Body the body

Body the body is the grand opening of the 2024 Audible Edge Festival of Exploratory Music. Somewhere between the experimental music concert and the club, it celebrates the full spectrum of what Audible Edge hopes to be: a safe place for all to experience joy and get silly at the edge of what’s sonically possible. Starting with a Welcome to Country and concert-style performances, the night gradually gives way to dancing, communion and experimental physical performance. The centrepiece of the show is our Audible Edge commission for this year, Myriad Sun in the Block Universe. A four-sided screen made of cold fog allows a gaze into a parallel-universe-Walyalup manifested by wildcard visual designer Tom Rogers. Inside the Block, the band performs new, recent and improvised material which references noise music, rap and footwork. Before that, Daniel Garlett will welcome us to Country with one of his powerful didgeridoo performances. Crash hot percussionist Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, visiting from Meanjin, plays new composition “Thought Sectors” by Sarah Hennies. Committed to minimalism and repetition, Hennies’ work explores queer & trans identity, psychoacoustics and the neurology of creativity. This is followed by a live electronic set from Manila-based Joee Mejias, whose work explores the edge of pop music, making oozy, amorphous songs and ambient experiments. The rest of the night is soundtracked by Wayang, Lia T & Rok Riley, experienced DJs well-known in the underground club scene. At midnight, physical performances by drag and movement artists Bobby Russell, Jxnior and Miss Phoria explore mental health and queer embodiment with playful and experimental sound tracks. This is hosted within a world of fabric and light designed by Desmond Tan and Adelaide Harney. Softening the industrial surrounds of PS, they’ll gently hold our embodied explorations together. Accessibility: PS Art Space is a wheelchair accessible venue at street level from the pavement. It has one women’s bathroom and one gender-neutral, wheelchair accessible bathroom located on the ground floor. The music will have moments where it is very loud, repetitive, percussive or highly stimulating, increasingly so towards the later parts of the evening. Alcohol will be served at the venue. The venue is large, and the front door will be kept open for the duration of the performance, but there are no windows for ventilation in the main gallery. The centre of the area, and the bar, may be very crowded at times. A fog machine will be used for some of the performances. Projections and lights will be used which may be bright at times (no flashing lights or strobes will be used; performers using projections have been briefed on access considerations for photosensitive epilepsy). Two “rave aunties” will be present in the space to provide water and other assistance if required. There is no dedicated check-out space booked for the space currently.

22 Packenham Street, Fremantle