Offbeat – taking a drink of My Self (saliva)
A new performance by Monte Masi and collaborators.
Adelaide Contemporary Experimental
5 May 2023
6:00pm to 8:00pm
exhibition-as-performance
performance-as-pose
pose-as-prose
prose-as
-boney, funny, airy holes
above above, below below
Turning towards the uncategorisable and unhinged, taking a drink of My Self (saliva) is a new performance by Monte Masi and collaborators Hew Parham, Rachael Burke, Melanie Walters and more. Featuring a suite of newly commissioned objects made by Eleanor Amor.
Short narratives and encounters between artworks, actors and audiences will unfold across the evening.
Perverted bumpkins will cavort in response to a lamp-post (free standing), a gate, and a flute. Objects perform work, work objects perform and performers work objects.
Feature Image: 'taking a drink of My Self (saliva)' Offbeat event poster (2023), collage design by Grace Marlow, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental.
Offbeat is a series of live events curated by local contemporary artists who share an interest in performance, community, music, comedy and dance. Presented across the year in ACE’s front room, each artist-as-curator brings their own model for engaging with liveness and togetherness.
About the artists
Monte Masi is an artist who makes performances, videos and text works which examine the labour of looking and the ways we look together.
Recent performances and collaborative projects have included Goddess Ball's Fun House with amira h, Vitalstatistix, Adelaide; Fulfillment Centre, The Mill Adelaide; and Extra Extra Radio for NTS Radio/ Extra Extra Magazine, Amsterdam.
Monte has undertaken residencies at Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada; Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts, San Francisco; Next Wave festival, Melbourne, as well as Vitalstatistix and The Mill, Adelaide. Additionally, he was co-founder and co-director of artist-run gallery FELTspace from 2007 to 2010.
Monte holds an MFA in Social Practice from California College of the Arts, as well as visual arts degrees from the University of South Australia. He is the recipient of several grants and fellowships including The Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Fellowship, John Crampton Travelling Scholarship, Ian Potter Cultural Trust grant and Arts South Australia project grants. In 2018 his work was featured in the book 'What is Performance Art? Australian Perspectives' edited by Adam Geczy and Miriam Kelly, published by Power Publications Sydney.
Rachel Burke is an actor and theatre maker based on Kaurna Country. Her theatre credits include Jasper Jones (State Theatre Company South Australia/STCSA), The Wolves (RUMPUS), Macbeth, A Doll’s House, In the Club, Sense and Sensibility (STCSA, Ensemble), Angelique (isthisyours?), Cranky Bear (Patch Theatre), The Lighthouse (Patch Theatre), Limit, Red Sky Morning (STCSA, Umbrella) and Tartuffe (State Theatre Company South Australia, Brink). Her puppeteer credits include the Australian and USA tours of Bluey’s Big Play (Windmill Theatre/HVK) and Beep (Windmill Theatre). Her screen credits include Beep and Mort (Windmill Pictures) and webseries Dead Centre (Jupeter Films). She directed Di and Viv and Rose (RUMPUS), worked as assistant director on Girls and Boys (STCSA), As One (Tiny Bricks) and Love and Information (Flinders Drama Centre).
Hew Parham is an actor, clown, theatre maker and teacher. Hew has developed several shows with his comedic characters including: Giovanni, which played at the New York Clown Theatre Festival; Odyssey Schmodyssey; Rudi’s The Rinse Cycle, which played at The Adelaide Cabaret Festival; and The Riddalin Brothers (with Callan Fleming). His epic cycling play, Symphonie De La Bicyclette, premiered in Wollongong during the UCI World Cycling Championships. Other credits include: Sticks Stones Broken Bones (Bunk Puppets); The Weill File (Adelaide Cabaret Festival); The Swell Mob (Adelaide Cabaret Festival); Me and My Shadow (Patch Theatre Company); Superheroes (Stone/Castro); and Blister by Sarah Peters (Holden Street Theatres). He has also directed a number of shows including Egg (Erin Fowler, Adelaide Fringe) and Chameleon (Frank Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe).
Dr Melanie Walters has been described as a “champion of new music in South Australia” (The Serenade Files, 2022), and her flute-playing as “truly exceptional” (The Advertiser, 2021). She holds a PhD in flute performance and is an active freelance performer. Melanie has played with ensembles including Soundstream Collective, Coruscalia Collective and Adelaide Wind Orchestra, and has performed at festivals and concert series including the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Musica Viva Sessions, and the Australian Flute Festival. Her artistic practice focuses on contemporary classical and exploratory music, including free improvisation and collaborations with several Adelaide-based composers.
Eleanor Amor is an emerging artist based in Adelaide. Working with casting techniques, metal and ready-made objects, Eleanor’s practice explores themes of entrapment, sentimentality and support through sculpture.
Graduating from the University of South Australia in 2018 (Bachelor of Contemporary Art), Eleanor was the recipient of the 2019 City Rural Insurance / Helpmann Travel Award
as well as the 2019 George Street Studios Residency. Eleanor has exhibited and performed at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Bus Projects, FELTspace, Format, Praxis ARTSPACE and Samstag Museum of Art. In 2022, Eleanor undertook a three month residency at the British School at Rome.
