Stewart.

Since September 11, Australia’s engagement in the ‘war on terror’ has raised
questions about the balance between the pursuit of our national security and
our human rights. Honour Bound is an intensely passionate and confronting
new work that explores these issues through an extraordinary combination of
dance, film, theatre and aerial performance. It’s a culturally and artistically
ambitious work that focuses on the experiences of Terry Hicks and his son
David – held in Guantanamo Bay for four years without trial. It integrates
Terry’s personal testimony as a father and draws on letters, internal Pentagon
papers and the accounts of former detainees.

Set within an eight-metre square cage, the performance and projections take
place on the walls, ceiling and floor. Hyper-athletic and gravity defying aerial
work from the young performers as they move across the walls, ceiling and
floor of the steel mesh cube, push the limits of integrated live performance to
create an intensely raw physical language.

The production’s title ‘Honour Bound’ is taken from words written above the
gates of Guantanamo Bay, where it has the added epithet ‘to defend freedom’.
A daring and provocative work, Honour Bound, is about some of the most
important issues we face as a society today: law and order, hatred and love,
humanity, and human beings pushed beyond their limits.

Nigel Jamieson has been Artistic Director of some of the world’s most enthralling
large-scale productions creating spectacular moments such as 400 Cambodian
monks chanting in Angkor Wat, the unforgettable Tin Symphony during the
Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the closing ceremony of
the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games. Honour Bound develops and
further extends techniques Jamieson began exploring in such previous
productions as All of Me and Homelands for Legs on the Wall. With this work,
he has sought to develop an intense physical and aerial language, integrating
live performance with projected film and imagery to explore such issues as
family dynamics (All Of Me) and the experience of migrants and refugees,
transposed on to a 100 meter vertical wall (Homelands).

As Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre, Garry Stewart’s choreography
with productions such as Birdbrain, Age of Unbeauty and Held has become
renowned for the intense physicality of its style and exploration of bodies
pushed to their physical and emotional extremities. This makes him the perfect
collaborator for Nigel Jamieson on Honour Bound.

Honour Bound had its world premiere at Sydney Opera House on August 2, 2006 and opens at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne on 15 September.

Melbourne Season

Venue: Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse
Season Details: September 13 – October 1 2006
Previews: Wednesday 13 September & Thursday 14 September 7.30pm
Opening: Friday 15 September 7.30pm
Performance Times: Tuesdays 6.30pm, Wednesday – Saturday 7.30pm,
Sundays 5pm,
Matinees – Thursday 21 September 1pm, Saturday 23 September 2pm
Tickets: $15 - $45 + booking fee

Bookings: Malthouse Box Office 9685 5111/ www.malthousetheatre.com.au

Sydney Season

Venue: The Playhouse
Dates: Previews 28 July – 30 July, 2006
Season 1 August - 3 September, 2006
Times: Tues 6.30pm, Wed – Sat 8pm, Sun 5pm, Also Tues 22 Aug & Wed 30
Aug 12.30pm
Artists Talk: Sunday 6 August (post show)
Tickets: Previews $43, Season $53/$43

Bookings: (02) 9250 7777 www.sydneyoperahouse.com/adventures

MEDIA ENQUIRIES

Peter Bridges
P: 03 9534 0585
M: 0417 390 180
Email:

Pia Johnson, Media Assistant
03 9685 5175
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