The Operation of the Sun in the Garden at the End of the World

Part I: The Victorians

The Operation was presented as a work-in-progress at Pantheatre's "Myths of the Voice" summer university in Southern France last year, where it was well received and sparked hearty feedback and discussion.
The Operation of the Sun in the Garden at the End of the World

Part I: The Victorians

The Operation was presented as a work-in-progress at Pantheatre's "Myths of the Voice" summer university in Southern France last year, where it was well received and sparked hearty feedback and discussion.
Company co-director Jessica Sutherland says, "Southern France in the weight of late summer is very bucolic. The festival was in an old medieval chateau with big old farm buildings - silk-making barns which had been converted into theatre studios and performance venues. We were influenced by the stone and the movement of the insects, and incorporated the setting sun into our live showing. In our work, we were experimenting with rhythms, so we used all of these organic rhythms around us.
When we got back to New Zealand, I fell in love with my own land and felt that it was time to respond to my own relationship with my country."

The Operation is the occult journal of a female Victorian magician in New Zealand ("the garden at the end of the world"), but don't expect a naturalistic narrative to tell this tale! Award-winning Ake Ake Theatre Company use alchemical principles, shadows, puppetry and dance to create the world of this show.
Fellow co-director and performer in the Operation, Rhys Latton, explains, "The devised work has revealed itself over the last year's making as this poetic, occult development of an extraordinary fictional woman living in the nineteenth century. She is a Victorian magician who has taken a journey to the islands at the end of the world".

The two co-devisers spent the summer rehearsing on Dunedin beaches in the mist, sun, rain and clouds. "Moody, spooky and glorious!" laughs Sutherland.
They then spent time on the west coast with puppet-maker Rebekah Wilde, who has recently come home to settle in New Zealand after working for 10 years with shows on London's West End and beyond.
"Rebekah is helping us to create specific worlds of shadow and dreamscape through her expertise in puppetry and love of natural forms," says Rhys "- finding an incredible creature in a sea-sculpted piece of driftwood!"

According to the two co-directors, all of these experiences are worked into the new show - the "civilised" ordering mind of the Victorian occultist confronted with the untamed spirit of nature in the elemental environment of New Zealand.

This is dance theatre in the FringeNZ 2006 Festival. It runs from 24 February - 3 March at Studio 77, Victoria University, Wellington.
Book: www.iticket.co.nz or 0508 iTicket