Victorian Seniors Festival Reimagined 2020
Jude Anderson - Week 25
Tristan Meecham
Jude Anderson devises new performances and live works that takes audiences on an adventure outside the four walls of mainstream theatres. She's also dedicated her life to supporting rural and regional artists throughout Victoria as the artistic director of Punctum. Jude, welcome to In the Groove. Where are you coming to us from today?
Jude Anderson
Hey, Tristan. Hi, everyone. I'm beaming through from Jaara country, which is in central Victoria.
Tristan Meecham
How do you define live art and the work that Punctum does?
Jude Anderson
Well, I suppose liveness, for me, is about presence. So, how we work with presence, whether it be the presence of performers, the presence of participants, the presence of audience members, is really critical to all of the work that we undertake singularly experience, I suppose, an adventure together as a temporary community.
Tristan Meecham
What are the values that underpin your creative practice?
Jude Anderson
Well, I think trust and generosity are fundamental to the practice that I do because the welcome and how you're making an entry point for people who haven't had an experience before, but have the generosity to give their time and presence over to an adventure, I think is a really important thing to embrace and we really celebrate curiosity in proposing an adventure and then care for each other.
Tristan Meecham
This week's theme is chance. How has chance influenced the work that you create?
Tristan Meecham
Chance is part of celebration and chance is part of connection and collision, and I really love the way that live arts can set that up.
Tristan Meecham
Punctum's work is celebrated all over Victoria. In fact, we cannot not mention one of my favourite works of all time, the Green Room award-winning The Really Live Art Auction. What inspired the creation of this bonkers work?
Jude Anderson
The really live auction was set up so that audiences could have a direct relationship with works to buy and you picked up a number and gave your name and then that meant that you could bid on the work and, so, if there were two or three people wanting the same work, they would bid on it. There was an auctioneer and they would buy the work directly and then they would decide how much a ticket would be, where it would be performed and how many people could come along.
Tristan Meecham
Your recent work is concerned around the pressing issues of climate change. I'm thinking in particular of Punctum's public cooling house. How does this work inspire people to think more clearly around water management issues?
Jude Anderson
Well, the basis for the work is a - a system, a natural system of evaporative cooling. So, this experience was set up as an experience of the last time we gather around water but it was to be - to propose a place that is incredibly calming, where time shifts, where people are together. There are performances that are linked to cooling and some of them are funny and some of them are extraordinarily peaceful.
Tristan Meecham
Now, finally, Jude, would you mind introducing the wonderful piece of work that you've created for us this week, as part of our chance week on In The Groove?
Jude Anderson
The film work that you're going to see is based on a fraction of today's rehearsal where we were looking at the section of the Darling Basin. You'll see two performers who are looking at ways of finding droplets of water to keep them buoyant as they travelled through a piece of plumbing. It's a first stage development.
[The Way, The Water, The Walk]
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Jude Anderson’s childhood in regional Victoria served as a fabulous, if unofficial, apprenticeship for her career as an experimental theatre producer. Jude talks with Tristan about what chance means to her, about her work with the Punctum arts organisation and finally she shows us some of her latest work The Way, The Water, The Walk.
Find out more about Punctum: punctum.com.au
Read Jude's Performer Profile
Victorian Seniors Festival Reimagined 2020
Jude Anderson - Week 25
Tristan Meecham
Jude Anderson devises new performances and live works that takes audiences on an adventure outside the four walls of mainstream theatres. She's also dedicated her life to supporting rural and regional artists throughout Victoria as the artistic director of Punctum. Jude, welcome to In the Groove. Where are you coming to us from today?
Jude Anderson
Hey, Tristan. Hi, everyone. I'm beaming through from Jaara country, which is in central Victoria.
Tristan Meecham
How do you define live art and the work that Punctum does?
Jude Anderson
Well, I suppose liveness, for me, is about presence. So, how we work with presence, whether it be the presence of performers, the presence of participants, the presence of audience members, is really critical to all of the work that we undertake singularly experience, I suppose, an adventure together as a temporary community.
Tristan Meecham
What are the values that underpin your creative practice?
Jude Anderson
Well, I think trust and generosity are fundamental to the practice that I do because the welcome and how you're making an entry point for people who haven't had an experience before, but have the generosity to give their time and presence over to an adventure, I think is a really important thing to embrace and we really celebrate curiosity in proposing an adventure and then care for each other.
Tristan Meecham
This week's theme is chance. How has chance influenced the work that you create?
Tristan Meecham
Chance is part of celebration and chance is part of connection and collision, and I really love the way that live arts can set that up.
Tristan Meecham
Punctum's work is celebrated all over Victoria. In fact, we cannot not mention one of my favourite works of all time, the Green Room award-winning The Really Live Art Auction. What inspired the creation of this bonkers work?
Jude Anderson
The really live auction was set up so that audiences could have a direct relationship with works to buy and you picked up a number and gave your name and then that meant that you could bid on the work and, so, if there were two or three people wanting the same work, they would bid on it. There was an auctioneer and they would buy the work directly and then they would decide how much a ticket would be, where it would be performed and how many people could come along.
Tristan Meecham
Your recent work is concerned around the pressing issues of climate change. I'm thinking in particular of Punctum's public cooling house. How does this work inspire people to think more clearly around water management issues?
Jude Anderson
Well, the basis for the work is a - a system, a natural system of evaporative cooling. So, this experience was set up as an experience of the last time we gather around water but it was to be - to propose a place that is incredibly calming, where time shifts, where people are together. There are performances that are linked to cooling and some of them are funny and some of them are extraordinarily peaceful.
Tristan Meecham
Now, finally, Jude, would you mind introducing the wonderful piece of work that you've created for us this week, as part of our chance week on In The Groove?
Jude Anderson
The film work that you're going to see is based on a fraction of today's rehearsal where we were looking at the section of the Darling Basin. You'll see two performers who are looking at ways of finding droplets of water to keep them buoyant as they travelled through a piece of plumbing. It's a first stage development.
[The Way, The Water, The Walk]