Seeing Red
Seeing Red is a new work by choreographer and performer Ashley Dougan. Part rumination on the psychology and physical manifestation of anger, this is a study of the perception of movement in a radial arrangement. In it, the dancers seek to navigate a world being torn apart, set to a soundscape created by composers Rachel Lewindon and Samuel Kreusler.
Seeking to represent this with his post-modern dance training, Dougan will draw on chance procedures and text-based improvisational scores to attempt to answer the question; why are we so angry? And how can we harness this?
Choreography: Ashley Dougan
Performance: Ashley Dougan, Momoko Nanri, Emily Shoesmith, Millie Excell, Jesse Clune, Gabriel Holton, Millie Whiting
Composition: Rachel Lewindon, Samuel Kreusler
Ashley Dougan is a dancer and choreographer based in Melbourne, Australia. Having completed his BFA (Dance) at the Victorian College of the Arts, and undertaking supplemental study at the CND in Paris, he is now focusing on his personal body of work. With a strong classical and contemporary background, and experience in physical theatre and aerial choreography, he has worked with choreographers such as Kate Denborough, Stuart Shugg and Nat Cursio. Ashley has performed at Darwin Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival and Sydney Festival and has been involved with shows in both Melbourne Fringe and The Sydney Fringe. He has also worked with Tracks Dance Company, Stalker Theatre, Opera Australia, and recently choreographed and performed in Forest Collective’s ballet-opera, Orpheus (2019). Amongst this, he maintains a keen interest in youth dance, movement invention, and dance on film.
Rachel Lewindon is an emerging composer, pianist, sound designer and musical director based in Melbourne, Australia. She graduated from the VCA with a Bachelor (Hon) in Interactive Composition. Her work focuses on the relationship between sound and movement; having worked with many devised theatre projects, dance, and film. Her sound has developed from her classical background with contemporary influences of voice and electronic synthesis. Her work, Orlando, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel, was an amalgamation of voice, piano and electronic synthesis as part of her Honours thesis. She was the grateful recipient of the Marion Thomas Award for Excellence in 2018 for her work, Superhuman – The Quest for the Ubermensch, an absurdist theatrical interpretation of Freidrich Nietzsche’s Three Metamorphoses. Her work has been premiered at Melbourne Fringe Festival, Melbourne Cabaret Festival, Hollywood International Moving Pictures Festival, Mudfest and more. Her upcoming work will be featured in Times of our Lives presented for the First Commissions Project with the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, Finucane and Smith’s The Rapture – Art Vs Extinction, a remount of the acclaimed 2018 cabaret Death of A Demi Diva and the production Blackrock with EbbFlow Theatre.