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What's On

GENESIS

Kianna Oricci, Lay The Mystic, Efren Pamilacan

Presented in Season 2 2023

World Premiere
Presented by Arts House and Cypher Culture

Saturday 2 December
6pm

4 hours

Tickets
Standard $35
Reduced $20
BLAKTIX $10
A small transaction fee will be charged per order. 

Audio Describer Guides
Personal describer guides available for meet & greet on arrival and one-on-one live descriptions of the performance.

Warnings
GENESIS contains partial nudity, adult themes and coarse language, smoke effects, haze, loud music, flashing lights and lights that change with colour and intensity.

Please note this is an 18+ event. Guests under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Relaxed space 
These are not relaxed performances in the usual sense, but audience members are welcome to come and go as they please, be themselves, make noise, stim and respond to the work for the duration. 

Detailed access information is available to download below
PDF | Word Doc

Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne

Please note: Entry will be via George Johnston Lane

Assistance Animal
Companion Card
Quiet Space Available
Visual Rating 50%
Wheelchair Accessible
Audio description

GENESIS gathers community to explore the history, culture and aspirations of the local ballroom scene, culminating in a night of fierce sounds and dramatic movement.  

Ballroom and voguing has a long and storied international history. To attend a vogue ball as an outsider of the community is a rare treat and a privilege. One must come knowing that in this moment, trans people come first.   

GENESIS explores how we can meaningfully bring ballroom and voguing to Australia – thoughtfully and carefully, at a time of hypervisiblity and associated complexities for trans people. Local and international trailblazers deeply explore modes of care for the community to present a vogue ball honouring family at its forefront.  

GENESIS is a ball for everyone, with an invitation to cis folks to come and see the brilliance of the trans community at the heart of Naarm. 

Either side of the GENESIS ball, there’ll be peer-led workshops for trans folks to imagine what ballroom can do for us here, to give first-time walkers space to breathe, to bring together intergenerational community, to focus on care before and after we walk. 

OTA Performance

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About the artists

Kianna Oricci is a performance artist, choreographer and an emerging arts manager based in Naarm, Australia. Kianna’s practice is focused on continuing the growth of the New York Ballroom culture and exploring its intersection with the dance culture and ethnic cultures within Australia. Born in the Philippines and migrated to so called Australia in 2010, Kianna explored various street dance styles since their resettlement leading to their full-time arts venture in Ballroom. Currently, Kianna is the pioneering mother of the House of Oricci’s Aus chapter.

Lay the Mystic is a performance poet, musician and dedicated cubby-fort maker based in Narrm (Melbourne). He blends music, poetry and varying other artistic mediums to create a performance space that is magnetic and utterly unique. Lay’s current works are centred around intimacy, all things close being both a lens to understand societal or cultural issues, and a landscape to enact sustainable change. His recent collaborative works and performance installations have seen him in Next Wave, Arts House, Immigration Museum, Blakdot Gallery and Due West Festival.

Efren Pamilacan is a dance maker and independent producer of Filipino descent, a settler on the unceded lands of the Kulin nations. His work crosses cultural and social spheres intersecting between hip-hop culture, underground dance forms and the contemporary arts sector; and aims to create space for new dance communities to thrive. As a dancer and dance maker, Efren is a member of Jigsaw Sneakers collective, director of 9DIMES dance company, and founder of street dance battle City Sessions. As an independent producer, he is currently supporting independent artists / collectives as a co-founder of Cypher Culture, a Non for Profit organisation empowering street dance and its communities.
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Artist statement

GENESIS is the accumulation of three years of community engagement within the ballroom scene in Narrm and across Australia. As artists and facilitators we invited over 20 participants both national and international across two separate labs with the support of Arts House, Creative Victoria and Cypher Culture. Each Lab sought to understand the current context of ballroom culture and ways we can collectively work together towards holistic enrichment.

We believe when community lead dance forms created by black and brown bodies overseas arrive on lands in which it wasn't created on, it's deserving of time outside of its demands in the community to recontextualise (with deep consideration) to properly support the environment it is in. This does not always occur when it is not allowed proper resources to do so. This project is doing just that, allowing time, finance and space for this to happen.

We truly appreciate our time these past three years at Arts House, the support from the team has been genuinely felt by us and the wider community who’ve been involved. We believe as artists and facilitators through the process of community driven art making we can create positive social change. We hope you enjoy GENESIS as much as we loved working on it.

Much love, Kianna, Lay and Ef
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Credits

Co-Director: Kianna Oricci
Co-Director: Ileini Kabalan
Co-Director: Efren Pamilacan
Producer: Cypher Culture
MC: Mother Kianna Oricci 007
Commentator: Jamaica Moana 007
DJ’s: House of Silky Mother Mirasia and Godfather Shinobi
Judges: Mataya 007, Kilia 007, Xuela 007, Mother Jaycee Iman

GENESIS has been supported by Creative Victoria and Arts House through the City of Melbourne.

World Premiere
Presented by Arts House and Cypher Culture

Saturday 2 December
6pm

4 hours

Tickets
Standard $35
Reduced $20
BLAKTIX $10
A small transaction fee will be charged per order. 

Audio Describer Guides
Personal describer guides available for meet & greet on arrival and one-on-one live descriptions of the performance.

Warnings
GENESIS contains partial nudity, adult themes and coarse language, smoke effects, haze, loud music, flashing lights and lights that change with colour and intensity.

Please note this is an 18+ event. Guests under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Relaxed space 
These are not relaxed performances in the usual sense, but audience members are welcome to come and go as they please, be themselves, make noise, stim and respond to the work for the duration. 

Detailed access information is available to download below
PDF | Word Doc

Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne

Please note: Entry will be via George Johnston Lane

Assistance Animal
Companion Card
Quiet Space Available
Visual Rating 50%
Wheelchair Accessible
Audio description

Image credit: Laura Du  

Image Description: Efren, Kianna and Lay sit in barber chairs in a hair salon. Lay sits in front with sunglasses and an open magazine, Kianna is in the middle wearing a fabulous white and black checked jacket looking directly at us, and Efren wears a yellow beanie and talks on his phone facing a mirror.