Author: Camille Robinson

The Small Things

Current Projects, Dance
Current Projects
The Small Things
The Small Things is a project currently involving myself and dancer/choreographers Caley O’Neill and Gabby Rose which focusses on work which explores the nexus of movement and sound-making performance, and on intimacy as an integral part of performer/viewer experience.
We’re currently working on the show ‘2’, which is about dialogue, between people, between performers and audiences, between media.

The Small Things is a project currently involving myself and dancer/choreographers Caley O’Neill and Gabby Rose which focusses on work which explores the nexus of movement and sound-making performance, and on intimacy as an integral part of performer/viewer experience.

We’re currently working on the show ‘2’, which is about dialogue, between people, between performers and audiences, between media.

The following text is from a draft proposal for the ‘2’ project.

The Small Things Collective is a group of artists interested in exploring the areas between existing art and performance disciplines. We are currently focusing on the relationship between sound and movement and the often unnoticed points at which one form takes on properties of the other, where dance becomes sound-making, where musical performance becomes kinetic. Themes we often work from are: the intricate, the delicate, the intimate, the unseen, the habitual, and perceived patterns in human behavior and the world at large. We are committed to the idea of creating unique audience experiences, and in the works we have collaborated on in the past we have done this by constructing immersive environments, shaping performance and space with a sculptural eye.

2 (working title)

In this production we are exploring the spaces between sound and the performing body, between performer and viewer. It will take the form of a duet between dancer and musician, exploiting both bodies as sound sources, kinetic entities, and sculptural objects. The performances will be intimate and audience numbers will be constrained to less than a dozen at a time to encourage direct engagement between each viewer, the performers and the space/environment.

The Collective Collective

Current Projects, Music
Current Projects
The Collective Collective
The Collective Collective serves as a banner name for music which either focusses on ideas of improvisation and/or experimentation. Members have so far included myself, and composer/improvisor/performers Sean Mears and Luke Paulding.

The Collective Collective serves as a banner name for performance which either focusses on ideas of improvisation and/or experimentation with music/sound as a starting point. Members have so far included myself, and composer/improvisor/performers Sean Mears and Luke Paulding.

Fat Lip as played by the Victorian Police Band

Audio, Past Projects

This last Friday as part of our final assessment for our arranging subject at VCAM we had some big band charts played by the Victorian Police Band. This is my pseudo-concession to commercial band writing, filtered through a recent nostalgia for Thelonius Monk and Charles Mingus. Conducted by Daryl McKenzie.

FAT LIP

It’s amazing what the acoustics of a particular room can do to mutate the natural sound of instruments, aside from the obvious distortion resulting from my little recording device being too close to a very loud band you’ll notice that the trumpets seem to get swallowed up in the background, the opposite of what one would expect, consistently overpowered even by the saxes. So in short, the acoustic of the room where this was recorded was weird in the extreme.

Silent Places/Parallel Landscapes

Dance, Past Projects

This show was my second collaboration with Caley O’Neill, and the first of two inspired by the writing of Norwegian novelist and poet Tarjei Vesaas. This piece takes hold of the unique landscapes described in Vesaas’ poetry and abstracts them into vast imaginary spaces. This piece was performed by Alex O’Neill-King and Susan van den Ham in the middle of 2008. The sound drifts between textural sound design and Scandinavian pop inspired electronica.

“…and there where the bottom is clear to the traveller
And shimmers with yellow sand and shoals,
Where the tiny, jewel-like islands
Number thousands, this little lake is almost lost among them –
May all you are be in this,
feel, while still there’s time:
The swelling flow, the current
Lying in the water like waving hair,
and washing out to sea.”
T. Vesaas

“…and there where the bottom is clear to the traveller

And shimmers with yellow sand and shoals,

Where the tiny, jewel-like islands

Number thousands, this little lake is almost lost among them –

May all you are be in this,

feel, while still there’s time:

The swelling flow, the current

Lying in the water like waving hair,

and washing out to sea.”

T. Vesaas

Order & Resonance, Friday November 6

Current Projects, Events

A concert/exhibition/installation of new works by 3rd year composition students of the VCAM School of Music. Featuring new works exploring space and the intersection of technology and performer by composers Dean Gourley and Evan Lawson, Sean Mears, Luke Paulding, and Camille Robinson. There will also be an exhibition of scores and recordings by the composers.

The show will be held at Chrysalis print gallery in East Melbourne on the evening of Friday the 6th of November.