I have here one more interview with a Hades Fading artist. This time with actress Ruth Sancho Huerga. 


Ruth Sancho Huerga is an actress, originally from Spain, who has lived and worked in Melbourne over the past 3 years. She was nominated for a greenroom award for best actress in 2012 for her role in Blood Wedding at the Malthouse. Ruth and I met at a multilingual poetry reading at Federation Square which we both performed in last year, and I was really struck by how powerful her performance was, and also her poetry. She is a poet, visual artist and a performer and specialises in digital theatre and poetry which she is doing her Phd in. We have been talking a lot about the potential of Hades Fading to utilise digital technology to create the fading world of the gods, but that is for later. Now, to Ruth: 

-        What draws you as a performer to working with film and sound?

As a performer and visual artist I’ve always been very attracted to new forms that give me the possibility to express, improvise and interact with the audience in a different way. Platforms as film and sound create a different imaginary world to react to and demand not only the use of different acting skills such as singing or acting for the camera but also a deep exploration of new ways of developing theatre.  

-        What elements of a production do you most connect with when collaborating on a project? (ie. sound, text, other performers, visual, etc)

Each project is a different ‘baby’ to nurture. Sometimes there is no text and it is a show based on movement and sounds; other times it relies on visuals and multimedia. As a performer I always face and embrace projects from their ‘uniqueness’. Nevertheless, I really love working with poetic texts because they live on the metaphor and therefore create multiple aesthetics and multiple feeling connections at the same time. This is also achieved by the interaction of visuals and sounds. Any element that enriches the textual world(s) is also interesting and appealing to me.

-        What is the most important thing about theatre for you?

The audience. I learn that during my career. The magic of theatre is that there is an audience travelling and experiencing with you an alive journey in real time.  An audience that experiences emotions and feelings with you.  Every time I jump on the stage I dream with the ‘love’ connection between audience and myself as a character. Theatre is an act of pure giving, an act of pure and immediate love between the stage and the auditory, and every night is different and special.

-        Why are you working on hades fading?

 First of all, I love the text. It is truly poetry and the theme is very attracting to me, the myth of Orpheo and Euridice, but a myth that is fading. For me Hades Fading not only questions the loss of historical memory and its consequences, individually and socially speaking, but it also questions the way history has been told or passed to society and what that implies in the present and what that will lead to the future. The text is full of humour with touches of feminism. Also, I feel very lucky of being surrounded by such a professional and talented team.

Direct link to donate is:
https://www.creativepartnershipsaustralia.org.au/donors/about-giving/donate.html?artistId=856a1811-491a-4a19-a4b7-0de977d08642



Many thanks again,

Sandra

Below is another little interview, this time with Hades Fading
designer Emily Barrie, who is a wonderful collaborative and in-genius designer who is able to somehow weave together everyones input into the best design. She has worked with some of the most interesting companies in Melbourne and interstate, and her body of work with RAWCUS and Ilbijerri over the past decade has been astounding. Here are 3 Questions:

1: As a designer, what draws you to working with live performance?
As an artist i am drawn to work in live performance by the wonderful, ever changing and evolving nature of live work. I enjoy the pre-production as you explore the possibilities of what could happen, but without doubt, the inclusion of an audience will shift the performance. We can only pre empt the outcome, even throughout a season of a production, the work will continue its own journey. 

2: What element (s) of live performance do you most tune into when you are collaborating as a designer?
As a designer, i am drawn in by the experience of creating worlds. I enjoy the collaboration with other Theatre makers and the merging of ideas and departments to create a space or a costume that is comfortably inhabited and supporting of the environment the work desires. Personally i begin with a instinctual ideas sparked by either a concept or a script, and then i reflect mostly on the responses of the performers. I study how they work in the world i have imagined.

3: Why are you working on Hades Fading?
I have worked with both Sandra Long and Nick Verso many times over the past 10 years. I am excited to make work with like minded artists. Hades Fading will give us the opportunity to merge words, music and visuals beautifully. Sandra's choice to involve the use of film really interests me too. I have designed many sets supporting a film element in theatre, however I feel that in this particular context the film and set design have the potential of becoming one, and this is very exciting.

Help us reach our target by the end of August!! 
The money we are raising is going towards artist fees, oncosts, documentation and materials. Our aim is to fund a larger creative development out of this, with good support material from this development.
More information is here:
http://www.creativepartnershipsaustralia.org.au/donors/artist-projects/sandra-fiona-long.html

And a direct link to the online donation page is here

https://www.creativepartnershipsaustralia.org.au/donors/about-giving/donate.html?artistId=856a1811-491a-4a19-a4b7-0de977d08642

Don't forget that donations are tax deductible over $2.
Thank you again for reading this far!!

Sandra 


http://www.creativepartnershipsaustralia.org.au/donors/artist-projects/sandra-fiona-long.html