A sudden noise that jolts you awake. A shadowy movement lurching down a darkened street. The sudden chilling certainty that there is someone else in the room with you. Breathing. Waiting.

It’s an instinctive response rooted deep in our most primitive selves: the fear of the unknown that quickens the pulse and prickles the hairs on the back of your neck. But there’s one thing that makes our simple, animal terror loom so much larger than life than a simple flight or fight response – the human imagination.

Pin Drop is an experience that will sharpen your sense to a razor’s edge. Tapping into primal urges and subconscious anxieties, this immersive experience fixes itself in the memory in a way theatre can rarely accomplish.

Household objects are transformed – a kitchen knife or a pair of scissors left lying on a table abruptly takes on an aura of potential violence. Every sound – your own breath, the pounding of blood in your ears – becomes the menacing thud of a footfall behind you.

The most familiar of spaces become strange again, as the tension of what could be out there stretches every moment, and the mind thinks only of the shortest route to a window or the safest place to hide.

Creator and performer Tamara Saulwick draws on theatre, sound art, movement and innovative design to execute this intricately crafter performance, which shifts from the vast formless void of an unlit midnight to the minute intensity of the smallest object that, might spell escape.

Drawing on a range of interviews with people from six to 92 years of age, Pin Drop explores the most private of experiences – fear – while reminding us of its shared universal nature. Live voice intermingles with the disembodied sounds of these pre-recorded conversations, creating a dialogue across time that is both comforting and uncanny.

When Pin Drop premiered at City of Melbourne’s Arts House in 2010, reviewers and audiences alike were left breathless. Four Green Room Award nominations resulted, and now audiences ones again have the chance to step into the darkness.

WINNER: 2010 GREEN ROOM AWARD, OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION (ALTERNATIVE AND HYBRID PERFORMANCE)

Created and Performed by Tamara Saulwick
Composer & Sound Designer Peter Knight
Movement Michelle Heaven
Set & Lighting Designers Bluebottle - Ben Cobham & Frog Peck
Costume Designer Harriet Oxley

Toured by Performing Lines for Mobile States, with the support of the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and through the national performing arts touring program, Playing Australia.

Event details
Dates:    Friday, 27 Jul 2012 - Saturday, 28 Jul 2012
Times:    7:30pm

50 mins, no interval
Venue:    The Theatre, Centre of Contemporary Arts
Program: Centre of Contemporary Arts
Genre:    Theatre
Tickets: Adult $29, Concession $24

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