SOMA
A COLLABORATION WITH JACK PALMER AND TALIA ROTHSTEIN
LA MAMA COURTHOUSE
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
NOVEMBER 2017
SOMA is a dance and music performance that inquires into the notion of an embodied past, considering cultural, social and personal histories and how they influence our present moment.
How does the body act as archive? How do our relative histories shape our habitual or performed physicality? How does our physicality in the present shape our memories of the past and intuitions about the future? SOMA uses sound and movement as analogy to challenge performers and audiences alike to investigate the stories that bring us into our bodies. The accompanying score dictates an elaborate memory game of sorts, played through improvisatory movement and sound.
the score
SOMA premiered as part of La Mama Courthouse Theatre’s (Melbourne) Explorations series in November 2017. An improvised performance based on the original score was performed at the Off The Grid festival at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Melbourne) in December 2017.
Created and performed by Ogemdi Ude
In collaboration with Talia Rothstein
Live music composed and performed by Jack Palmer
Set and Costume Design by Brynna Lowen
Lighting Design and Operation by Max Evans
Photos by Naomi Lee
Footage by Gabriel Hutchings and Dylan Harris