Saturday, 3rd and Sunday, 4th June 2023
Spazio Sant’Anna – Verbania (VB)
Hundreds+Thousands
Daniel Kok and Luke George (AUS)
Collaboration with Fondazione Piemonte dal Vivo
National Premiere
Dance
o3 and 04.06.2023
9:00 p.m.
2 h
Ticket 10€
Hundreds + Thousands is a lush sensory performance for humans and plants, created by Luke George (Melbourne) and Daniel Kok (Singapore), who have been collaborating for many years now. In this intimate dance performance, the theatre is transformed into a tropical landscape full of plants, overflowing with movement, bodily sensations and ecological curiosity. Combining dance, experimental music and an installation – with plants as mediators, performers and new companions – Hundreds + Thousands blurs the boundaries between people and the natural world. The audience must rethink the collective experience of the visible, sensual and sensitive world, and catch the glimmer of a world where time is transformed and humans replaced.
Main Artists: Daniel Kok and Luke George | Performers: Daniel Kok, Luke George, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang | Sculpture Design: Leeroy New | Sound Designer: Nigel Brown | Lighting Designer: Matt Adey | Production Director: Nicholas Tee | Hundreds + Thousands was commissioned by the National Gallery of Singapore for Performing Spaces 2021. | With creative support from the National Arts Council of Singapore and the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, along with Performance Space partner Sydney.
Daniel Kok studied Fine Arts and Critical Theory (Goldsmiths College, London, 2001), Solo/Dance/Authorship (HZT, Berlin, 2012) and Scenography and Advanced Performance (APASS, Brussels, 2014). Exploring political relations in spectators and audiences, Daniel has worked with pole dancing, cheerleading, bondage and other “performative figures.” His performances have been presented in Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America, notably at the Venice Biennale, Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, AsiaTOPA in Melbourne, and the Tokyo Festival. As artistic director of Dance Nucleus (Singapore), his work focuses on sociality as the nexus of discourse and practice of different artistic disciplines, creating possibilities for artistic development and local partnerships in the region.
Luke George is a multidisciplinary artist who creates work ranging from performance, installation, and craft techniques. Luke’s work is influenced by queer politics, according to which people are neither single nor isolated; different bodies can intersect, practice listening to each other, and be responsible for themselves and each other. The studio explores risk and intimacy and employs bold and sometimes unorthodox methods to create further possibilities for the artist and the audience to meet. Luke George perceives dance and performance more as reflective practice than spectacle, in which people can examine themselves and their values through movement and interaction. Working in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America, Luke has collected major presentations at the Venice Biennale, National Gallery in Melbourne and Singapore, RISING, Dance Massive, Liveworks Festival, Rencontres chorégraphiques de Seine-Saint-Denis, Time Based Art Festival and many others.
