Offbeat – taking a drink of My Self (saliva)

exhibition-as-performance

performance-as-pose

pose-as-prose

prose-as

-boney, funny, airy holes

above above, below below

Turning towards the uncategorisable and unhinged, taking a drink of My Self (saliva) is a new performance by Monte Masi and collaborators Hew Parham, Melanie Walters and more. Featuring a suite of newly commissioned objects made by Eleanor Amor.

Short narratives and encounters between artworks, actors and audiences will unfold across the evening.

Perverted bumpkins will cavort in response to a lamp-post (free standing), a gate, and a flute. Objects perform work, work objects perform and performers work objects

About the artists

Eleanor Amor is an emerging artist who lives and works on Kaurna land, Adelaide, South Australia.

Monte Masi is an artist who makes performances, videos and text works which examine the labour of looking and the ways we look together.

Recent performances and collaborative projects have included Goddess Ball's Fun House with amira h, Vitalstatistix, Adelaide; Fulfillment Centre, The Mill Adelaide; and Extra Extra Radio for NTS Radio/ Extra Extra Magazine, Amsterdam.

Monte has undertaken residencies at Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada; Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts, San Francisco; Next Wave festival, Melbourne, as well as Vitalstatistix and The Mill, Adelaide. Additionally, he was co-founder and co-director of artist-run gallery FELTspace from 2007 to 2010.

Monte holds an MFA in Social Practice from California College of the Arts, as well as visual arts degrees from the University of South Australia. He is the recipient of several grants and fellowships including The Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Fellowship, John Crampton Travelling Scholarship, Ian Potter Cultural Trust grant and Arts South Australia project grants. In 2018 his work was featured in the book 'What is Performance Art? Australian Perspectives' edited by Adam Geczy and Miriam Kelly, published by Power Publications Sydney.

Hew Parham is an actor, clown, theatre maker and teacher. Hew has developed several shows with his comedic characters such as: Giovanni which played at the New York Clown Theatre Festival; Odyssey Schmodyssey; Rudi’s The Rinse Cycle which played at The Adelaide Cabaret Festival; and The Riddalin Brothers with Callan Fleming. His epic cycling play Symphonie De La Bicyclette was premiered in Wollongong during the UCI World Cycling Championships. Other credits includes: Sticks Stones Broken Bones (Bunk Puppets); The Weill File (Adelaide Cabaret Festival); The Swell Mob (Adelaide Cabaret Festival); Me and My Shadow (Patch Theatre Company); Superheroes (Stone/Castro); Blister by Sarah Peters (Holden Street Theatres). He has also directed a number of shows including Egg (Erin Fowler, Adelaide Fringe) and Chameleon (Frank Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe).

Dr Melanie Walters has been described as a “champion of new music in South Australia”(The Serenade Files), and her flute-playing as “truly exceptional” (The Advertiser). She holds a PhD in flute performance and is an active freelance performer. Melanie has played with ensembles including Soundstream Collective, Coruscalia Collective and Adelaide Wind Orchestra, and has performed at festivals and concert series including the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Musica Viva Sessions, and the Australian Flute Festival. Her artistic practice focuses on contemporary classical and exploratory music, including free improvisation and collaborations with several Adelaide-based composers.

Offbeat is a series of live events curated by local contemporary artists who share an interest in performance, community, music, comedy and dance. Presented across the year in ACE’s front room, each artist-as-curator brings their own model for engaging with liveness and togetherness.