Bron Batten is a Melbourne based theatre- maker, choreographer producer and performer. She is influenced by pop culture and its deeply ingrained role in the way we communicate with each other. Her work contains ironical pastiche and parody, but this belies a tender underbelly and a search for human connection. Bron is inspired by the active exchange of energy that occurs between performer and audience and is also exploring hybrid theatrical forms- particularly those which incorporate the conventions of comedic performance into traditional theatre contexts.
She has trained at tertiary institutions such as Deakin University and most recently at The Victorian College of the Arts, graduating with Post Graduate Diploma in Theatre Making (Animateuring).
Bron has been the co-curator and producer of the performance event The Last Tuesday Society since 2008, which has been presented at several inner city venues and festival clubs, including hosting Tuesday nights at the HiFi Bar and Ballroom for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
The Last Tuesday Society presented Comfort Zones at Witches in Britches Theatre Restaurant as part of the 2010 Next Wave Festival and staged events at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland, This Is Not Art Festival (TINA) in Newcastle, NSW and as part of The Village at The Falls Music Festival in Lorne. In 2011 The Last Tuesday premiered their new project Pimp My Play, presenting Nick Enright’s Black Rock in an abstract vaudeville format with collaborating artists such as Declan Greene and the Sisters Grimm, Poet Laureate Telia Nevile and The List Operators.
Bron was a long time performer and collaborator with the performance project Penny Machinations, staged at the 2008 Chookahs Children’s Festival at The Victorian Arts Centre; 2006 & 2007 Falls Festivals; 2006 & 2007 The Village; 2005 & 2006 Melbourne Fringe – Winner- Outstanding Special Event award 2005.
She co-devised and performed the physical theatre work We Could Live Here (with Karina Smith) for the 2008 Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe Festivals and devised the piece I want to dance with somebody for the 2008 Next Wave Festival’s Nightclub Project, which was the concluding work for the entire festival.
Bron was a collaborator and performer in Interior Theatre’s Last Drinks for the 2008 Short and Sweet Independent Companies season at The Victorian Arts Centre, winning the award for Best Comedy Writing.
Bron was the Production Manager and Artist Liaison for The Village Festival at the 2008/9 Marion Bay Falls Festival in Tasmania and currently co-curates the annual Lorne Falls Festival program with artistic director Ian Pidd.
Bron also premiered her long awaited solo work Welcome to the Jungle at the 2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival to critical acclaim, a mixture of stand up, storytelling, dance and visual theatre.
Bron devised the work You don’t stand a chance if you don’t move now for the 2010 Next Wave Festival’s keynote piece The Sports Club Project, in collaboration with St Martin’s Youth Theatre. She was also a performer in the national premiere of The Sister’s Grimm play The Rimming Club, staged at the 2010 TINA Festival.
In 2010 Bron was awarded funding through the Ian Potter Foundation to attend the Twenty Second International Society of Humour Studies Conference at the City University of Hong Kong and The Tenth International Summer School and Symposium on Humour and Laughter at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. She also received a 2010 Artstart grant from the Australia Council for recent arts graduates.
She choreographed and performed in film clip for singer/songwriter Darren Hanlon’s All These Things, selected as one of Rage’s top 50 film clips of 2010.
In 2011 Bron was a performer in Polyglot Theatre’s 10th anniversary production of We Built This City at The Victorian Arts Centre.
In february 2011 she presented a paper entitled ‘Entertainment is Not a Dirty Word: The Amalgamation of Comedy and Theatre in Contemporary Australian Performance’ at The Australasian Humour Studies Network’s annual meeting in Hobart, which attempted to investigate the murky middle ground between comedy and art.
Bron was also also a performer in the durational installation performance Dance Marathon at Melbourne’s Dance Massive Festival. Dance Marathon was an international collaboration between Canadian company Blue Tongue and North Melbourne’s Meat Market.
She recently produced and performed in Zoe Coombs Marr’s ‘And That Was The Summer That Changed My Life’ at The Melbourne International Comedy Festival where it was nominated for the Best Newcomer award.
Bron was selected as one of 15 artists in a nationwide callout to participate in the Splendid Arts Lab residency, collaboratively conceptualising installation work for the 2012 Splendour in the Grass Festival.
She recently choreographed a contemporary Rock Eisteddfod for The Bedroom Philosopher’s High School Assembly show at The Thornbury Theatre themed ‘The War in Afghanistan‘ which will be restaged at The Forum as part of the 2012 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
She is also the co-producer of the vocal ensemble Choir Straits with composer Edward Gould. They have performed at the 2010 Next Wave Festival, The Melbourne International Comedy Festival, The Melbourne International Jazz Festival, as part of the Arts House performance event Hot August Night at The Meat Market and at The Northcote Social Club supporting The Bedroom Philosopher.
Bron has taught improvisation at St Martin’s Youth Theatre and is a theatre reviewer for Australian Stage and Arts Hub.
She developed the performance work Sweet Child of Mine. in collaboration with her parents for the for the 2011 Melbourne Fringe Festival where it won the award for Best Experimental Performance. It will be presented in Sydney in june 2012 as part of PACT’s Tiny Stadiums Festival.
Bron recently received funding from The Australia Council for the Arts and The Ian Potter Cultural Trust to undertake professional development residencies and improvisation training in New York and Chicago from January to May 2012.
