AUSTRALIA
Foundation IHOS Amsterdam brings director Constantine Koukias's inspired production to a season of riveting performances in June, 2018.
Photographs — David Fraser
THE PERFORMERS
JUDITH WEUSTEN
SOPRANO
Dutch soprano Judith Weusten received her Bachelor in Music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in June 2017. There she studied voice with Valérie Guillorit and Pierre Mak and was coached by Jan-Paul Grijpink. She now studies at the Dutch National Opera Academy with Margreet Honig.
In May 2016 Judith was part of the Opera Forward Festival of the Dutch National Opera where she performed in a newly composed opera by Mathilde Wantenaar. Later that same year she sang the role of Lucy in Menotti’s opera The Telephone. In 2017 she performed her first role at the Dutch National Opera Academy as Sandmann/Taumann in Humperdincks Hänsel und Gretel.
She is comfortable in Lied and oratorio as well, regularly performing in recitals. She has sung soprano solo in Haydn's Schöpfung, Fauré's Requiem, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and various Bach and Mozart cantatas.
This year she will perform Lucia in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen and Despina in Mozart’s Così fan Tutte.
Chris Jackson
Actor
Since graduating with a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts—Theatre from the University of Tasmania in 2005, Chris has worked across the theatre & performance sector in many capacities including: Directing, Acting, Performance Art & Design; as well as completing a Master of Contemporary Arts degree in theatre & performance. His work has been seen on local, state, national and international levels.
Some highlights include: Actor in the national project Dancing Back Home (JUTE/Mudlark Theatre Inc.); Performer – Borders (Ihos Opera/JUNCTION Arts Festival); Assistant Director of the Helpmann nominated Barbarians (Ihos Opera/MONA FOMA), Vision Designer Chasing a Sound Like Rain which toured Tasmania and Canada (LYTE/10 Days on the Island); Actor - Savages (Persona Collective/ JUNCTION Arts Festival); Performer – Artaud Defacteau (OzFrank Theatre Matrix); Vision Designer – Relax The Chimp (TasDance/JUNCTION Arts Festival), Composer/Sound Designer I Am A Lake (Mudlark Theatre Inc.) for which he received Best Design in the Professional Theatre category at the Tasmanian Theatre Awards, and with Encore earning two nominations in the Community Theatre section (Best Performance in a Leading Role & Best Design) for his work as Edmund and Lighting Design for Blackadder. Most recently he performed in the new work staged at MTC’s Southbank Theatre Islamophilia, Encore Theatre’s Blood Brothers and in Dark MOFO with an array of artists on the installation work PANOPTICON.
Chris is currently an Associate Lecturer, Production Manager and Theatre Technical Officer at the School of Creative Arts whilst also nearing completion of a Master of Fine Arts candidature.
ANTONIS PRATSINAKIS
E CELLO
Antonis Pratsinakis is a cellist based in Amsterdam. The past years he has focused on creating performances, including dance, video, acting, and culinary disciplines. He has also participated in numerous music and music theater productions with Kameroperahuis, Ergon Ensemble, Veenfabriek, Atlas Ensemble, Sonnevanck, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, and Korzo Theater. Highlights of these productions include performing solo cello in P.M. Davies Vesalii Icones (for solo dancer, solo cello, and ensemble) and the 2017 tour as composer and live performer with choreographer Jasper van Luijk creating the dance performance “The Nonsense Society”.
He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Greece, Germany, Holland, Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, Italy, Turkey, and Serbia, where he received excellent reviews for his playing. An active chamber music player, he has recorded with the Infinity Piano Trio for the National Radio of Bulgaria. Recently he is working on producing his own music with e-cello as well as acoustic cello.
He studied in Thessaloniki with R. Dragnev and completed his Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Amsterdam with D. Ferschtman and J. den Herder, supported by scholarships from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation and Scholingsfonds.
For more information visit: www.antonispratsinakis.com
THE PRODUCTION TEAM
Constantine Koukias
Mise-en-Scene
Constantine Koukias is a Greek-Tasmanian composer & opera director of FOUNDATION IHOS AMSTERDAM based in The Netherlands. His avant-garde approach to the presentation of opera has resulted in hybrid productions such as Days and Nights with Christ, To Traverse Water, MIKROVION (Small Life - 36 Images in a Phantom Flux of Life), The Divine Kiss, Tesla - Lightning in His Hand and most recently The Barbarians, inspired by Constantine Cavafy’s famous poem Waiting for the Barbarians, commissioned by the Museum of Old & New Art.
His works range from large-scale music theatre & opera to mobile installation art events. In 1993 he was commissioned by the Sydney Opera House Trust to compose ICON, a large-scale music theatre piece to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House. Music theatre works include Kimisis – Falling Asleep, Borders, Orfeo, Rapture - Sonic Taxi Performance, Schwa – The Neutral Vowel, Antigone and The Da Ponte Project. His work Prayer Bells, which draws on traditions of Latin, Hebrew and Byzantine chant, had its USA premiere at the Chicago Cultural Centre.
In 2004 he was awarded a Sir Winston Churchill Fellowship. His Incantation IIfor soprano and digital delay won the International Valentino Bucchi Vocal Prize in Rome in 1997. Koukias has been the recipient of numerous international commissions and awards. His design credits include the internationally acclaimed Odyssey and Medea.
In 2014/15 , Kimisis – Falling Asleep, a chamber opera for Soprano & Electric Trombone, Splendor Amsterdam and Karavaan Festival. Before the Flames Goes outStedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Musée du Judaïsme Paris, Jüdisches Museum Berlin, The Boy Who Fell Out of The Sky for Ondes Martentot & Orchestra & Shaped by Trees – A Film opera by Biasino Pezzimenti.
Ivan Paitre
Mise-en-Scene
Ivan Paitre was born in France and is currently based Amsterdam. Over the years he has lived and worked in major cities all over the world: Montreal, Miami, Paris, London and São Paulo to name but a few.
Ivan is at home in a variety of genres, from sound and film production to site-specific décor and costume design, and is employed for projects both in the world of modern pop/opera/theatre and for commercial events.
His early training was focussed on the music industry. From 2003 to 2005, he was mentored by multiplatinum producer/songwriter and Grammy winner Rudy Perez, in Miami Beach.
In 2008, after gaining much experience in the USA and France, he oversaw the live Sound Engineering production for Le Caveaux des oubliettes in Paris. In France too, he added lighting design to his skill set, discovering Cymatic light VJ installations of vibrating water.
Recent film projects include Werzerkering, Relivation by Wouter Springer, Ray van der Bas and Starring Pamela Anders - and Biljestdag (Day of Reckoning) by Gideon van Eeden & Ray van der Bas starring John Leddy, and Wendy Riksen.
He was the assistant producer on numerous editions of Inner Voyage by Ballet Bernasconi based in San Francisco.
Ivan is involved with the Amsterdam-based Kuza Studios – a creative agency aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development goals, working with companies and foundations to create immersive digital media and powerful events to drive Corporate Social Responsibility.
CAZERINE BARRY
PROJECTION DESIGN
Cazerine Barry is an artist who has worked in many areas of performance, direction and media. In the past 20 year’s her work has been presented nationally along with Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Jakarta, Mexico City, Beijing, Paris, Christchurch, Taranaki, Glasgow and Monaco.
She is the recipient of the 2000 New Media Fellowship and Eva Czajor Memorial Award; other awards include an Asialink Residency in Taiwan, a Highly commended Australian Cinematography Award and a cultural exchange award from the Australian Indonesian Institute. Her short films have been purchased by SBS and BBC television. She has created media for performance with Australian companies Vitalstatistix, Playbox, Back to Back, Terrapin Theatre, Cirque, Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Black Hole Theatre and Arena Theatre Company.
Recent commissions include Parteitag composed by Brett Dean for the Concertgebouw Orchestra & Holland Festival, the song cycle A Thousand Doors A Thousand Windows & The Legend of Ned Kelly for Terrapin Theatre composed by Constantine Koukias and SQUARE composed by Euphonia for North Arts.
She has collaborated with David Chisholm on the digital pantomime SPRUNG, Insurgency for Melbourne University Union Theatre and the development phases of opera noir Dr. Couteau and musical theatre work Revival. She has recently presented excerpts of Olegas for IHOS Opera while completing her degree in early education. Since that time, she has produced visual media for the musical theatre development Carnegie 18 at the Arts Centre and worked on a solo project through the assistance of Creative Victoria.
GREG GURR
Sound DIFFUSION
Greg began his interest in audio at sixteen while still at school in Tasmania. Through his career he has worked as acoustic jazz and contemporary music concert engineer, a film and video sound recordist and designer/engineer in a variety of theatre performances. Some of the highlights of Greg's career have included engineering the sound for Roy Orbison, Don Burrows, Ivan Rebroff, The Angels, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and touring with international acts 10CC, ELO and The Stranglers. Greg was also sound recordist on Words and Silk, an award winning documentary on author, Gerald Murnane.
Greg's first IHOS production was Days and nights with Christ in 1997. Since then he has designed and operated the sound for productions of IHOS Opera including the small music theatre works Kimisis—Falling Asleep, Kitchen Table Rondo and Prayer Bells and large format productions The Divine Kiss, Sea Chant, Tesla – Lightning in His Hand and The Barbarians for the Museum of Old & New Art.
He also designed the works for the IHOS Music Theatre Laboratory including: Spirits of the Hoist, Schwa - the Neutral Vowel, As if Electronically Controlled, Touch Wood and Antigone.
With his retirement from ABC TV Greg has focused on other interests: photography, 3d recording and plane wave technology in Audio Design.
Mik Lavage
Surveillance Design & Projection Operator
Mik Lavage is an Australian Sound & Vision designer, composer and musician. Working on stage and screen, Mik has been nominated for AFI awards (screen) and worked on shows nominated for the Helpmann Awards (stage).
Mik has collaborated with a broad range of artists and companies; from the ancient Greek leanings of IHOS opera to the acrobatic worlds of The Tom Tom Crew, Company @ & Strange Fruit, performing worldwide, including Melbourne, Munich, Montreal, Detroit, Paris & Taipei to name a few. He currently tours globally with The Orkestra of the Underground, Company 2, IHOS, Hermitude and Toni Childs working as Designer of Sound, musical performer and designer of interactive Visual Elements.
Mik is also a graduate of AFTRS (Australian Film, Television & Radio School) in music composition for film, and has produced numerous albums as a solo artist as well as with Toni Childs. His music has been featured in many dance, theatre and film productions that range from political documentary to feature film.
Jason James
Lighting Design
Jason James – Lighting and Projection Designer Jason has worked as a lighting and projection designer for over twelve years; creating designs principally for new works. His recent credits include Red Racing Hood, Big Baby, Pip and Pooch, Shadow Dreams, Sleeping Horses Lie, and Love, for Terrapin Puppet Theatre; Born from Animals, Branch Book Bench, The Company I Keep, If I jumped I’d Fly Tasmanian Theatre Company; Motel Dreaming, and Galla Placidia Dark MOFO; Echo, The Barbarians, and Kimisis IHOS Opera; Tell Tails Bridget Bridge; Abandoned Dances, Episodes, Birds Mature Age Dance Ensemble; Wild at Heart, Motel Dreaming Unconscious Collective. Spiegeltent for Ten Days on the Island 2015. Fall, Winter, Spring Second Echo Ensemble.
Jason has been developing a broader arts practice around light over the last seven years. He is currently studying Visual Arts at the Tasmanian College of the Arts, and has had artworks presented in festivals around Tasmania. The two most recent were Angry Electrons, a solo show in Dark MOFO 2015, and Crevasse, which was a part of envelop(e) curated by Matt Warren, a co-presentation between Contemporary Arts Tasmania and Dark MOFO.