Tamara Saulwick is a performance-maker, director and dramaturge from Melbourne, Australia. She makes contemporary performance pieces for theatres and public spaces. Since 2017 she has had the role of Artistic Director of Melbourne arts company Chamber Made, who are creators of original works at the meeting point of sound, music and performance.[1]

Tamara Saulwick
Born (1966-11-12) 12 November 1966 (age 58)
NationalityAustralian
EducationPhD, Performance Studies - Victoria University (2016),
Master's degree in Animateuring/cross-modal performance - Victorian College of the Arts (2001),
B.Ed in Drama, Dance & Design - Victoria College, Rusden (1986-1989),
Graduate of The John Bolton Theatre School (1991)
Known forPerformance, Theatre, Direction, Sound art Artistic Director
Websitehttp://tamarasaulwick.com

Early career

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Saulwick has a number of film and television acting credits including Nirvana Street Murder (1990) and TV show The Games in 1998.

Saulwick was a founding member of outdoor performance companies, The Hunting Party and Strange Fruit, with which she toured in Europe and Central America through the early 1990s.[2] She worked as a core artist with Neil Cameron Productions from 1993 to 1999, assisting in the direction of large-scale outdoor community performance events.[3][4] In 2016 Saulwick completed her doctorate on dramaturgies of sound in live performance at Victoria University.[5]

In 1997 and 1999 Saulwick worked in Vienna with Austrian actor Justus Neumann on two productions, Don Quixote and Die Bibel im Lusthaus Zu Wein.[6] From 1998 to 2008 Saulwick worked as an actor and collaborator with Not Yet It's Difficult, an interdisciplinary arts company led by David Pledger.[7]

Saulwick was a member of the Melbourne Playback Theatre Company from 2005 to 2011.[8] She took part regularly in performances integrating improvisation and storytelling.[9]

Early pieces that influenced Saulwick's future direction include 2005's Imprint[10] and 2001's Map Folding for Beginners.[11]

Career

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Saulwick's creative practice explores themes of communication, exploring how people connect with each other through confrontation and negotiation. Her work incorporates technological elements including mobile, digital and analogue.[4][12]

Pin Drop won multi Green Room Awards. This solo work was first shown at Arts House in 2010[13] and explored sensations to do with fear and a woman's sense of threat from a stranger in a variety of contexts.[14] In 2011 this piece played at the Malthouse Theatre.[15] It then toured Australia in 2012 with Mobile States[16] In 2013 Pin Drop was adapted for ABC Radio National With Peter Knight.[17] Featuring in a schedule of Australian contemporary performance and dance, there was a presentation of this piece in 2014 at acclaimed arts venue Tramway, Glasgow, UK.[18]

In 2013 Saulwick created PUBLIC. This was an audio performance piece created for the Big West Festival in Maribyrnong, Victoria. It explored clashes between public and private behaviour in a busy food court section of a shopping centre.[19]

In 2015 Saulwick created a piece called Endings, which incorporated portable record players, reel-to-reel recorders and live performers, Saulwick, folk singer Paddy Mann (AKA Grand Salvo) and Peter Knight.[20] It was created to explore the ways people engage with death.[21] Co-funded by Melbourne's Arts House and Performance Space in Eveleigh, Sydney, it was premiered at Sydney Festival in 2015,[22] following this there was a season at Melbourne's Arts House.[23]

In 2016 Saulwick directed Permission to Speak for Chamber Made Opera with composer Kate Neal.[24] The piece explores the relationship between parents and their children as it evolves through a lifetime and features contemporary performance, musical composition for voices, with layered edits from interviews. Permission to Speak won the 2017 APRA/AMCOS Art Music Award for Victorian Performance of the Year[25] and was nominated for Choral/Vocal Work of The Year.[26] Saulwick and Neal were interviewed about this piece on the New Waves Podcast[27] and its production was featured in a Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) documentary broadcast on 14 October 2016.[28]

In 2016 Saulwick was commissioned to create Newport Archives by The Substation, an arts centre situated in Newport, Victoria in a converted industrial building. This 40 minute experience is a permanent piece in which participants listen to a guided walk using an mp3 player.[29]

In February 2017 Saulwick became Artistic Director at Chamber Made Opera.[30]

In 2017 Endings was performed in Canada, Great Britain (at the Brighton Festival[31]) and Ireland (at the Dublin Theatre Festival[32][33]), and played again in Canada at PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, January 2018[34] and America in February 2018 at On The Boards in Seattle.[35] Endings won multiple award nominations (for a Helpmann Award for 'Best New Australian Work'[36] and a Green Room Award for best 'Contemporary & Experimental Performance'[37]) and received a Green Room Award for 'Design and Realisation'.[38] In 2016 Saulwick and her collaborator, the composer Peter Knight adapted Endings for ABC Radio National's Soundproof.[39]

Another significant work is Alter, which is a performance using a constructed sound and light installation featuring 16 iPads (each participant used an iPad during the performance).[40] The piece was commissioned for the Festival of Live Art by Arts House.[41] Saulwick used a residency at Blast Theory, Portslade, Brighton and Hove, UK in September 2015 to develop this work.[42] There was an element of the brief encouraging artists to make work with a low environmental impact.[43] This piece will be touring in China for one month in 2018.[44]

Projects with Peter Knight

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Saulwick also works extensively with her partner, Peter Knight,[45] who is an internationally renowned composer, musician and artistic director of Australian Art Orchestra.[46] Together they have made a number of works: Pin Drop, which won a Green Room Award in 2010 for Outstanding Production in Alternative and Hybrid Performance and was nominated for Best Composition and Sound Design.[47] The pair was also commissioned by the ABC to turn this project into a radiophonic work[48]

Pin Drop toured Australia and also played in Glasgow at Tramway.[49]

Seddon Archives was a headphone audio walk commissioned by Big West Festival.[50] Endings which won a 2016 Green Room Award[51] and toured through 2017-18 to Canadian Stage (Toronto), Brighton Festival (UK), Dublin Theatre Festival,[52] pUsh Festival Vancouver[53] and On the Boards (Seattle). The ABC commissioned a radiophonic version of Endings in 2016.[54]

Publications

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In December 2014 a transcript of a conversation on the topic of performance and technology between Suzanne Kersten, David Pledger, Julian Rickert, Tamara Saulwick, Hellen Sky, Gorkem Acaroglu and Glennat D’Cruz at the Mechanics Institute, Brunswick, on Saturday 3 November 2013 entitled Working with technology/making technology work: A round table discussion was published in Australasian Drama Studies, Issue 65[55]

2014 also saw the publishing of Pin Drop: A live work for solo performer and 11 voices, her contribution to a collection of essays called ‘Testimony, Witness, Authority: The politics and poetics of experience.'[56]

Academic achievements

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Saulwick has a PhD in performance studies from Victoria University (2016), a master's degree in Animateuring/cross-modal performance from the Victorian College of the Arts (2001), a B.Ed. in drama, dance & design from Victoria College, Rusden (1986-1989) and is a graduate of The John Bolton Theatre School (1991).[3][57]

Nominations and awards

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Victorian Green Room Awards

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  • 2016: Best Sound Performance nomination – Permission to Speak (Chamber Made Opera)[58]
  • 2015: Design and Realisation Award- Endings
  • 2015: Best Contemporary Performance nomination – Endings[59]
  • 2013: Outstanding Hybrid Work nomination – PUBLIC[60]
  • 2010: Outstanding Production Award – Pin Drop[61]
  • 2010: Sound Design and Composition nomination – Pin Drop[62]
  • 2010: Mise-en-scene nomination – Pin Drop[63]
  • 2010: Production Design nomination – Pin Drop[64]

Helpmann Awards

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  • 2015: Best New Australian Work nomination - Endings[65]

APRA/AMCOS Art Music Awards

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  • 2016: Vocal/choral work of the year nomination - Permission to Speak (Chamber Made Opera)
  • 2016: Victorian performance of the year Award- Permission to Speak (Chamber Made Opera)[66]

Grants and Commissions

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Fellowships and professional development grants

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  • 2017: Australia council grant for attendance at International Symposium for Performing Arts (New York)[67]
  • 2015/2016: Australia Council Theatre Fellowship[68]
  • 2007: Australia council grant to train with Siti Company (New York)[69]
  • 2006: Arts Victoria grant for participation in Time_Place_Space_5 (QUT)
  • 2003: Australia Council grant for residency with Dah Teater (Belgrade)

Residencies

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  • 2017 - Vitalstatistix – Adelaide. Incubator artist residency with Nicola Gunn[70]
  • 2017 - Banff centre for the Arts, Canada. Artist residency[71]
  • 2016 - Blast Theory Artist Residency (Brighton, UK)[42]

References

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  1. ^ "Chamber Made Opera appoints a new Artistic Director - Limelight". Limelight. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  2. ^ "Immersed in a climate of fear". The Sydney Morning Herald. 24 August 2010. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  3. ^ a b "Tamara Saulwick's Page". contemporaryperformance.ning.com. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  4. ^ a b "RealTime Arts - Magazine - issue 126 - The power of the outsider". www.realtimearts.net. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  5. ^ "VU graduation-program-may-2016" (PDF). Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  6. ^ "Justus Neumann in Wien Premierenankündigung". OTS.at. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  7. ^ www.nicedevice.com.au, web development -. "Not Yet It's Difficult : performance, theatre and cross-artform projects : Melbourne Australia". www.notyet.com.au. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  8. ^ "Dancehouse » Research Details". www.dancehouse.com.au. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  9. ^ "Dancehouse » Performance Details". www.dancehouse.com.au. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  10. ^ "Imprint (excerpt 2)". YouTube. 2 October 2008. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  11. ^ "Map Folding for Beginners (excerpts)". YouTube. 2 October 2008. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  12. ^ "BIO". Tamara Saulwick. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  13. ^ "Pin Drop - insitearts.com.au". insitearts.com.au. 20 February 2015. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  14. ^ "Interview with Tamara Saulwick, creator and performer of Pin Drop — Kill Your Darlings". www.killyourdarlings.com.au. 2 August 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  15. ^ "So good you can hear a pin drop". Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  16. ^ "The Unknown". theMusic. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  17. ^ "Endings". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 19 January 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  18. ^ "Pin Drop". www.tramway.org. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  19. ^ Woodhead, Cameron (26 November 2013). "Tamara Saulwick's Public at the Big West Festival a tasty experiment". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  20. ^ Hennessy, Kate (9 January 2015). "Endings review – bittersweet stories of death with Grand Salvo cameo". the Guardian. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  21. ^ "Tamara Saulwick on death, dying and performance art (and yes, in that order) | Daily Review: Film, stage and music reviews, interviews and more". dailyreview.com.au. 23 April 2015. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  22. ^ "Sydney Festival 2015 Annual Review". Issuu. 14 April 2015. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  23. ^ BWW News Desk. "Arts House Media, Tamara Saulwick & Insite Arts Present the Melbourne Premiere of ENDINGS". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  24. ^ "Chamber Made Opera: Permission to Speak : North Melbourne Town Hall (Arts House) : 23.Nov.16 : Event : Australian Music Centre". www.australianmusiccentre.com.au. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  25. ^ AMCOS, APRA. "2017 Art Music Awards Winners Announced". apraamcos.com.au. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  26. ^ AMCOS, APRA. "Finalists announced for 2017 Art Music Awards across classical, jazz and experimental music". apraamcos.com.au. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  27. ^ "New Waves 10th anniversary". Classic FM. 28 November 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  28. ^ "Permission To Speak (3MBS Fine Music Melbourne & Radio Adelaide)". Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. 14 October 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  29. ^ "Newport Archives 2016". The SUBSTATION. 21 December 2006. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  30. ^ "Tamara Saulwick steps into Artistic Director role at Chamber Made Opera". Australian Arts Review. 16 February 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  31. ^ "Endings review at Old Market Theatre, Brighton – 'highly personal' Review Theatre The Stage". The Stage. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  32. ^ "Endings @ Dublin Theatre Festival captures the in-betweens of grief". Tn2 Magazine. 20 October 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  33. ^ "DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL: Endings – Project Arts Centre, Dublin". The Reviews Hub. 15 October 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  34. ^ "Endings - PuSh Festival". PuSh Festival. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  35. ^ "Endings - On the Boards". www.ontheboards.org. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  36. ^ "2015 Nominees Helpmann Awards". www.helpmannawards.com.au. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  37. ^ "Green Room Award nominations revealed Daily Review: Film, stage and music reviews, interviews and more". dailyreview.com.au. 16 February 2016. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  38. ^ "2015 Green Room Award Winners News". AussieTheatre.com. 21 March 2016. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  39. ^ "Endings". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 19 January 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  40. ^ "Alter - Festival of Live Art". Festival of Live Art. 27 January 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  41. ^ "Melbourne's Festival of Live Art announces 2016 programme - Limelight". Limelight. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  42. ^ a b "Watch an Interview with former resident, Tamara Saulwick - Blast Theory". www.blasttheory.co.uk. 6 November 2015. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  43. ^ "Tamara Saulwick Blast Theory". www.blasttheory.co.uk. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  44. ^ "Australia-China Performing Arts Exchange". Ping Pong Arts. 11 October 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  45. ^ "Synths and Sounds Unheard". PBS 106.7FM. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  46. ^ "HOME". Tamara Saulwick. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  47. ^ "Pin drop : electroacoustic by Peter Knight : Work : Australian Music Centre". www.australianmusiccentre.com.au. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  48. ^ "Pin Drop". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 8 August 2013. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  49. ^ "Pin Drop". www.tramway.org. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  50. ^ "Seddon Archives". Tamara Saulwick. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  51. ^ "33rd Annual Green Room Awards Stage Whispers". www.stagewhispers.com.au. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  52. ^ "DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL: Endings – Project Arts Centre, Dublin". The Reviews Hub. 15 October 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  53. ^ "The Events - PuSh Festival". PuSh Festival. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  54. ^ "Endings". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 19 January 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  55. ^ (https://www.informit.org/researchers/who-is-informit), Informit - RMIT Training PTY LTD (2014). "Working with technology/making technology work: A round table discussion". Australasian Drama Studies. Retrieved 26 January 2018. {{cite web}}: External link in |last1= (help)
  56. ^ Clark, Tom; Mokhtari, Tara; Henriss-Anderssen, Sasha (24 July 2014). Testimony, Witness, Authority: The Politics and Poetics of Experience. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443865104. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  57. ^ "Canadian Stage". Canadian Stage Website. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  58. ^ "Nominees for the 2017 Green Room Awards announced Press". AussieTheatre.com. 21 February 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  59. ^ "2015 Green Room Awards Recipients". 22 March 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  60. ^ "2013 Green Room Awards Nominations". 18 February 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  61. ^ "2010 Green Room Awards - Winners Announced". 22 March 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  62. ^ "Nominations announced for 2010 Green Room Awards". 15 February 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  63. ^ "Nominations announced for 2010 Green Room Awards". 15 February 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  64. ^ "Nominations announced for 2010 Green Room Awards". 15 February 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  65. ^ "Helpmann Awards Nominations 2015: Here's the full list News". AussieTheatre.com. 23 June 2015. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
  66. ^ "Art Music Awards 2017 : Australian Music Centre". www.australianmusiccentre.com.au. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  67. ^ "australia council announce artistic fellowships". 21 December 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  68. ^ "Australia Council Fellowships-Australia Council". www.australiacouncil.gov.au. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  69. ^ Munasinghe, Tharupathi. "'Sounds from the Past': Relationships to Sound in Transcultural Melbourne". Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  70. ^ "SUPER IMPOSITION Vitalstatistix". vitalstatistix.com.au. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  71. ^ "99th ISPA Congress New York City: January 10 – 12, 2017" (PDF). Retrieved 3 February 2018.
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  NODES
Association 2
COMMUNITY 3
INTERN 3
Note 1
Project 6