Phillip Adams’ Melbourne company Balletlab is a headline act at this year’s Museum of Old and New Art Festival of Modern Art (MONA FOMA) in Tasmania. The company will perform Adams’ A Suite for the Bird, which premiered at last year’s Melbourne Festival.
The three-part ballet is inspired in part by composer Olivier Messian’s experiments with bird sound. The elaborate costumes are by globally recognised fashion designer Toni Maticevski and milliner Richard Nylon. Painter Gavin Brown and architect Matthew Bird were involved with the set, which includes nests inspired by bower birds and a mirror-foil backdrop featuring over 3000 individual hand cuts based on bower bird nest shapes.
This is the third time Balletlab has presented at MONA FOMA. Moorilla Wines and MONA, both owned by Tasmanian millionaire David Walsh, forged an alliance with Balletlab in 2007 when the dancers modelled for the “Muse” wine label.
In 2008, MONA supported Balletlab’s residency at New York’s Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre, where Adam’s developed his 2009 piece, Miracle.
A Suite for the Bird will play for four shows only at the Theatre Royal in Hobart from January 14-17.