Metanoia to Stage Melbourne Premiere of IS THIS SOMEWHERE YOU'VE BEEN BEFORE?

Metanoia Live Works Program presents the Melbourne premiere of Is This Somewhere You've Been Before? a gripping, intimate performance by theatremaker, performer and dramaturge Hallie Shellam. Following its sold out run at Perth's Proximity festival, Is This Somewhere You've Been Before? now transforms a small office at the Mechanics Institute into a one-on-one discussion and interrogation space.

Part forensic interview, part dramatic re-enactment, Is This Somewhere You've Been Before? is the quest to discover the fate of a missing person. In this intimate, one-to one performance work, each audience member is led on a sensory journey to remember an event that never happened. The experience of using smell, taste and creative visualisation to trigger recollections explores sensory connections and the space where memory and imagination collide. As the mystery unfolds, the work combines forensic interviews, dramatic re-enactment and the act of memory making.

Hallie Shellam creates form-breaking performance work that investigates our sensory relationship to space, time, memory and identity. Her work also explores the function of the ephemeral in the digital age.

Recent works include The Rooms (Monash, Vic) and Vampirella (Malthouse/ABC Radio National). Hallie has worked with artists including POST, My Darling Patricia, Benedict Andrews, Willoh S. Weilland, and companies Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, Black Swan State Theatre Company, and Performance Space.

Is This Somewhere You've Been Before? launches the Metanoia Live Works Program, a season of daring, interactive performance works that step off the stage to permeate every inch of the Mechanics Institute building, an exciting new performance venue in the heart of Brunswick

All of these works engage with the local and global landscape and represent some of the most exciting independent performance work currently taking place in Melbourne.