ACTION HERO Takes Over Arts House as Company in Residence

By: Mar. 28, 2017
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At the end of May and start of June, and as Arts House Company in Residence, the United Kingdom's live-art performance duo Action Hero will present three punchy, unsettling and utterly original works never seen before in Australia: Hoke's Bluff, Slap Talk and Wrecking Ball.

The brainchild of Bristol-based artists Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse, Action Hero will entertain, provoke and mine pop cultural mythologies to uncover and unravel the world's complexities.

For the past decade, Paintin and Stenhouse have worked almost exclusively with each other and have toured together to more than twenty countries across five continents to critical and popular acclaim.

"Our ongoing interests lie in the iconography of popular culture and its use; both as a weapon and as a shared cultural memory, and although our work manifests many different forms, the live experience is at the heart of everything we do," explained Paintin and Stenhouse.

Action Hero have performed in theatres, bars and public spaces all over the world, from an old cinema in Bangkok to Shanghai Grand Theatre, from a blues bar in Texas to a Satan's Riders otorcycle club house in Tasmania.

Get ready for a seriously live and wild ride with Action Hero, who are artistic accomplices in live art and adept manipulators of cultural memory.

Action Hero actionhero.org.uk

Action Hero
24 - 27 May 2017 Hoke's Bluff
28 May 2017 Slap Talk
31 May - 3 Jun 2017 Wrecking Ball

3 x Show package Full $60 l Concession $50
Single tickets Full $40 l Student $35 l Concession $30

Web artshouse.com.au
Facebook /artshousemelbourne
Twitter @artshousemelb
Instagram @artshouse
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Action Hero - Hoke's Bluff
Australian premiere
24 - 27 May 2017

New meanings to old cliches

With a nostalgic yearning for the simplicity of a world that never really existed, Hoke's Bluff meets its audience on the bleachers and tells them an underdog story that's been told a million times before.

Hoke's Bluff navigates the curious territory where emotional responses to American dreams outweigh the rational understanding of what America (and the Western world) really stands for.

In this lyrical dissection of American mythology, performers Gemma Paintin, James Stenhouse and Laura Dannequin channel the cheap sentimentality, cornball storylines and hackneyed formulas of the high school sports movie genre to find out what it means to be a winner (on the inside).

Amidst the cheerleaders, last-minute heroism, and teenage romance, Hoke's Bluff is infectiously energetic and a quietly contemplative theatrical work that reveals the genuine beauty that hides behind the lip-gloss and the locker room speeches.

Action Hero actionhero.org.uk

Co-created, written and performed by: Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse
Co-devisor and Performer: Laura Dannequin
Lighting Design and Production Manager: Jo Palmer
Dramaturg: Deborah Pearson
Additional text: Nick Walker
Producers: China Plate and Mel Scaffold

Season 24 - 27 May 2017
Time 7.30pm
Duration 80 minutes (no interval)
Address Arts House, 521 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne
Tickets Full $40 l Student $35 l Concession $30
Bookings artshouse.com.au or (03) 9322 3720
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Action Hero - Slap Talk
Australian premiere
28 May 2017

A six hour-long verbal sparring match

Inspired by the self-aggrandising of boxers at a prefight weigh in, Slap Talk is a linguistic version of the fight itself and a reflection upon violence present in everyday language.

Intimate, unsettling and bitingly humorous, Slap Talk is a durational work that sees Action Hero (Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse) address each other, and the audience, via a live feed from a camera to a monitor.

The relentless bombardment of violence portrayed by the media is interrogated and escalated as the performers rant, insult and threaten each other in a cross between a political debate and a 24-hour news channel.

Over six hours, an autocue scrolls a continuous barrage drawn from daily life: a couple bickering, the hard sell of a shopping channel, the anger of the fire-andbrimstone preacher.

As the rapid-fire slanging match accelerates and exhausts, the combatants veer off-script and words are emptied of meaning, Action Hero invite audiences to step out of the ring and contemplate their own collusion in language-as-violence.

Action Hero actionhero.org.uk

Co-created, written and performed by: Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse
Producer: Mel Scaffold

Season 28 May 2017
Time 11am - 5pm
Duration 6 hours (Audiences are welcome to enter and leave at any time. Early attendance is encouraged)
Address Arts House, 521 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne
Tickets Free
Information artshouse.com.au or (03) 9322 3720
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Action Hero - Wrecking Ball
Australian premiere
31 May - 3 Jun 2017

Putting words in other people's mouths

A conversation about consent, authorship and putting words in other people's mouths Wrecking Ball is a funny, surreal and unsettling play that questions who is really in control and how subtle abuses of power shape relationships - with art, language and with each other.

Wrecking Ball playfully manipulates theatrical conventions and narrative expectations - it's a story about a male photographer and a female celebrity that questions how far we'll go, how much we think we're in control and how much we're prepared to 'go with the flow'.

In an age where the consumption of artifice is its own industry, Action Hero blur the lines between truth and fiction, and consent and coercion, until they are destroyed.

Action Hero actionhero.org.uk

Co-created, written and performed by: Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse
Lighting Design: Jo Palmer
Dramaturg: Deborah Pearson
Producer: Mel Scaffold

Season 31 May - 3 Jun 2017
Time 7.30pm
Duration 65 minutes (no interval)
Address Arts House, 521 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne
Tickets Full $40 l Student $35 l Concession $30



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