DIVINING MELBOURNE

A triptych of lost water sites
Performed with Environmental Performance Authority for 'M47', supported by City of Melbourne, Nov-Dec 2016
Concept/direction/performance by Gretel Taylor, with Peter Fraser, Yoka Jones, Helen Smith & Bronwen Kamasz, with special guest Boonwurrung elder N'arweet Carolyn Briggs
Sound by Merin Trebilcock
 
1.     Submerged                        
Site: Elizabeth Street (Williams Creek forced underground in 1840s, still posing flood risk)
Through embodied water qualities, sound, and quirky cartographic responses, this travelling performance reminded audiences of the landscape beneath, before and through the contemporary metropolis.
 
2.     Blasted Away                    
Site: Queens Bridge (once a waterfall across the Birrarung, which served as low-tide crossing for the Kulin nation and boundary between salt and fresh water)
This performance installation referenced a feature of the pre-contact ecology, which was forcibly removed in the 1890s.
 
3.     Meander                           
Site: Royal Botanic Gardens (a meander of the Birrarung prior to the dramatic realignment of the river’s course)
A guided walk upstream along the Yarra’s original meander, interspersed by performance to activate your mnemonic imaginary.

I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi wurrung and neighbouring Bunurong and Boon wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the unceded lands on which I live, work and dance. I pay deep respect to their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. I extend that respect to Traditional Owners of the many Countries on which I undertake my work and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I pay deep respect to First Nations elders past and present, who have listened to Country and danced, sung and told stories in and about their places for millennia.