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Director and Performance Designer Sam Trubridge talks about the acclaimed programme of works that he presented in New York earlier this year on his Fulbright New Zealand Travel Award, including his own art-science collaboration, SLEEP/WAKE. As an export from a different time-zone, from a distant land of fantasy film-making and scenic wonder, this project worked at revealing insights from the edges of the world – startling perspectives from the outside looking in that reveal as much about American culture as they do about New Zealand.
About SLEEP/WAKE
This award-winning highlight of the New Zealand New Performance Festival uses science and performance to peel back the layers of consciousness on stage. Critics have praised the stunning visuals, choreography, and composition of this work – which features moving walls, projection, somnographic machinery, beautiful lighting, and many surprises. Through the languages of movement, image, and science a unique journey begins: into the unknown territory of sleep, where we spend one third of our lives.
About Sam Trubridge
Sam Trubridge has created performance art and theatre works for venues and events in New Zealand, Czech Republic, Spain, Brazil, Italy, UK, The Bahamas, and the USA. This includes The Restaurant of Many Orders (London, Wellington, Florence, Prato, Rome) and with sleep scientist Philippa Gander Sleep/Wake (Wellington, Auckland, New York). In 2010 he extended this collaboration with The Waking Incubator: a trans-disciplinary symposium with arts practitioners and sleep scientists. He is associate editor (Oceania) for World Scenography, a survey of performance design from 1975-2015. Until recently he lectured in Performance Design and Spatial Design at Massey University (NZ) and programmed Massey’s Print Factory Performance Laboratory. He currently directs the annual Performance Arcade on Wellington Waterfront and is studying toward a Phd in Creative Practises at Massey University.