: : T H E R A B B L E : : | Joan
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Joan

 

Joan raises her hand to the sky. It bursts into flames.

Everywhere there are women burning.

White ash falls.

 

Joan is a teenage girl. A virgin soldier who will convince an army of men that she hears the voice of the divine. She will burn.

A miraculous historical figure, Joan of Arc is young, female, a virgin, illiterate and poor and inevitably predestined for sacrifice. Her body is the site for communal transference – a totemic vessel for a nation’s anxieties and hopes – and for six centuries, an effigy of gendered violence.

Over four acts, THE RABBLE’s homage to France’s medieval heroine traverses Joan’s iconography from kneeling silent-cinematic maiden to pious saint, from immolation to rousing immortal orator.

For over 12 years, Melbourne theatrical mavericks THE RABBLE (Kate Davis and Emma Valente) have radically reimagined and repopulated familiar stories with female voices and aesthetics, pointing at subterranean feminist concepts in folklore, literature and history. JOAN is an extraordinary, prescient and surreal theatrical work enjoying sell-out season at Theatre Works, Wuzhen International Theatre Festival, China and Brisbane Powerhouse.

WARNING: Please be advised that this performance contains the use of smoke made from natural fibers and water based sources, smoking of a herbal cigar, sexual content, and coarse language

 

CO-CREATORS /  Kate Davis and Emma Valente

SET & COSTUME DESIGN / Kate Davis

TEXT, DIRECTION, LX & SFX DESIGN / Emma Valente

AV DESIGN / Martyn Coutts

DRAMATURG / Leisa Shelton

PRODUCTION & STAGE MANAGER / Rebecca Etchell

PRODUCER / Josh Wright

LIGHTING DESIGN PROGRAMMER / John Collopy

COSTUME CONSTRUCTION / Sophie Allen and Armeda Hammonds

PHOTOGRAPHY / David Paterson

 

FEATURING /

Ra Chapman, Emily Milledge, Dana Miltins and Mary Helen Sassman.

The premiere season of JOAN at Theatre Works featured Luisa Hastings Edge and Nikki Shiels.

... about as close to perfection as I’ve seen on a stage.

— Alison Croggon, The Monthly

Damn you, The Rabble. Just when I think I can’t love you any more, you go and make Joan. I felt burnt alive and risen from the ashes.

— Anne-Marie Peard, SOMETIMES MELBOURNE

Wordless for the first three parts, much of this work could comfortably be categorised as dance – story conveyed through studied movement and physical manifestations of emotion and narrative. And yet to call it dance would mask Davis and Valente’s active rejection of voice and language. We have no recorded words from this woman who died illiterate with her throat choked by smoke and her mouth exploding with blisters, judged and silenced by men.

— Jane Howard, The Guardian

WRITING ON JOAN

THE MONTHLY – Alison Croggon

THE GUARDIAN – Jane Howard

THE AUSTRALIAN – Chris Boyd

THE AGE | SYDNEY MORNING HERALD ONLINE – Cameron Woodhead

SOMETIMES MELBOURNE – Anne-Marie Peard

THEATRE PEOPLE – Jai Leeworthy

THE MUSIC – Maxim Boon

TIME OUT – Rose Johnston

THE PLUS ONES – Amber B

STAGE WHISPERS – Suzanne Sandow

STAGE NOISE – Liddy Clark

IN REVIEW RMITV – Neve Mahoney

THEATRE PRESS – Myron My

THE LOWDOWN UNDER – Stephen A Russell

KEITH GOW

RADIO NATIONAL – Georgia Moodie in discussion with THE RABBLE

THE CLOTHESLINE – Michael Coghlan

ADELAIDE REVIEW – David Knight

ARTS HUB – Emma Bedford

PAST PRESENTATIONS

20–30 April, 2017 | Theatre Works (St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia)

27–29 October, 2017 | Ancient Courtyard Theatre, Wuzhen Theatre Festival (China)

19 February, 2018 | APAM (Australian Performing Arts Market) Powerhouse Theatre | Brisbane Powerhouse

17–22 July, 2018 | Vitalstatistix (Port Adelaide)

JOAN premiered at Theatre Works in 2018 with the support of the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, it’s arts funding and advisory body, and the Besen Family Foundation. The project was developed with the support of Hothouse Theatre, Malthouse Theatre with support of the Sidney Myer Foundation, and the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.