Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 17 September
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
What role can art play in transforming democracies? How can theatre and performance act as a vehicle to test drive new realities? And what happens when children are not students – but researchers and collaborators?
Sibylle Peters is the founder of Fundus Theatre in Germany, where children, artists, researchers and citizens of all ages meet to explore and change the world together. In Melbourne for the Fringe, she’ll be joined by leading local artists and theatre-makers to talk about creative collaboration and the changing possibilities of democracy.
Hosted by Tristan Meecham, our panellists will consider how we can shrug off old ideas and reinvent the world – through art, play, research and experimentation.
This event is presented in partnership with Melbourne Fringe. This event is supported by Goethe-Institut.
This event will be Auslan interpreted.
Featuring
Tristan Meecham
Tristan Meecham is an artist who facilitates creative frameworks that enable social transformation; connecting community, audience and artists together in events that transcend the everyday. He is the Director of All The Queens Men.
All The Queens Men create spectacular theatrical and participatory arts experiences. Established with Bec Reid, All The Queens Men champion social equality, celebrating diverse community through creative action and in exciting art contexts.
Recent creative actions include The Coming Back Out Ball, a spectacular social event held at the Melbourne Town Hall celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) elders; LGBTI Elders Dance Club, a monthly social event for LGBTI elders; Congress, a citizens’ assembly in which diverse community members collaborate with professional wordsmiths to create first speeches and personal visions for our collective future; and Fun Run, a riotous performance spectacle in Tristan runs a marathon on a treadmill live on stage supported by hundreds of performers from the local community.
Tristan was Artistic Director of Give it up for Margaret: A month of philanthropic inspiration, a month long festival inspiring innovative arts philanthropy. GIUFM was created in partnership with Victorian College of the Arts, Margaret Lawrence Bequest and over 20 subsidiary organisations.
Tristan was the creative lead for Going Nowhere, a sustainable international arts exchange at Arts House (2015 Green Room Award for Curatorial Contribution to Contemporary Performance). He remounted The Everyday Imaginarium as part of Vitalstatistix’s Climate Century in Port Adelaide. From 2010-2014, Tristan was an Artistic Associate and the Philanthropic Manager of Aphids.
Tristan is the recipient of the VCA George Fairfax Memorial Award, British Council’s Realise Your Dream Award and the inaugural Richard Pratt Scholarship. He was the Chair of Green Room Award’s Contemporary and Experimental Performance Panel (2013-2017). Tristan has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) from QUT and Bachelor of Dramatic Arts (Acting) from VCA.
Sybille Peters
Dr Sibylle Peters is a researcher, performance artist, studied literature, cultural studies and philosophy who has worked at the universities of Hamburg, Munich, Berlin (FU), Bale, Wales and Gießen. As a freelancing performance artist she realized lecture performances and performance projects focussing on participation and collective research (often in cooperation with geheimagentur performance collective). Peters is founder and director of the Forschungstheater/Theatre of Research situated at the FUNDUS THEATER Hamburg, a theatre, where children, artists and scientists meet. In this PhD program she is head of cultural education and research.
Tania Cañas
Tania is the Arts Director at RISE Refugee and a lecturer at the VCA in Art and Community Practice. She currently sits on the editorial board at the International Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Academic Journal/ PTO Inc, and was recently appointed International Guest Curator at the International Community Arts Festival in the Netherlands.
Tania has had her creative work published through Currency Press Australia, Arts Hub, and e-flux as well as academic journals. She has presented at conferences, as well as facilitated community theatre workshops at universities, within prisons and youth groups – in Australia, Northern Ireland, the Solomon Islands, the United States and South Africa.
She is currently writer in residence at the Malthouse Theatre.