BARE WITNESS at CIVIC THEATRE NEWCASTLE Address

Drawing on actual experiences of photographers and foreign correspondents, Bare Witness is a multi-media performance exploding the way we view our humanity through the fragmenting lens of the media. The production takes us through the Balkans, East Timor and Iraq, scrutinising the complex terrain of contemporary photo-journalism against the backdrop of twenty years of ongoing international conflict.

Through the eyes of a young Australian woman, Dannie Hills, we follow a pack of complicated, flawed characters who share the unbreakable bond of war journalists. Dannie, talented but frustrated as a cadet news photographer, discovers her destiny is to take photos in dangerous places. We meet her as her mind is disintegrating in the aftermath of a kidnapping in Iraq and its tragic outcome. Photographs, memories and dreams collide as she is assailed by a series of images she must piece together as photograph by photograph she moves to make sense of the events in her life that have led her to his point.

The topical, highly charged subject matter of Bare Witness is delivered in a richly drawn, character based narrative story, in the form of thrilling and visceral physical theatre. The live musician on stage ensures a gripping atmospheric tension, hand held stage lights intrude on scenes, much like photographers do, and the haunting video design adapts each night to the tenor of the live performance. The sparse set exploding in glitter moved some people to tears. Audience members are catapulted simultaneously into the disintegratin