Penelope Bartlau

Life is precious. Life is precarious and unpredictable.

Takotsubo Syndrome embodies this precarious unpredictability and life’s preciousness. 

Across 2024, supported by a Monash Link Commission, in collaboration with the Victorian Heart Institute (VHI), Penelope has been researching Takotsubo.

In November this year, as part of the commission, Penelope and her merry band of Barking Spider Creative artists had a week’s creative development at the David Li Sound Gallery. On Friday November 22nd, they presented a proof-of-concept showing, where artists showcased and discussed the work’s development.

A physical theatre and puppetry piece, Takotsubo is now ready for second creative development.

CLICK HERE to see a clip of the creative development.

About Takotsubo syndrome

Takotsubo Syndrome is also known as “Broken Heart Syndrome” is a heart condition that arises from emotional or physical stress. Takotsubo Syndrome takes its name from the shape of Japanese octopus trap: when Takotsubo Syndrome occurs, the heart’s left ventricle morphs and resembles the shape of an octopus trap. Takotsubo Syndrome occurs most often in post-menopausal women, and like most women’s health issues, is under-researched.

Lead Artists

Penelope Bartlau - Artistic director, writer/performer

Jason Lehane - Lighting, set and puppet design

Justin Gardam - Sound design

Thanks to Laura Aldous, Eisha De Silva, Hadar Flenner, playing medics at the showing, and the contributions of Anika Cook and MUST students Karen Ng, Alex Aidt, Cai Venn, Ava Toon & John Burgess. Shout out to MUST for the equipment loan.

Special thanks to Ruth Oakley and Tom Gutteridge at Monash University Performing Arts Centres and Esther Davis & Eliza Cobb and the Victorian Heart Institute for your support across this development. Big shout out to MPAC tech Steven Achibabu Ramanado.

We acknowledge and thank the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nations, on whose land we developed and created this work. We pay our respect to their Elders, past and present. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded.

Always was. Always will be.

Across two days, with artist Laura Aldous and ten children from Portland Secondary, we considered the ocean and the upwelling phenomenon and collaboratively developed our parade design concept. We began with a beautiful Welcome to Country from Shea Rotumah.

We collaborated to come up with the concept of “eccentric nature” for the theme. Our design dreams started with a blue whale but turned to jellyfish. Constructed from upcycled materials, bamboo and cane, we rehearsed the jellyfish, and then the parade was on! CLICK HERE to see One Day Studios clip of the festival parade.

Also on November, the jellyfish were activated for an after-dark FReeZA funded youth music event event, continuing their jelly glory! (see last two photos).

ARTISTS

Penelope Bartlau - Artistic director / puppet designer

Laura Aldous - Collaborating artist / parade workshop leader

PHOTOGRAPHY: Nicole Cleary.

Thanks to Tina Biggs, Shea Rotumah, Agostina Hawkins and all the fab people at Glenelg Shire Council.

We pay respect to the original custodians of the land and sea on of the Bonney Upwelling phenomenon.  During glacial periods, the Gunditjmara, Buandig, Giraiwurung and other indigenous groups lived and hunted on what is now the continental shelf.

We acknowledge that the conservation and management of the region’s natural environment transpired over many thousands of years of spiritual and cultural connections to the land and waters by the first people of this region.

Always was, always will be.

For the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2024, I'm delighted to present Marg Is All Ears.

Marg Is All Ears is a one-on-one experience that makes you feel fab. After ordering a cuppa at Cyrus Art Lounge, come and sit in a comfy armchair, and have a chat with Margaret. Margaret is - as the title claims – all ears. You meet as strangers, and part feeling like you are old friends.

If a live experience was a comfort-food, Marg is All Ears is the Fringe Festival’s box of chocolates. This short (15 minute), participatory experience will leave you feeling better about the world and yourself in it. After all, who doesn’t like a cuppa and a natter? 

CLICK HERE to book a ticket.

·      Performer - Margaret Matilda Becher

·      Creative Director/Producer - Penelope Bartlau

·      Photographer - Sarah Walker

Marg is All Ears is presented by Barking Spider Creative. The creative team respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which Marg is All Ears is presented. We pay our respects to the people of the Kulin Nations and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders past and present.

Part theatre, part game, and part social experiment, TRADE explored how and why we ascribe value to objects, and what happens when market forces are at play.

“TRADE: an ingenious live-action game” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hannah Francis, The Age Newspaper

In a hustle-wins Exchange (a low-fi version of the old-school Stock Exchange) audience members are divided into four competing Corporations. Members (audience) of each Corporation ascribe value and meaning to a variety of crappy second-hand objects. They create the rules of the market (democratically or otherwise) and how market value works. Audience members are urged on by the Exchange's slogan: Trade like there's no Tomorrow!

From Bull to Bear and back again, markets soar and crash! The Exchange is relentless and Corporate competitiveness intense.

TRADE premiered at Melbourne Fringe festival 2023. A bilingual work (Mandarin/English) TRADE was created with Barking Spider Creative and 3rd year Monash uni students. TRADE was supported by Monash University's Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance, and Monash Performing Arts Centres.

TRADE was nominated for the 2024 Freeplay Awards, Non-Digital Games Section.

Artists

Penelope Bartlau – Director & Designer

Justin Gardam - Sound Designer

Chris Cody – Lighting Design consultant

Marcel Dorney – Producer

Sian Halloran – Production Manager

Photographer - John Lloyd Fillingham

Students

Yuhan Ye, Aidan Wiringi Jones, Charlie Clark, Maya Hobley, Cyrus Huang, Erikyle Aguilar, Ebony Borg, Kiyasha Kohombanwickramage, Xianyu Li, Daniel Ka Lok, Andre Papadopoulos, & Jasmine Zhou.

TRADE premiered on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation.

What are men thinking when they commit domestic violence? What goes through their heads?

Just about everybody feels anger, aggression or rage at some time or another. However, we are conditioned to respond, think, feel, and express these emotions very differently according to gender. This difference is explained by the patriarchy.

The Violence Project explores and focuses on domestic violence, the male version and experience of this, but embodied in women/people who identify as women.

Across 2020-2022, collaborating with documentary film-maker Dr Helen Gaynor, Penelope created scripts for a 3-day experimental lab at VCA film school. Across the lab, Helen documented the process while Penelope directed actors to enact monologues and to find male rage in domestic settings.

Actors:

Helen Hopkins

Nicole Harvey

Veronica Pena Negrette

Sancia Robinson

Production Photographer + Lighting & Sound:

Jason Lehane

Immense gratitude to Phil Jones, Men's Behaviour Change Specialist, for his incredible advice and insight.

This work took place on the lands of the Wurundjeri people, the traditional custodians this land.

Presented by Women's Circus, this immersive, site-specific circus-theatre season, the audience disappeared into the world of 1914 for a surreal journey blurring the lines between contemporary circus, immersive theatre, historical re-imagining and art installation.

Created and performed by over sixty community members lead by professional artists, THE DRILL uncovered buried stories of the site’s history to explore the far-reaching effects of war on communities.

A significant local landmark, Footscray’s Drill Hall was built in 1914 as a site for compulsory military training for boys and men and has been home to Women’s Circus since 2006. THE DRILL drew on the site’s original purpose – service for WW1. This important work uncovered buried stories to explore the effects of war on communities and posed the question: what happens to human behaviour in the face of adversity?

You can view clips of the performance here and read more about the performance here.

THE DRILL was nominated for a 2020 Green Room Award in the category of Contemporary and Experimental Performance.

THE DRILL was presented as part of Due West Arts Festival 2019

Creative team

Creative Direction: Penelope Bartlau

Circus Direction: Katy Burrows

Design: Emily Barrie

Sound Design: Kelly Anne Kimber

Lighting Design: Georgie Wolfe

Head Rigger and Rigging Design: Franca Stadler

Production Manager: Beth Weatherly

Stage Manager: Emma Telford

Producer: Devon Taylor

Performed by Women's Circus members

MEDIA

THE BLURB

“A glorious way to lose oneself in theatre of the mind and soul"

Alex First – The Blurb

STAGE WHISPERS

"The Drill is a charming rendition of people’s lives during the war. It is a recommended experience that is also captivating and thought-provoking for everyone, young and old".

Flora Georgiou – Stage Whispers

THE AGE

“Immersive, site-specific circus performance with the poise and precision of visual theatre”.

Cameron Woodhead – The Age

Photos by Marie Watt

The Drill was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

What do we forgive? Who do we forgive? Do we really “forgive and forget”?

Forgiveness was an immersive theatre-music experience in which the audience was engaged in encounters, explorations and conversations on this theme.

Forgiveness was devised with final year students from the Centre for Theatre and Performance, Monash University and Barking Spider Visual Theatre

Premiered at The Sound Gallery, The Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts, Monash University, October 2019

Toured to Wuzhen Theatre Festival, China, November 2019

You can watch a clip of the work here, and read more about it here.

Creative Team

Director/Designer - Penelope Bartlau

Composer & Music Director - Ashlee Clapp

Associate Artist - Shauntai Batzke

Lighting Design - Jason Lehane

Sound Design - Ryan Mangold

Assistant Director - Simran Giria

Dramaturge - Tove Due

Performers/ Creative Collaborators - Tove Due, Kieran Gregory, Suhadi Karunaratne, Amelia Kruyt, Kitty Malam, Daniel Nieborski, Casuarina O’Brien and Gretel Sharp.

Art installation creator - Penelope Bartlau

Producer - Daniel Lammin

Production Manager - Lisa Nichols

Simran Giria - Assistant Director

Tove Due - Dramaturg

Technical Support - Chris Cody

Photographer - Sarah Walker

Documentation filming and editing - Daniel Lammin

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Kaidan: the things that make us wonder, gasp, give us goose bumps

Developed and designed by year-four students, across two terms in 2019, Kaidan was a one-night-only immersive, site-specific and promenade-style community event.

Directed by Penelope Bartlau, Barking Spider Visual Theatre artists and St. Mary's School staff collaborated with the children to create Kaidan. The project enabled the school community to explore shared and individual narratives about fear and the uncanny. Through a series of workshops, a marvellous shadow-puppet performance, lantern parade and all-school installation event took place on September 6th, 2019.

You can watch a clip about Kaidan here, and read more about the work here.

Creative Victoria, Creative Learning Partnership with Barking Spider Visual Theatre & St Mary’s Parish School, Colac.

Creative Team

Director & Shadow puppet backdrop design: Penelope Bartlau

Set/lighting & Shadow puppet designer/builder: Jason Lehane

Sound designer & Composer: Chloë Violette Smith

Production manager & Lantern parade director: Emma Telford

Shadow puppet design workshops: Kyoko Imazu

Videographer: Devika Bilimoria

Art Teacher: Lynne Richardson

Creative Learning Partnership with Barking Spider Visual Theatre & St Mary’s Parish School, Colac was funded by Creative Victoria, the Victorian Government and the Department of Education and Training.

Creative Learning Partnerships is a joint Victorian Government initiative between Creative Victoria and the Department of Education and Training

Photos by Oleksandr Pogorilyi

//This project was created on the lands of the Gulidjan and Gadubanud peoples. We acknowledge the Ancestors and Elders, past, present and future. The sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has never been ceded //   

Life moves so fast, and at the same time so slowly. In a Heartbeat is an investigation of time, impermanence and mortality created through a dialogue spanning generations.

In a Heartbeat is a work of visual theatre Directed and Designed by Penelope Bartlau with 3rd year theatre students from Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance and residents of Corpus Christi, Residential Aged Care. Premiered at Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance in 2017, In a Heartbeat had a second season at La Mama in 2018.

Employing verbatim theatre techniques “In a Heartbeat” is an immersive and interactive experience for audiences. It is compelling, beautiful, delightful and moving.

Watch a clip of In a Heartbeat here, read audience feedback here, and more about the work here.

Reviews

“It’s a poignant representation of how the memories of those with dementia can easily become lost in the darkness. It’s quite a feat what Barking Spider Visual Theatre can pack into a show that runs for roughly 40 minutes”

Myron My – My Melbourne Arts

“The attention to detail is exquisite…In A Heartbeat is a generous and loving performance.”

Samsara Dunston - What did she think?

“A heart-overflowing delight”

Anne Marie Peard - Sometime Melbourne

Creative Team

Director/Designer: Penelope Bartlau

Lighting Design: Jason Lehane

Sound Design: Darius Kedros

Sound Design assistant and creative collaborator: Daniel Aguiar

Set Installation Design assistant: Luna Mrozik Gawler

Performers/ creative collaborators: Laura Aldous, Jaimie Chapman, Rachel Duffy, Ashleigh Gray, Chloe Smith, Emma Telford

Production Manager: Emma Telford

Corpus Christi art installation creator: Penelope Bartlau

Photos – Theresa Harrison

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Imagine you could go back in time. Imagine you could not only see but hear the creatures.

Imagine that you’re the first person to discover a bone from a giant and strange animal. What does it feel like to be a paleontologist?

For Museums and Galleries Northern Territory (MAGNT) lead by Director Penelope Bartlau, the team of four artists created a shadow puppet and sound installation to give MAGNT visitors a taste of this imagined world and a glimpse into the work of paleontologists.

Watch in the Shadow of Great Beasts here, and read more about it here.

This project was presented by Museums and Galleries Northern Territory, in Alice Springs for the opening of Megafauna Central, July 5-28 2018, and at Darwin Museum for National Science Week at Darwin Festival, August 17-19, 2018.

Creative Team

Penelope Bartlau – Director

Jason Lehane – Installation Designer

Kyoko Imazu – Shadow Art Creator

Darius Kedros – Sound Designer

Thanks to: Australia Council for the Arts, Northern Territory Government, National Science Week, staff and directors of Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory Alice Springs and Darwin and Megafauna Central, Darwin Festival.

Special thanks to Rebecca Renshaw and Mark Crees

Photos courtesy of MAGNT, Merinda Campbell

This project was created and presented on the lands of the Arrernte and the Larrakia peoples. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

One Suitcase: Four Stories - A theatrical adventure in Italian food, family and culture.

“My Nonna told all her stories to us in the kitchen. Food is at the heart of the telling. One suitcase: Four stories invites audience to be family for one night – to sit around the table together, to hear and share stories, just as I did when I was little”. - Linda Catalano

A first-generation Italo-Australian, performer and cook – Linda Catalano nourishes both stomach and soul with the immigration tales of her Italian forebears. Potatoes are peeled and peas shelled as stories spill over the kitchen bench and into your imagination. The audience breaks bread together, shares a great glass of wine or two, and indulges in a fantastic feast that leaves you satisfied mind, heart, and body.

Linda Catalano shines as she nourishes us with traditional Italian food – prepared with the audience, and with wonderful Italian immigration stories from the heart.

Watch a video of One Suitcase Four stories here, and read more about the project here.

CREATIVE TEAM

Director – Penelope Bartlau

Performer – Linda Catalano

Sound design – Darius Kedros

REVIEWS

“Catalano has great timing and pace as a storyteller and we hang off every word she says”

Myron My, Theatre Press

“We feel the emotion and te drama and we ‘oohh’ and ‘aahh’ in all the right places”

Michael Brindley, Stage Whispers

“As the night finishes with ricotta cannoli…we remember that the stories that really matter are the ones that are so close to us that we sometimes forget that they made us who we are” Anne Marie Peard – Sometimes Melbourne.

One Suitcase, Four Stories

Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Arts Centre Melbourne, April 2018

Adelaide Jazz Festival, June 2017

Darebin Homemade Food & Wine Festival, May 2015

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Barking Spider Visual Theatre webpage

http://barkingspidertheatre.com.au/one-suitcase-four-stories/

Presented by Women's Circus, The Night Circus was a series of connected, site-specific circus performances that was a highlight of Due West Festival in 2017. With a Belle Époque aesthetic, The Night Circus was developed for three iconic Footscray sites along the Maribyrnong River: The Dream Factory, the Substation and the Cotton Mill, with a performance and audience hub housed in the ground floor of the iconic Dream Factory building.

Complete with aerialists, German Wheelers, and a choir, The Night Circus presented a power house troupe of idiosyncratic circus performances. Audiences were lead down various “rabbit-holes” to see the different performances. If you remained in the hub, you could have a glass of wine and be entertained by a number of different circus acts taking place here.

Audiences were invited to give their circus skills a go, with a pop-up circus workshop for adults taking place, also in the hub.

Creative team

Director and Installation Designer – Penelope Bartlau

Head Rigger – Franca Stadler

Lighting Design – Georgie Wolfe

Choir leader – Karen Berger

Producer – Devon Taylor

Performed by Women's Circus members

Photos by Marie Watt

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Leah Scholes’ Simulcast concert at the 2016 Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music (BIFEM) was an extraordinary physical feat in percussion and performance.

With a very distinctive aesthetic Simulcast was made up of five percussion pieces that were united with the friction and interaction of sound and its meaning, as well as play and rupture of spoken-word. Many of the pieces were had a choreographic score, with a focus on hand gestures in particular, and movement in the minutiae. Scholes’ very detailed choreographic control was matched with explosive moments of percussion and voice.

REVIEWS

“An unashamedly flamboyant and engaging vision of what music can be” - Alex Taylor, realtime

Concert pieces:

Mark Applebaum -Aphasia

Vinko Globokar -Toucher

Francois Sarhan - Homework #1

Rick Burkhardt - Simulcast

Kate Neal - Self Accusation

Creative Team

Performer – Leah Scholes

Supporting performer - Louise Devenish

Director – Penelope Bartlau

AV – Rachel Edwards

Photos courtesy of BIFEM

This project was created on the land of the Dja Dja Wurrung people, and the Taungurung Peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

We know what cancer looks like – but we don’t know what it sounds like.

The Sound of Cancer is an arts-science collaboration investigating what cancer does through sound. Our aim for the project is to demystify cancer. To hear our podcast trailer please click on the Soundcloud link:

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/400910379

In November 2017 we had a first public presentation outcome at the Wheeler Centre. This event explored the development of cancer and its treatment, with specialised AV design and an interactive art installation. A panel, hosted by Ranjana Srivastava, and with panellists Jonathan Cebon, Patrick Humbert, Mark Shackleton discussed advances in immunotherapy, based on research into the communication between cancer cells and the immune system.

Additionally, The Sound of Cancer was a finalist in the 2017 Wheeler Centre’s So you think you can pod

The Sound of Cancer team has just finished a complete version of the podcast and updates about where and how you can have a listen will go live in 2020. You can read more about the project here.

Creative Team

Penelope Bartlau – Artistic Director/writer

Darius Kedros – Sound design

Professor Patrick Humbert – Lead scientist

Photos by Oleksandr Pogorilyi

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

In the Shadow of Giants was presented by the National Wool Museum as a part of Geelong After Dark in 2017. Under the direction of Penelope Bartlau, the team of artists created two sound and shadow installations based on Victoria’s megafauna.

In the Shadow of Giants played between historically accurate and the imagined. Audiences could see and hear the shadows of monstrous Bullockornis – Daemon Duck of Doom and the terrifying and elusive swamp-dwelling Bunyip. It was a night at the museum that ignited imaginations and minds.

In the Shadow of giants was Awarded a Museums and Galleries National Award (MaGNA) in the 2018 MaGNAs , you can read more about the work here.

Creative Team

Penelope Bartlau Director

Jason Lehane Lighting and set designer

Kyoko Imazu Visual artist

Darius Kedros Sound designer and composer

Photos by Oleksandr Pogorilyi

This project was created on the lands of the Wadawurrung People. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Oceanic majesty

Neptunian mystery

Deep sea wonder

Giant Illuminated Jellyfish transport you to the deep blue and the life aquatic as they glide through space. These creatures of luminous beauty float, drift and change colour as they encounter each other and the world around them. Made for night-time spectacle, the sky becomes the sea as these jellyfish swim through the air.

A timely reflection on the irrefutable beauty and power of nature, this piece is magnetic, awe-inspiring and sublime.

Originally designed and directed by Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane, these beautiful puppets were re-presented in conjunction with Black Hole Theatre in 2016. Puppets were redesigned and constructed by Joe Blanck with a stunning mobile sound design by Darius Kedros.

Watch Les Meduses here

You can read more about the work here.

Creative Team

Original Direction and Design – Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane

Puppet Design & Construction by Joe Blanck at A Blanck Canvas

Sound Design by Darius Kedros

Presented by Black Hole Theatre (AU)

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created and first presented on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

The Memorandium is an exploration of memory – the stories, feelings, thoughts and impressions that reside within us all: memories which are brought together through imaginative story telling. Hiding in old post-office pigeon-holes are a number of presents and packages – abandoned, lost, forgotten or perhaps never given. In The Memorandium, these presents are unwrapped and passed around and shared with the audience. Together we then create a story, formed and inspired from a collection of memories aroused from the sensation of these old or forgotten objects. Puppets emerge from boxes, suitcases and pigeon holes – as breathtaking as our shared memories and stories. The Memorandium is a show that people love.

You can watch a clip of the work here

In 2016, The Memorandium was adapted for ABC Radio National’s programme, Soundproof. For the radio version, the audience was invited into the ABC studios where, instead of objects, carefully crafted soundscapes were played to spark memories.

Click here to visit the RN website where you can download The Memorandium radio version.

CREATIVE TEAMS

The Memorandium for Radio 2016

Penelope Bartlau – Director/performer

Leah Scholes – Percussionist/musician

Darius Kedros – Sound design

Richard Girvan / Tim Symonds - Sound Engineers

The Memorandium at Theatre Works 2012

Penelope Bartlau – Creator, performer, co-director & producer

Jason Lehane – Set designer, lighting designer & co-director

Leah Scholes – Composer, sound designer & performer

Dan Goronszy – Installation design, puppet maker & puppetry director

Caitlin Barclay – Lighting operation & stage assistant

Alana Teasdale – Stage manager & Sound operator

Kelly Mc Cosker – Installation assistant & letter creator

Elsea Bartlau – Installation assistant

Voice-over memories – Bern & Elsea Bartlau, Jason Lehane, & Fitzroy High students

REVIEWS

“Master storyteller Penelope Bartlau began to lead us through a world of memory and story using spoken word, shadow puppetry, a slide projector, a recorded voiceover, and audience participation” Helen Begley

Click here for Arts Hub

“This is theatre that reminds you of the power and pleasure, and communal experience, of a great shared story”. Sara Bannister

Click here for Stage Whispers

“The mood in the audience as we heard these stories went from a room full of strangers to a connected mind, and after the show when you were free to roam through the set we were chatting as if we were old friends”. Myron My

Click here for Theatre Press

For more info please Click here

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Using sound design and physical theatre, From the Heart reveals the stories of a group of homeless women with mental illness, living in the City of Boroondara.

From the Heart is an “affirmation, a morale booster, and reassurance, an acknowledgment of the unacknowledged”. (Stage Whispers, Michael Brindley)

Watch a clip of the work here, and read more here.

Creative Team

Director/Designer: Penelope Bartlau

Performer: Kaira Hachefa

Lighting design: Jason Lehane

Sound design: Darius Kedros

Music by Darius Kedros & Richard Thair, courtesy of DeWolfe Music

Videographer: Rachel Edward

Reviews

“Highly original, deeply metaphoric and emotionally powerful”

Michael Brindley – Stage Whispers

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Granny’s Dream Catcher was an interactive bedsit and play space created for interaction and community fun.

Strangers worked together to make the wool fly from one side of the installation to the other, they talked, interacted and played. This was adults – not children, although there were plenty of children there too. People came into the installation, and would sit on the centrally placed, old, white, cast-iron bed with Grandma and simply chat. The interactivity was delightful – in addition to the transformation of the space, to which everyone contributed.

Granny’s Dream Catcher was created for Hawthorn Arts Centre, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of City of Boroondara’s Volunteer Expo Day and proudly supported by the City of Boroondara.

Watch a clip of Granny’s Dream Catcher here, and read more about the work here.

Designed and Directed by Penelope Bartlau

Grandma played by actor Karen Corbett

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

If History is told by the Victors, what happens to everybody else?

Directed by Penelope Bartlau Liberty of the Press was an amazing experience in the State Library of Victoria. The work was inspired by The Press Dress worn by Matilda Butters to a fancy-dress ball in 1866. Liberty of the Press explored how Melbourne society saw women and Chinese immigrants in the 1860s. Liberty of the Press was a daring political work exploring untold histories, ethnicity and bodies through a theatre and fashion.

Liberty of the Press integrated installation, puppetry, live performance and percussion into a theatre-fashion show, taking over both the Dome reading Room and Queens Hall, and finishing up on the State Library Forecourt.

Watch Liberty of the Press here

Here and you can find a decadent Prezi presentation

Read more about the work here

Reviews

“…A visual and aural feast of fashion, design, performance and music“

Myron My – Theatre Press

“Who would have expected that Melbourne Fashion Week could include such an original gem of a spectacle as Liberty of the Press?”

Michael Brindley – Stage Whispers

“It was all so beautiful, but my favourite moment was standing in the State Library Dome room – which was full of people studying and Facebooking – knowing that in any moment their peace would be broken by loud drums.”

Anne Marie Peard – Sometimes Melbourne.

Creative Team

Penelope Bartlau – Director and Writer

Darius Kedros – Sound Designer and Composer

Emily Barrie – Production Designer

Richard Vabre – Lighting Designer

Sandra Long – Collaborating Researcher

New Model Beauty Queen – Costume & fashion design

Preston Zly – Footwear design

The Chinese Masonic Society of Melbourne – Lion Dancers and Drummers

Leah Scholes – Solo drummer

Rebecca Morton – Opera singer

Tom Warneke – Production Manager

Photos by Sarah Walker

Artists and fashion designers collaborated on the research, investigation, exploration creative development and production of this extraordinary event, inspired by Matilda Butters: an extraordinary woman, at large in “Marvellous Melbourne”.

Penelope Bartlau received a prestigious Dome Centenary Fellowship, State Library of Victoria, enabling to her to realise this work.

Awarded a Museums and Galleries National Award (MaGNA) in the 2015 MaGNAs

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Melbourne-based artists Penelope Bartlau (Director) and Jason Lehane (Designer) researched TMAG’s Antarctic Collection. With children and families, they created a new work “Antarctic Gaze” which was presented on two showing days at the end of the residency.

The focus of the research was on icebergs – in particular the B-15 iceberg. Children were asked to draw a creature that will save the Antarctic from melting. The artists chose a design “The Ice-Eractic” as named by the originating artist, four-year-old Katy. Penelope and Jason created an iceberg installation and a large puppet based on her design. Her design brief was that the Ice-Eractic is a long, worm-like, winged, mythical-looking creature that is very kind, and sucks up water at one end and sprays out ice at the other. Artists designed the puppet from the 2-D drawing, then across the summer worked with children on the puppet’s decoration.

This Artist in Residence (AIR) program produced by TMAG which focused on enhancing creative opportunities for young children and families. This program is an Access Art initiative, supported by Detached Cultural Organisation.

Awarded a Museums and Galleries National Award (MaGNA) in the 2014 MaGNAs

Photos bySarah Walker

For more information visit http://barkingspidertheatre.com.au/tasmanian-museum-and-art-gallery-residency/

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery 2014

This project was created on the land of the Muwinina and Palawa peoples. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Through the lens of competitive swimming and including synchronised swimming as part of the choreography Bathing Beauties is a meditation on the ageing process, with a critical eye on what women are “expected” to look like and be as they age.

This work digs into the heart of the aesthetics and experience of ageing, of grace, and the meaning of true beauty. The work is based on both fact and fiction. Director/playwright Penelope Bartlau interviewed swimmers, researched sports psychology and women’s experience in professional sport.

In 2014, Bathing Beauties premiered first as a site-specific theatre work at Melbourne City Baths, and then as a radio play for ABC Radio National’s program Soundproof in July 2014.

You can watch a short clip of the project here, and see more on the project here.

“The pool at the gorgeous Melbourne City Baths is old enough to still be measured in feet. We sat wearing headphones in the gallery above the pool and listened to stories about women who swim – the pressure, body shape issues, pain, joy, competition and freedom – while watching women who fit their own images swim: synchronised, racing and pleasure. Place, theme and story merged beautifully and it felt like the stories belonged to the space”

Anne Marie Peard: Sometimes Melbourne

Lead Artists:

Writer/Director: Penelope Bartlau

Composition and Sound Design: Darius Kedros

Production Design: Emily Barrie

Lighting Design: Bronwyn Pringle

Performers:

Leah Scholes

Caroline Bock

Caitlyn Barclay

Anna Lowendahl

Heidi Wetherald

Photos by Sarah Walker

Bathing Beauties was first produced by Metanoia Theatre for the Melbourne Festival of Live Art as a part of the 24 Hour Experience.

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Commissioned by the National Museum of Australia (NMA) Big Objects On Show for a public celebration event in January 2013. Big Objects On Show was site-specific and promenade-style event featuring large-scale puppetry, animation and percussion works which showcased large objects in the exhibition.

Watch Big Objects on Show was awarded an Honourable Mention in the 2013 Museums and Galleries National Awards, you can watch a clip here, and read more about the work here.

Creative Team

Penelope Bartlau – Director, designer & performer

Jason Lehane – Designer, puppet builder & performer

Leah Scholes – Percussionist/performer, composer, creative collaborator

Imogen Keen – Animator, puppet and set designer/builder

Photos courtesy of National Museum of Australia

This project was created on the land of the Ngunnawal people. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

What happens when professional Librarians are left on their own in the library?

Ex Libris was a playful and experimental look at the Melbourne Athenaeum Library: it’s past and it’s purpose. Ex Libris was a week of performance and an interactive spine-poetry installation.

Performance Artists Penelope Bartlau (Director) and Leah Scholes (Percussionist and artistic collaborator) co-created a live performance, incorporating books as percussive instruments and as puppets.

You can watch a video of the performance here.

Spine Poetry Installation

Penelope wrote and designed an interactive poem installation. This installation used books as an artistic medium, was designed for Athenaeum Library visitors to re-write and re-invent the poem again and again, over the duration of the installation on-site. The durational event was documented, and the various and ever-changing incarnations of the poem recorded.

Watch the Spine Poetry Installation here, and read more about it here.

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Ever wanted to be inside someone else’s dream?

Bedtime for One takes you there.

Integrating visual and sound design, Bedtime for One is an intimate and immersive audience experience. For one or two people at a time, audience members climb into the tiny bedroom and lie down on the bed. With eyes closed, each audience member is taken on a 5-minute trip into someone else’s dream. If the audience member keeps their eyes open, they will be able to make connections between the visual material – artwork and décor – and the dream they are hearing: Are not our dreams accidentally informed by the little things around us, but deeply shaped by the big things inside us?

Choose a dream from the Dream menu.

Enter a tiny bedroom through a half-sized door.

Lie down on an old cast-iron bed…

And through wireless headphones, you hear the dream of your choice.

You can watch a short video of the work here, and read more here.

Co-created and directed by Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane

Written by Penelope Bartlau

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Through Their Eyes was a theatre-work a collaboration between Director/theatre-maker Penelope Bartlau and writer Sarah Collins. Sarah researched, interviewed and photographed elderly City of Boroondara residents who told their stories of their time living in the area. The performance – which could be best described as documentary meets object puppetry, was a visual interpretation of these stories.

Through Their Eyes was presented over the weekend of November 24th-25th, 2013, for the launch of the new Hawthorn Arts Centre. Watch a clip of the work here.

Creative Team

Director/designer– Penelope Bartlau

Writer/researcher and participant photographer – Sarah Collins

Lighting design – Jason Lehane

Puppeteers/creative collaborators: Bronwyn Kamasz and Caitlyn Barclay

Filmmaker – Lucien Simon

Sound design – James Savage

Artistic associate – Imogen Fargher

Assistant – Georgia Whyte

REVIEWS

“My favourite theatre moment was Through Their Eyes, the show that Sarah Collins developed with Barking Spider Visual Theatre for the newly-renovated Hawthorn Arts Centre (town hall). Sarah interviewed long-term Boroondara residents and let them tell their stories in their own voices. Sometimes writing is listening. With Penelope Bartlau’s delicately simple puppetry, it was a moving and heartfelt work…” - Anne Marie Peard, Sometimes Melbourne, What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 10

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

The Lucian Swift Chronicles is work that combines magic and puppetry with the history of Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station. Set in the abandoned and decaying Flinders Street clock tower, the dust grows thick around a pile of suitcases stored in lost property. As the dust is disturbed, so are memories of Lucian Swift, a magician missing since 1940. His suitcase is stumbled upon by a woman who arrives in the clock tower. She is the right person, at the right place, at the right time. As she unpacks each item belonging to Lucian Swift, the magic within each object begins to transform her. A visual treat, The Lucian Swift Chronicles brings story back into magic.

You can read more about the work here.

Creative Team:

Penelope Bartlau – Director, designer and co-creator

Jo Clyne – Concept design, co-creator & performer

Jem Savage – Sound design

Brendan Jellie – Lighting design

Justine Warner – Miniature designer & maker

Michael Camilleri – Puppet design

Voice Over Artists

Jason Lehane, Brendan Jellie, Penelope Bartlau

Paper Boys

Dashiel Agar, Jac Pizi, Lonan Knapp, Ben Arnett

REVIEWS

“With alchemy akin to ice cream and sprinkles, magician Jo Clyne worked with director Penelope Bartlau and members of Barking Spider to create this captivating show that combines magic with story and sends love back though Melbourne’s history. It’s festival run was short, but let’s hope that we see it again – and how amazing would it be to see it performed in Flinders Street Station.”

Anne Marie Peard, Sometimes Melbourne.

Photos by Sarah Walker.

This project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

Beardo features a number of Victorian Ladies (and one gentleman) with a difference.

Beardo was a performance art piece was created to question gender norms and social expectations. The work was commissioned by Hawthorn Arts Centre Gallery to launch the 2010 art exhibition of the same name (Beardo).

You can watch a short clip of the project here, and read more about it here.

Photos by Sarah Walker

This project was created and first presented on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

The Biscuit Readings were developed and directed by Penelope Bartlau in in collaboration with artist Jason Lehane.

The Biscuit Readings is an indoor and outdoor roving performance, around a vintage tea trolley.

Audience members/punters gather around the trolley of Mr. and Mrs. Bert and Betty Bircher. Whilst enjoying very nice cup of tea from the family’s best china, audience members/punters have their biscuit “read” by Betty Bircher. It’s a bit like Astrology meets Arnotts.

Bert and Betty Bircher are iconic in their polite Australian vernacular and style, with every quirk and idiosyncrasy that a couple of 40 years should have. The Biscuit Readings is as comic as it is heartwarming.

“Biscuitology is one of the most unarguably exacting forms of divination. From your Scotch Finger all the way to your Choc Ripple, nothing defines a person more than their natural biscuit alignment. Australia is growing up: we are entering the New Age with our own, culturally specific divining method. Betty Bircher is a Living National Treasure for her pioneering work in this fascinating field.”

MELANIE BACON, Living Now and Again Magazine.

The Biscuit Readings has been presented live at festivals and events across Australia since 2008, including Melbourne Comedy Festival, Womadelaide, Falls Festival, Mackay Arts Festival and many, many more.

The Biscuit Readings is ongoing - So if you’ve never had your biscuit officially read, please get in touch!

CREATIVE TEAM

Director/designer: Penelope Bartlau

Co-designer/collaborating artist: Jason Lehane

Photographer/videographer: Sarah Walker

You can watch a clip of the work here, and read more about it here.

REVIEW

“If you've been lucky, you may have noticed a crocheted rug, some lace doilies, a tin of biccies and a slightly out-of-place couple at a festival club. If you had a seat and a chat, you'd have discovered that Betty Bircher is an expert in the rare art of Biscuit Reading, and that husband Bert is her greatest supporter.”

AM Peard, Sometimes Melbourne

This project was created and first presented on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.