AustLit

'As we hurtle toward the next Federal election, version 1.0 explores the realm of the minor parties in Australia. What is important to us today, and who really represents us in the political world? Using the Australian Sex Party as a launching pad for an investigation of civil liberties in Australia today, version 1.0 asks the question - who is in charge of my body? Marriage equality, voluntary euthanasia, abortion, censorship, sex education and the separation of church and state are put under version 1.0's theatrical microscope.

100 years after Canberra was founded to become a ‘city bearing a resemblance to the city beautiful of our dreams,’ version 1.0 asks if the nation’s capital has lived up to its mantle.

Densely interweaving irreverent hilarity and sobering seriousness, The Major Minor Party is a wild and eye-opening ride through the Australian political landscape.' (Source: http://www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au/site/what-is-on.php?task=detail&id=0406)

'On 29 July 2009, a 14-year-old girl was given an on-air lie detector test on a live Sydney radio program. Clearly agitated, the girl announced that she had been raped when she was 12. This infamous incident has been used to examine changes in the way young people engage with sex and sexuality. The rapid advances in communications technology, the proliferation of pornography and the depiction of sexuality as power are changing young people's attitudes to sex. How do young people negotiate these conflicting messages?

'In a social media-saturated performance space, The Tender Age examines the contradictions in the way society educates young people about sexuality, and the ways in which young people themselves negotiate relationships framed by social technologies. Devised and performed by a mixed ensemble of artists from version 1.0 and the Australian Theatre for Young People, The Tender Age is eye-opening, gut-wrenching, and utterly compelling theatre.'

Source: Carriageworks website, http://www.carriageworks.com.au/
Sighted: 14/08/2012

'On December 5th 2006, officers of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) raided the administration building of Wollongong City Council, forcing staff to vacate their posts, sealing a floor of the building and leaving hours later with boxes of documents, files, and computer hard drives. This was the first indication the community of Wollongong had of 'Operation Atlas', the ICAC investigation into allegations of corruption involving local developers, Councillors and former staff of Wollongong City Council.

The resulting scandal had reverberations far beyond expectations and culminated in the sacking of the entire Council. ICAC exposed sexual obsessions, envelopes full of cash, and a group of powerful men that met regularly outside a local kebab shop, at a plastic table they called "the table of knowledge".

When news broke of these events, Merrigong, as Wollongong's local theatre company, considered how best to respond to a story that has deeply affected our town and region. To this end, we approached the acclaimed Sydney-based company, version 1.0 to co-produce an original theatre work. The result is a frank, theatrically innovative, and at times moving account of the Inquiry and its subsequent fallout, with the script almost entirely provided by the actual words of the central characters, as recorded in the Inquiry transcripts.

In a year that will see the return of an elected Council for the city of Wollongong, come and participate in a dynamic theatrical dialogue about corruption, power and democracy.' Source: www.merrigong.com.au (Sighted 02/09/2011).

'In 2007 it began. "Toxic debts" caused "credit crunches" requiring "massive bailouts". Governments gave us "decisive action" and "stimulus packages". It was an emergency - we needed to spend our way out of trouble. The system was to blame. Corporate greed was to blame. Irresponsible lending practices were to blame. A few rotten apples were to blame. Capitalism was to blame. No one was to blame.

'A time of prosperity came crashing to a halt, and as ordinary citizens, none of us really understood why. Two acclaimed performance groups, version 1.0 and post, have set out to find the answer. Two teams of extreme economic non-experts have boldly tackled what few could ever comprehend - the Global Financial Crisis.'

Source: version 1.0 website, http://www.versiononepointzero.com/
Sighted: 09/11/2010

'A new performance work about human behaviour, gender, power, and violence. This Kind of Ruckus explores the making and wrecking of relationships, patterns of control, and cycles of abuse.

'Version 1.0 turn their trademark subversive style of theatre-making and sharp satirical wit to investigating the underside of domestic-bliss. Relationship counselling, dysfunctional gendered roles and cute cuddly toys offered as inadequate apologies are blended with commentary on the recent high profile sexual assault scandals involving rugby league players to create a confronting, unsettling and deeply compelling performance.'

Source: Carriageworks website, http://www.carriageworks.com.au/

Sighted: 15/09/2009

'Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue' is based on the report of the 2006 'Inquiry into certain Australian companies in relation to the UN Oil-For-Food Programme' commonly referred to as the 'Cole Inquiry'. The Inquiry investigated 'whether decisions, actions, conduct or payments by Australian companies mentioned in the Volcker Inquiry into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme breached any [Australian] Federal, State or Territory law'.

'The Bougainville Photoplay Project:

'A slideshow with fireside chat:
1. An eminent Australian orthopedic surgeon makes a series of trips to Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) during the 1960s, just as the era of Australia's colonial mandate is drawing to a close. The doctor is presented with dozens of crippled children and lepers; his operations allow many of these people to walk for the first time.
2. The giant Panguna copper mine is established against the wishes of Bougainville's traditional landowners. Environmental destruction is caused by the mine, and the struggle for Bougainville to become independent of PNG leads to a brutal civil war during which roughly one in ten of the island's inhabitants die.
3. An Australian academic begins fieldwork study of reconciliation ceremonies on Bougainville in the current period of post-war reconstruction. He carries with him a book of photographs.

'Three narrative threads are delicately interwoven in an intimate, moving, and constantly surprising monologue performance from acclaimed performance group version 1.0. Combining field notes, oral history, slides, Super-8 film, video installation and the display of various artifacts, "The Bougainville Photoplay Project" grapples with the ethical, epistemological and practical dilemmas of making art and conducting research in post-colonial, post-conflict settings, particularly when the artist/researcher is a citizen of the former colonial power. This is politics and performance at its most personal.'

Source: version 1.0 website, http://www.versiononepointzero.com/
Sighted: 09/11/2010