TRIPTYCH

Phillip Adams

Date: 15-18 March, 7.30pm
Location: Temperance Hall, 199 Napier St South Melbourne
Fri 17 March: Auslan Interpreted, post-show Q&A with Phillip Adams facilitated by Hamish McIntosh

For FRAME: a biennial of dance, Temperance Hall and Phillip Adams BalletLab present Triptych, a divine intervention of queer crucifixions inspired by Francis Bacon’s triptych paintings (1944–1986). Choreographer Phillip Adams draws parallels with Bacon’s use of life and death, beauty and violence, civilisation and barbarism.

Triptych is a subversive response to Bacon’s crucifixions, through choreography, film, and installation. The material and formal elements of the work draw from Bacon’s modernist depictions of psychosexual domestic bodies that can be read as masculinist, queer, libidinal, violent, performative, grotesque or ambiguous. Dancers enact duets of maniacal visceral tremoring that evoke the spectacle of horror – a distinguishing feature of Bacon’s oeuvre. Amidst a sphincter-sex-sling installation, performers portray Bacon’s theatrical and surreal imaginariums of the crucifixion in a Disney-esque, ballet parody of penetrations.

Amplifying homosexuality and the queer acts within contemporary dance, Triptych explores queer expression throughout art history as a reliable signifier of the ever-changing avant-garde.

Choreography and Artistic Director: Phillip Adams
Performers: Harrison Hall, Samuel Harnett-Welk, Benjamin Hurley, Oliver Savariego, Alexandra Dobson
Set Design: Paul Yore and Devon Ackerman
Costume Design: Toni Maticevski
Composers: David Chisholm, Duane Morrison
Videography: James Wright
Production Manager: Jordi Edwards
Producer: Anna McDermott
Executive Producer: William McBride

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Phillip Adams is the artistic director of BalletLab and Temperance Hall. Throughout his 25-year career in dance and performance, Phillip has made a vital contribution to the richness of Australian performing arts. Phillip’s works offer a crucial point of difference — an alternative modality of fearless choreographic practice and risk-taking approaches to creation and presentation. Extending the parameters of dance and visual arts, Phillip draws on cross-disciplinary collaborations with music, design, fashion, architecture, cinema, and photography, and engages with unorthodox, queer and popular culture. Phillip’s work has been presented nationally and internationally, at leading festivals, venues, and museums.

Find out more about Triptych here.

ACCESS AND SAFETY

Please do not attend Temperance Hall if you are feeling unwell or have tested positive to COVID-19.
Bathrooms are for all-genders and wheelchair accessible. Temperance Hall's Upstairs Studio is only accessible via a stairwell.

If you have any specific accessibility needs or any queries regarding the event, please contact Temperance Hall Program Producer, Anna McDermott program@temperancehall.com.au

Image: 3 Deep with Georges Antoni

Temperance Hall acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land in which we dance and create, the Bunurong Boon Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation, and pay our respect to Elders both past and present and, through them, to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.