You guys should know how much of an impact you had on my kids and the skatepark. Thank you for an amazing experience, it was awesome! I hope you all keep inspiring kids and give more and more of them a chance to express themselves and be free – The world needs more people like you guys.
– Parent of Frankie in Whyalla, a young girl who took the week off school to take part (with her mum’s OK!)
Circus for the fearless, the urban. A beautiful portrait of human defiance, of connection, of adrenalin.
–Augusta Supple, Australian Stage
Branch Nebula brings their breath-taking anarchic street style performance to the local skate park. The Snake Sessions crew infiltrates the skate park for a whole week, jamming moves and tricks with the locals, and building up for a spectacular improvised performance at the end. With a live drummer driving the action, bodies and wheels collide, race each other, and blur into one.
Branch Nebula and their professional skaters, BMX riders, dancers and parkourists have wowed audiences from Sydney Festival to Hong Kong, Finland and Chile.
Snake Sessions brings an audience to a skate park to share an experience of urban culture as a powerfully dramatic and artistic experience, and a celebration of its virtuosity and inventiveness.
With Snake Sessions Branch Nebula builds a performance that responds to who is in the space, the elements and challenges of each skate park; enjoying the rapport that can develop through shared physical activity and each individual’s highly specialized skill. The specific training of the street-style artists enables them to perform with acute responsiveness to the site, the local skate park users and the musician. The work is spontaneous, capturing the spirit of what street-styles are all about, anarchic, inter-generational, fun, inspiring and created in the moment.
This is site-specificity of the most immediate kind, a visceral connection to a place of play, not its social role or its history, in a display of what is often regarded as fun but here as art without losing the integrity of its popular foundations.
–Keith Gallasch, RealTime
performers/collaborating artists
Danny Campbell (BMX)
Antek Marciniec (parkour)
Marnie Palomares (dancer)
Kathryn Puie (dancer)
Kat Williams (skater)
Noah Fuzzi (skater, Nowra season)
Adam Haydek (skater, Dubbo season)
Roland Chlouk (skater, Dubbo season)
Taree Sansbury (dancer, Dubbo season)
co-creators
Lee Wilson
Mirabelle Wouters
musician/percussionist
Robbie Avenaim (Nowra season)
Aaron Clarke (Dubbo Season)
John Irish (2017-2019 National Tour)
opening season produced by
Regina Heilmann for Bundanon Trust
further seasons produced by
Harley Stumm
for Intimate Spectacle
A piece of experimental / contemporary dance using non-dancers and dancers just appearing in a skate park was pretty special… It was a privilege to have witnessed it in three different locations. I learnt a lot about process and making space for engagement to occur on people’s own terms. It was a very liberating experience to witness.
– Steve Mayhew, Creative Producer, Country Arts SA
Trailer
Tour Dates
Nowra, NSW
Fri and Sat 15-16 April 2016
Dubbo, NSW
Fri and Sat 28-29 October 2016
Mandurah, WA
Sat 4 March 2017
Adelaide, SA
Sat 11 March 2017
Whyalla, SA
Sat 18 March 2017
Bordertown, SA
Sat 25 March 2017
Warrnambool, VIC
Sat 1 April 2017
Gold Coast, QLD
Sat 8 April 2017
Brisbane, QLD
Wed 21 February 2018
Wagga Wagga, NSW
Sat 21 May 2018
Griffith, NSW
Sat 15 September 2018
Sunshine Coast, QLD
Sat 31 August 2019
Snake sessions started as a Critical Path Research Residency and was then commissioned by Bundanon Trust to premier in April 2016, with the support of ArtsNSW. The Snake Sessions 2017 tour has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
