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Always was, always will be.

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Hundreds + Thousands
Daniel Kok & Luke George

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Image: Daniel Kok & Luke George, ‘Hundreds + Thousands’, 2022, PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, photo: Emma Fishwick
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Images: Daniel Kok & Luke George, ‘Hundreds + Thousands’, 2022, PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, photos: Emma Fishwick
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Images: Daniel Kok & Luke George, ‘Hundreds + Thousands’, 2022, PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, photos: Emma Fishwick
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Images: Daniel Kok & Luke George, ‘Hundreds + Thousands’, 2022, PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, photos: Emma Fishwick
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Images: Daniel Kok & Luke George, ‘Hundreds + Thousands’, 2022, PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, photos: Emma Fishwick

Hundreds + Thousands is a lush, sensory performance for humans and plants, created by long-time collaborators Luke George (Melbourne) and Daniel Kok (Singapore). Blending dance, experimental music, and installation – with plants as mediators, performers, and new companions – Hundreds + Thousands blurs the boundaries between people and the natural world. Rearrange your collective experience of the visual, the sensual and the sensible, and catch a glimpse of a world where time is transformed, and humans displaced.

Following their already iconic reimagining of the AFL mark of the year at RISING Festival (Melbourne, 2022), this intimate dance work transforms PICA into a plant-filled, tropical landscape, brimming with movement, bodily sensation, and ecological curiosity in its Australian premiere.

Bring along your favourite plant as you consider what plants know of the world around them. 🌱

Duration: 90–120 minutes including performance and installation viewing
Content warnings: Intense strobing, smoke, loud noises

Dates

Thursday 13 October | 7pm
Friday 14 October | 7pm
Saturday 15 October | 7pm

Daniel Kok – Lead artist, choreographer, performer
Luke George – Lead artist, choreographer, performer
Alice Hui-Sheng Chang
– Vocalist
Leeroy New – Visual Artist
Nigel Brown – Sound Designer
Matt Adey – Lighting Designer
Nicholas Tee – Production Manager
Stella Cheung – Stage Manager
Participating Artists: Georgi Ivers, Helen Francombe, Jane Richens, Joshua Di Mattina-Beven, Rizzy, Stephen Genovese, Tai Snaith, Yana Taylor

Daniel Kok has a BA in Fine Art & Critical Theory (Goldsmiths College, London, 2001), an MA in Solo/ Dance/Authorship (HZT, Berlin, 2012) and has studied Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies (APASS, Brussels, 2014). His performances have been presented across Asia, Europe, Australia and North America, notably in the Venice Biennale, Maxim Gorki Theater (Berlin), AsiaTOPA (Melbourne) and Festival/Tokyo. As artistic director of Dance Nucleus (Singapore), he focuses on building capacities for interdisciplinary praxis and trans-local partnerships in Asia and Australia. He curates the annual da:ns Lab at the Esplanade (Singapore) and is a core group member of the Asia Network for Dance (AND+).
www.diskodanny.com | www.dancenucleus.com

Luke George (lutruwita-Tasmania, 1978) creates new choreographic and visual work that takes daring and at times, unorthodox methods, to explore new intimacies and connections between artist and audience. Luke’s artistic practice is informed by queer politics, whereby people are neither singular nor isolated; bodies of difference can intersect, practice mutual listening, take responsibility for themselves and one another. Based in Naarm (Melbourne), Luke creates, performs and collaborates with artists and the public across Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. In 2019 Luke was recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship and premiered new works in Dance Massive and the Venice Biennale. In 2020 Luke was appointed Artistic Associate of Temperance Hall and to the Co-Design Consultation Group for a dedicated Melbourne dance festival. In 2021, Luke is presenting performance commissions for the National Galleries of both Victoria and Singapore, the Liveworks Festival of Experimental Arts (Sydney), is an artist in residence at the Abbotsford Convent, and designing a permanent installation commissioned for Melbourne’s newly built Victorian Pride Centre.
www.lukegeorge.net

Alice Hui-Sheng Chang is a sound improvisor and experimental vocalist who builds intimate exchanges with her audience. She creates an array of timbres and textures by controlling tension in her throat and alternating the passage of air and vocalisations. She challenges the boundary of a presentation site physically and imaginatively, viewing each performance as a site-specific response. She has performed and exhibited in Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, UK and US. She regularly collaborates with other sound artists and artists from different mediums in conventional and unusual spaces.
www.huishengchang.com


Supporters

Presented by PICA and Performance Space

Hundreds + Thousands was commissioned by National Gallery Singapore for Performing Spaces 2021

Creation support by the National Arts Council (Singapore) and the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and Department of  Foreign Affairs and Trade through development partner Performance Space (Sydney).

Project partners include Performance Space, STRUT Dance, and West Kowloon Cultural District. Additional support from the Playking Foundation, Dance Nucleus, Vitalstatistix, Temperance Hall, Lucy Guerin Inc, Australian  Performing Arts Market, Asia Discovers Asia Meeting for Contemporary Performance, Rumah Banjarsari and CSC, Bassano-del-Grappa.

Image: Ken Cheong.