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BAMBUCO creates singular, visually dramatic structures made from bamboo, appearing over some days yet gone the next week, leaving a lasting memory of place and moment. The scale of the work is implausible and the process of building so 'out there' that it becomes both construction and theatre at once. For the passing audience the installation is also experienced at a human scale with the ground and aerial crews rapidly assembling the structure from ten metre lengths of scaffold grade Chinese bamboo, a single length at a time. The intention is always upward, the imagery muscular, architectural. BAMBUCO is the group of artists and climbers brought together by Artistic Director Simon Barley to create unique aerial performance construction events. The company's most recent work was The Ship of Fools for the Third Theatre Olympiad in Moscow 2001. BAMBUCO has a core artistic and management group based in Melbourne, Australia. Construction crews are drawn from many countries. Company members have come from Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Germany, UK and The Philippines, where the first version of ARCH was built in Manila, October 1998, and now Russia also. They have one passion in common - rock climbing. The work is strenuous and mentally demanding so on our rest days most of the crew will be found climbing crags nearby! Construction involves techniques adapted from SE Asian scaffolding and from modern rock climbing; although the work appears dangerous, attention to safety at height is given the highest priority. Once on site we add to this a sense of humour in several languages and a willingness to engage with the audience. A large-scale work like ARCH or DOME takes around two weeks
to build with a crew of nine from Australia and six locally employed climbers. BAMBUCO'S creations are ideal for creating focal events at festivals. More information can be found at www.bambuco.com.au
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