Miniaturising Australian Intermedial Theatre: A new model of sustainable performance creation and touring for large-scale complex visual theatre

Australia is a large, sparsely populated continent, which poses unique challenges to performance companies wishing to tour nationally. Beyond the issues of logistics, transport and funding, the nature of Australian touring tends to reduce the capacity for companies to travel large-scale, technically complex productions. As a result, regional communities are deprived of performances which engage with technology in innovative ways as most touring productions tend towards basic designs capable of transiting in small vehicles. This paper will detail new research being conducted to overcome these issues within Australian performance and scenography. It explores the potential of technology to facilitate sustainable design and touring practices through the miniaturisation of complex intermedial visual theatre. Dead Puppet Society (DPS), an internationally acclaimed Australian puppet and visual theatre company, has partnered with practitioner-researchers from the Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) Creative Lab to create a blueprint for scaling large, technically complex theatre productions for national touring. Through three creative developments across 2020, DPS and QUT will develop a new methodology of performance making which privileges miniaturisation and scalability from the earliest stages of conceptualisation. Making use of physical set design, puppetry, live performers, real-time compositing, live camera feeds and pre-rendered animation, the resultant performance will be created to tour nationally across both large metropolitan venues and small regional centres without need for redesign. This new approach to performance making has the potential to unlock sustainable practices for creating and touring works across Australia – from the Sydney Opera House to outback towns. The miniaturisation of complex technical productions will result in more flexible designs which reduce costs and materials, increase national programming opportunities, and offer new cultural experiences for remote communities. This paper will present our practice-led approach and offer insight into the blueprint emerging from this research.