The Shepherds Residency - Coburg Courthouse

THE SHEPHERDS

Coburg courthouse 2025

Overview

Carly and Alisdair’s time at the Coburg Courthouse!

We have been spending time playing with concept development, research, gathering materials (digital and physical), design ideation, dancing and choreography, text and vocalisation, play, confusion, chats, finding common ground, searching for ways to work together, instrument building and playing, prop building, and weaving.

Geoffrey Watson, on of the performers in the piece who is also a costume designer came in and took a workshop on using looms to create material.

Building dances

We have been making a dance with a 2 meter long membrane horn, that has a shepard staff like hook at the end. When blown from the long end these make a low drone sound reminiscent of a clarinet crossed with an alphorn.

A dance with gestural detail, as though telling stories through the hand and body.

Still in its early stages of development, a dance which is inspired by the almost violent, and submissive physicality we observed watching video tutorials and competitions of sheep shearing.

One dance we have been creating is built around the idea of owning and claiming a place as a physical act, mood and mentality.

There are other dancers that are brewing, inspired by the physicality of slippery calves being born, writhing sheep with bloat, made up ancient dances, meditations on patterns made with numbers, embodiment of sheep-hood.

788068_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

34099_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

467414_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

213115_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

213114_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

38091_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

38092_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

441134_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

521306_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

521305_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

521313_Full body shot, _Sheepish_, Conceptual garment des_xl-1024-v1-0.png

451175_Conceptual garment design, sheep skin, wool, artis_xl-1024-v1-0.png

87622_A still from the live action motion picture called_xl-1024-v1-0.png

350301_A photo documenting the set design of Robert Wilso_xl-1024-v1-0.png

A look at the look, Some thoughts on thoughts

We have been playing a lot with images to feed to the team for reference. These include images we have built our selves and references to existing works.

We have also been spending lots of time playing with creating and repurposing text, from sheering tutorials, fake diaries written by fictitious explorers, time and pitch warped verbatim cult sermons, flat earth conspiracy theory debates, care instructions, product descriptions, dream state free word associations.

We have been thinking about what stewardship is, what the act of delineating boarders is, and what that act does to the meaning of the previously unmeasured. Functionality acting as an arbiter of truth or at least authority of meaning, and that this dynamic can be as destructive as it is productive.