PACT Presents: 'Coil' by re:group 2022

PACT Presents is PACT's new annual presentation program which premiers new full-length-work by emerging artists.

PACT Presents represents PACT's continued investment in presenting new contemporary performance by emerging artists and this year, this new work will finally see full presentation after being originally programmed into the Next Wave 2020 Festival program.

Tickets back on sale for PACT Presents: Coil by re:group happening at PACT between 10 - 12 February 2022.

Coil

by re:group performance collective

re:group are a group of friends based between Hobart, Wollongong and Sydney. Inspired by the highs and lows of pop culture, they mash theatre and movie-making together to create live cinema. Their latest work, Coil, uses custom coded video-DJing technology to create an entire film cast from a solo performer on stage.

Streaming killed the video store.

An elegy to the closure of the local video shop, Coil is about nostalgia, loneliness, friendship and viability. For many, the local video store was a communal space. It represented possibility, adventure, camaraderie, risk. Browsing the wide range of online streaming sites has replaced wandering the aisles of our local video shops, but what does the loss of these physical librarial spaces do to us? How does it affect our friendships, our culture, our engagement with the town at large?

On the same stage that re:group performed their first work nearly a decade ago with an ensemble cast of ten, a single performer returns. re:group have cut cast members to remain viable. Can he keep the re:group ritual alive?

The screen says there's connection, the theatre says he's alone.

Blurring the boundaries of theatre, film and ceremony, Coil draws on our collective memories to pay tribute to the glory days of the video store, and commemorate the communities we made within them. Join us for a playful and timely live cinema experience as re:group reflects upon the joys, perils and pitfalls of nostalgia; outsourcing their own labour to technological replacements and grappling with goodbyes.

ACCESSIBLE AND RELAXED PERFORMANCES: The performance on Friday 11 February will be Auslan translated and audio described. The audio description will include a pre-show tactile tour commencing at 6:30pm. The performance at 3.30pm on Saturday 12 February will be a relaxed performance, and we encourage people and families who might need to come and go or make noise during the show to come to this performance if they would prefer. If you have any access requirements you would like to discuss prior to purchasing a ticket, please contact PACT's Associate Producer and Marketing Manager scarlett@pact.net.au or (02) 9550 2744.

Coil is commissioned, developed and presented by PACT and Next Wave.

More info: http://www.pact.net.au/pact-presents-regroup