I Hide In Bathrooms Show Program
I Hide In Bathrooms Show Program content
Theatre | World Premiere
I Hide in Bathrooms
Astrid Pill and Collaborators
Dates: 5 - 16 Mar 2024
Venue: Vitalstatistix, Waterside Workers Hall, 11 Nile Street, Yartapuulti, Port Adelaide
Duration: 1hr 10mins, no interval
Warnings: Contains depictions of death and dying, and sexual references. Utilises theatrical haze. Recommended for audiences 15+
The development of I Hide in Bathrooms has been supported by Arts South Australia, Brink Productions and Vitalstatistix. Its premiere season is presented by Vitalstatistix and Adelaide Festival and produced by Insite Arts.
Contents
Creative Team
A Note from the Director
A Note from the Artistic Director
Biographies
About Vitalstatistix
About Insite Arts
Resources for grief, loss and mental health
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Creative Team
Concept, devisor & performer
Astrid Pill
Devisor & director
Ingrid Voorendt
Devisor, composer & sound designer
Zoë Barry
Devisor & video designer
Jason Sweeney
Lighting designer
Sue Grey-Gardner
Set & costume designer
Renate Henschke
Associate set & costume designer
Bianka Kennedy
Production manager
Emma O’Neill
A Note from the Director
I Hide in Bathrooms is a meditation on mortality in the context of romantic relationships. It is an attempt to hold two things simultaneously – the beautiful experience of love and the terrible experience of loss. It is also simultaneously biography and fantasy, fiction and non-fiction. Is any of it real? Does it matter? What does matter?
I Hide in Bathrooms began as a slow and private processing of emotional experience. Astrid Pill was preoccupied with the death of a life partner, in response to the experiences of people in her intimate circle. Her thinking expanded to societal expectations and cultural norms around monogamy and 'the one', loss, grief, and re-partnering, and our collective denial of death.
Astrid began writing and collecting fragments of text, images, and questions, and invited trusted collaborators to join her. Her feeling was that there might be a new work in here somewhere. Time She Stopped (2001), Cake (2006) and The Pyjama Girl (2009) are three examples of original works we made together that began with an idea/image/feeling of Astrid’s. She has an extraordinary skill for tuning into concepts that sit just beyond words, logic and rational thinking, asking questions of them, and then translating them into moments of performance. Our process encompasses (and blurs) devising, writing, improvisation, choreography and songs.
I Hide in Bathrooms is deeply personal and very specific to Astrid’s take on the world, and it is also a collaboratively devised, dedicated group effort. We hope it invites you to lean into forms of connection beyond the idea of 'the one' – our fundamental connections to friends, family, chosen family and community.
Ingrid Voorendt, Co-creator and Director
A Note from the Artistic Director
Vitalstatistix is delighted to present the world premiere of I Hide in Bathrooms in collaboration with its extraordinary creative team, Adelaide Festival and producers Insite Arts.
Bringing long-term collaborators (and some of the members of acclaimed 2000s feminist theatre collective Ladykillers) back together for the first time in over a decade, I Hide in Bathrooms is a surprising meditation on love, grief, death and yearning.
Crafted by a team of artists gifted in making experimental performance experiences that tap into subversive melancholy and the fusing of fiction and real-life stories, this is a show full of mood and imagination. At times straight-talking, at times a dream-like world, it is both deeply moving and uncannily funny while tackling the taboo and the universal of relationships with lovers, dead and alive.
Astrid, Ingrid and the collaborating team’s practices are wide, combining performance art and devised theatre, music and sound art, choreography and physical theatre, film and video art and community collaborations. It’s been a joy and very timely to see these artists back together at Vitals, in our first show for what is our 40th anniversary celebrations in 2024. The collaboration very much sits with our history of working closely with and in long-term relationships with feminist, artist-run collectives.
I Hide in Bathrooms, and Astrid’s beautiful solo performance, leads us down some heartbreaking roads, yet this new work is also warm, life-affirming and reassuring – a balm for grappling with our lives, loves and deaths.
Emma Webb OAM, Artistic Director, Vitalstatistix
Biographies
Astrid Pill
Concept, devisor & performer
Astrid Pill is a performer, writer, singer, and theatre maker who loves devising new works that encompass dark comedy and pathos. She has worked with most SA companies and many collaborators, including enduring connections with Restless Dance Theatre, Vitalstatistix, Patch Theatre and Ingrid Voorendt/Zoe Barry. Astrid has been developing I Hide In Bathrooms since 2020, supported by Brink, Vitalstatistix and Insite Arts, and is developing an experimental new work - Peter Out, The Obsolete - seeded through a residency at The Mill. Astrid’s awards include an Adelaide Critics Circle Award for Cake, which toured nationally and internationally and was adapted for ABC’s Airplay.
Ingrid Voorendt
Devisor & director
Ingrid Voorendt is a performance maker, director, dramaturg, choreographer and facilitator, specialising in collaboratively devised performance. She has collaborated on many new works across theatre, dance and emerging forms of practice, most recently directing Zoë Barry’s The Nervous Atmosphere and Redhealer with Back to Back Theatre’s Theatre of Speed. Ingrid is an artistic associate with Back to Back and is co-directing Multiple Bad Things, the company’s major new work premiering in 2024.
Zoë Barry
Devisor, composer & sound designer
Zoë Barry is a cellist, composer, sound artist, performance maker and educator. She composes for theatre, film and gallery installations, creates participatory and immersive works for multigenerational audiences, and composes audio-led experiences for the digital space. Her practice is relational and collaborative. In 2023 Zoë premiered her first full length solo theatre work The Nervous Atmosphere, presented by Chamber Made and Arts House. She is currently composing scores for Back To Back Theatre’s Multiple Bad Things and feature film Where Did All The Adults Go?, and will be performing with Ziggy Ramo at WOMAD.
Jason Sweeney
Devisor & video designer
Jason Sweeney is a composer, musician and filmmaker based on Kaurna Yarta. Since 1999, he has composed scores for leading performing arts companies and organisations (State Theatre Company South Australia, Restless Dance Theatre, Patch Theatre, Chunky Move, Closer Productions, pvi collective, Vitalstatistix) and international companies and centres (SPILL Festival, SOIT, Banff Centre, NADINE). He has written and directed the experimental films Disappointment (2006) and The Dead Speak Back (2013) as well as numerous online screen-based works and app projects, such as his TED Prize winning Stereopublic: Crowdsourcing the Quiet. He releases music internationally under the names Panoptique Electrical and Sweeney. In 2023, he released and performed a new composition work titled Corporeal. In 2024, he released the Sweeney album Ageism, which includes the single "Daddy-O", the video for which featured on ABC TV's Rage.
Sue Grey-Gardner
Lighting designer
Susan Grey-Gardner works as a lighting designer and technician across the performing arts. Previous lighting designs for the Adelaide Festival include, Under Southern Eyes (1988) in a wool store on the Port dock and The Angel and the Red Priest (2008). Sue relit A Man of Good Hope for the 2019 Adelaide Festival and was the Lighting and Creative Associate for Donmar Warehouse’ show Blindness in 2022. For State Theatre Company of South Australia, Sue designed lighting for The Female of the Species, Memory of Water, God of Carnage and The Club. For Contemporary Asian Australian Performance Ltd, she lit Lost in Shanghai for OzAsia 2022 and Perahu Perahu for the Sydney Festival 2022. For Vitalstatistix, Sue lit 14 shows between 1986 and 2010, some of which featured Astrid Pill.
Renate Henschke
Set & costume designer
Renate Henschke is a costume designer, set designer and maker who works in film, television and theatre. Originally from Adelaide, she spent 12 years in Dublin, Ireland, where she worked in costume departments for numerous international film and television series. Renate has worked with many leading theatre companies in South Australia, including State Theatre Company South Australia, Australian Dance Theatre, Gravity and Other Myths, Patch Theatre, Restless Dance Theatre, Vitalstatistix, Windmill Theatre Company, Brink Productions and Is This Yours. Recently, Renate has worked on several Australian screen projects, including the AACTA-nominated Best Film Sissy and the stylish sci-fi film Monolith, which premiered at SXSW 2023. She also currently works as a costumer and puppet maker for the ABC & Windmill Pictures' Beep and Mort TV series.
About Vitalstatistix
Vitalstatistix (Vitals) is a vibrant home for contemporary art and community life, based on the Port River, Yartapuulti, Kaurna Country in Port Adelaide, South Australia, at the heritage-listed Waterside Workers Hall.
Vitals was founded in 1984 by Margie Fischer, Ollie Black and Roxxy Bent – a radical and ambitious act by three women determined to make a difference to the opportunities for and workplace experiences of women artists in Australia. This determination to make change still lies at the heart of the organisation.
Vitals champions Australian artists who are creating transformative, multidisciplinary art and progressive public dialogue. Valuing experimentation and public engagement, the organisation works across theatre, dance, performance art, sound, social practice and more, offering artists and audiences an innovative site for important ideas and outstanding arts experiences.
Vitals offers year-round public programs of performance, residencies, projects, events, talks, exhibitions, festivals, collaborations, and professional development initiatives for artists.
About Insite Arts
Insite Arts brings 30 years of experience in the performing arts industry. Insite’s work encompasses intimate showcases, small independent venue presentations, major theatre and festival productions and large-scale major outdoor events. Collaborations with artists to create contemporary productions across genres, cultures, styles and scale are the cornerstones of Insite’s work.
Established in 2008 as a professional independent producing company for Australian artists, Insite’s head office relocated in 2018 to Adelaide with a second office based in Melbourne.
The collaborative artistic and managerial partnership of its 4 directors has involved the creation and presentation of more than 50 new Australian works, resulting in 144 presentations across Australia. This is alongside 140 international presentations across 32 countries reaching audiences of more than 60,000 annually. Insite Arts is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Resources for grief, loss and mental health
Griefline: griefline.org.au
Lifeline: lifeline.org.au
Beyond Blue: beyondblue.org.au
First Light Widowed Association: firstlight.org.au
Solace Australia: solace.org.au/branches/sa
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