ABC Radio National’s Nance Haxton profiles Deliverance at the Adelaide Fringe, 2012.

TRANSCRIPT:

Nudity nothing to be ashamed of in Adelaide fringe

Updated March 08, 2012 09:00:00

Three actors are relying on the goodwill of their audience to survive in the Adelaide fringe event Deliverance. They will stay in their performance space in the Adelaide parklands for 10 days straight. They entered the stage yesterday with nothing - including clothes.

Nance Haxton

Source: AM | Duration: 3min 1sec

Topics: carnivals-and-festivals, arts-and-entertainment, events, performance-art, adelaide-5000, australia, sa

Transcript

TONY EASTLEY: As part of Adelaide’s Fringe Festival one act which appears in a city park is a case of art stripped bare.

Last night three performers walked naked onto their performance space with nothing - no shelter, no provisions, no objects, and no clothes. The trio will stay there for the next 10 days and during that time they will be counting on the goodwill of their audience.

Nance Haxton reports.

NANCE HAXTON: For performer Kat Henry the journey of Deliverance started months ago as an idea in her lounge room and now she has just walked naked through Adelaide’s Rymill Park to a roped off area of land about the size of a lounge room that will be her home for the next 10 days.

KAT HENRY: We’re standing here now in the space with an audience in front of us. Some lovely people stepped immediately into the space to give us, we’ve each got a t-shirt now. I’m holding a lovely Chinese fan in front of myself.

 NANCE HAXTON: Over the bits that weren’t covered by the shirt?

(Laughter)

KAT HENRY: That’s right. Penny has got a tennis ball was given to her by someone and Will is now wearing a pair of underpants.

NANCE HAXTON: Is there any sort of performance aspect to it or is it really relying on the interaction of people and what they bring to you?

KAT HENRY: Sure, it’s performative in the sense that it’s something that you can witness and it’s a visual evolution of an idea. Yeah, it’s something that you can witness and be part of that builds.

NANCE HAXTON: Well we’ve just had some sunburn cream brought over. That was very nice.

KAT HENRY: And some apple juice, hurrah.

NANCE HAXTON: And some apple juice, because you don’t have food either. I mean you are going to be sleeping in the open.

KAT HENRY: We have nothing. We have some apple juice however. Thank you, I don’t know who gave that to us.

NANCE HAXTON: The concept has certainly intrigued Adelaide’s fringe crowd.

VOX POP 1: It’s terrifying. I can’t think of another word.

VOX POP 2: This is insane and brilliant. And I did hear about it last night over a few drinks. And you know you hear about it and you think, oh yeah, yeah sure and then you see it. I can’t believe it’s happening.

NANCE HAXTON: The three actors, Kat Henry, William McBride and Penny Harpham say they needed a challenge and so Deliverance was born.

In the first half hour of the show they received a parcel delivered to them from friends with a sarong, candles and an iPod to help them pass the time.

WILLIAM MCBRIDE: We put a postal address on our internet site and so of course it’s being live streamed and people can tweet about it and we’ve got postal addresses. So we’re trying to make sure that all our friends from home and different people around the world can interact with it.

NANCE HAXTON: They won’t leave this space for the entire time, their only concession being to go a special toilet area.

It’s not a performance as much as an experiment as performer Penny Markham* explains.

PENNY HARPHAM: This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done and we’re all so happy and giggly and excited and optimistic. And I think in a piece like that, that’s the best head space to be in.

NANCE HAXTON: Do you have any expectations or is that almost the point?

PENNY HARPHAM: It’s totally the point but I mean it happens. My only expectation is that people respond to it in a really positive way, yeah, that they don’t look for answers but ask questions I guess. And we won’t have those answers (laughs).

*Misspelling of Artist Penny Harpham’s surname.