Navigators Weblog
"The performance in the afternoon is the closing event of an afternoon at the Cultural Centre. They celebrate the 400 years anniversary of the Duyfken landing. In this part of Australia, the story is kept alive by the Indigenous communities, the rest of the country only knows about Captain Cook and the Endeavour. Peter, the shipper of the replica Duyfken that sailed the Australian coast in 2000, is there. It is great to meet him and realize that he and we in one way or another are all part of the same original story..."
The Navigators weblog is a diary by artists from DasArts , Amsterdam and Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Coming from around the globe they have embarked on a voyage to Australia from 14 August to 28 October 2006. The weblog will be updated daily with texts, images and sound to keep track of their journey and to reveal the developments of their research.
Once every four years DasArts, Advanced Studies in the Performing Arts in Amsterdam, transfers its study programme to a foreign location (Giessen, Germany in 1994; Gent, Belgium in 1999; Toubab Dialaw, Senegal in 2003). In travelling to other countries, the main focus for DasArts is to experience a certain estrangement – by being deprived from ‘normal’ tools and surroundings, by collaborating with artists from different fields and systems – and to use these circumstances as a source of inspiration.
They travel across the ancient landscape of Cape York. Twenty-four young artists from around the globe have embarked on a voyage of discovery of their own. Arriving from countries and cultures of 5 different continents, their trek to the most remote region of Australia cut them loose from any of their comfortable anchor points. At this stage their real journey begins. They travel back to Melbourne for 2 months to create an indelible work that expresses their perspective on this little remembered but iconic moment in the modern history of Australia.
The outcome of this artistic voyage of discovery will be presented from 19 October to 25 October 2006 in a multi-disciplinary event at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, with public performances at the VCA’s Studio 45 and in the multidisciplinary program of Dutch contemporary arts in Australia: Dutch Dare.