DUST ON THE SHORTBREAD

Anything Is Valid Dance Theatre

Imagine your life unsaved, unhappened. How do we go on when we begin to lose touch with the moments that have shaped our lives? How do we define ourselves when the memories we build together start to crumble? 

Without the references to time, my reality no longer matches yours.

A future only exists in relation to a past. How do we create ourselves when our past, our foundation has crumbled away? Stagnation occurs when there is nothing to build on. What happens to our experience of time when the references disappear. A stagnation, and then, oscillation. Spasming between lucid banalities, cobbled half truths, and sparkling relivings.

Performed inside a suburban house for an intimate audience of just 15, Dust on the Shortbread offers a window into how Dementia impacts our sense of identity and intimate relationships.

Two of Australia's most celebrated performers, together for the first time Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM, founder of Australian Dance Theatre and WA actor George Shevtsov. This work takes you into the heart of the home to grapple with what may be a future reality for many of us.

This intimate dance theatre performance peers behind a facade presented to friends and family even as the things we hold on to begin to slip through our fingers.

Created by:

Serena Chalker and Quindell Orton

Performers:

Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman and George Shevtsov

Composition and Sound Design:

Tristen Parr

Production Design:

Emily Stokoe

Supported by Culture and the Arts WA, Australia Council for the Arts
Premiered at the MoveMe Festival September 2018. 

Press Excerpts:
“This is a quiet work that makes visible the unseen in tableaus of lucid sadness and sophisticated joy. Get a ticket if you can.” – Seesaw Magazine

“…meticulously detailed and beautifully understated” – Seesaw Magazine

“…this loving, at times joyous, intensely moving, immersive dance theatre experience shines a gentle light, with sensitivity and respect, on the daily challenges and frustration of an ageing couple negotiating their way through the confronting world of dementia.” – Dance Australia

” delicacy and tenderness of this work very beautiful, sometimes funny, often heartbreaking, and ultimately deeply moving” – Postcard from Perth

5 stars - “The highlight of MoveMe however was the superb two-hander Dust on the Shortbread” – Limelight Magazine