Splinters Theatre of Spectacle was an Australian Performance Troupe formed in Canberra in 1985 by David Branson, Patrick Troy, Ross Cameron, and John Utans, that was known for large outdoor spectacles. Between 1985 and 1996, Splinters produced more than 20 works that played at Australian theatre festivals. In 1992, they produced Cathedral of Flesh which won the Best Promenade Theatre Performance Award, at the Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Splinters evolved through a collective of writers, musicians, visual and performance artists creating loosely related skits and scenes, into a multi-format art concept production company. Working in a variety of venues with hundreds of artists Splinters produced displays all around Australia. Their offices were situated in the Gorman House Arts Centre in Canberra.
Utilising techniques of theatre, dance, performance art, puppetry, pyrotechnics, sculpture, music, and crowd manipulation, Splinters performed one-offs, seasons, exhibitions, and events. Several performance and event groups gained momentum under the Splinters banner before launching their own companies including: Snuff Puppets, ODD Productions, Temple State, Triclops.
Splinters' first performance This Fantastic Lake in 1985 at the Downer Community Hall, Canberra was funded by International Youth Year. In 1988, Splinters received a grant from the Capital Arts Patrons Organisation. After several national and rural tours funded by the Australia Council's Performing Arts Board, the last performance under the Splinters aegis was Orpheus at Gorman House, Canberra in 1997. In 2001, speaking at the Legislative Assembly for the ACT about the death of David Branson, the Australian Minister for Urban Services and Minister for the Arts called Splinters "one of the most innovative groups in Canberra's quite illustrious history of arts practice."
Famous quotes containing the words splinters, theatre and/or spectacle:
“Was seiz’d by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land
of the globe.
Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air: the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1858–1924)
“Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that Gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold it in heaven.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)