On any Present Tense work Nathan Gilkes and Bryce Ives may take on the responsibilities of director, writer, music director, composer, curator, arranger, provocateur, designer, teacher and instigator. Present Tense has worked in diverse communities, training institutions, in site-specific work and on surprising and unusual content. Since 2011, Present Tense has presented performance events, theatr
e works and training investigations in Melbourne, Adelaide, Castlemaine, Ballarat, Buninyong, Port Campbell, Bright, the Pilbara, Chicago and Edinburgh. Performances have taken place not only in theatres but in site-specific locations such as historic old gaols, the basement of iconic Melbourne landmark Donkey Wheel House, inside operating radio stations in both Edinburgh and Adelaide, town halls, the Buninyong Gardens, a surf-life saving club in Port Campbell and a jazz club. The content of Present Tense has dealt with everything from re-imagining the music of Madonna and The Whitlams, creating a tribute rock and roll musical about cooking icon Margaret Fulton, investigating the strange loops and codes of J.S. Bach, ongoing collaborations with electric pop music duo The Twoks, working with a scent alchemist to heighten scents in performance, leading a large-scale book reading event with the Royal Children’s Hospital, and a recent work was performed in entire darkness at the Abbotsford Convent as a live aural experience. No two Present Tense works are alike in style, content or aesthetic. Our work ranges from known theatre forms to bold, underground theatre events and beyond the walls of the theatre. Our works are immediate, improvised and impulsive, and include: Chants Des Catacombes a site-specific, macabre immersive music theatre experience for the Castlemaine State Festival and Adelaide Fringe Festival; Margaret Fulton: Queen of the Dessert for Theatre Works, our ongoing pop music feast The Major Bruce Sessions, and FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Underbelly program, Darebin Arts’ Speakeasy program for the Melbourne Comedy Festival and as a site-specific work at Radio Adelaide. In 2015, Present Tense is collaborating with big hART, the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Tasmanian International Arts Festival on devising the music and sounds of Blue Angel, and with the Ballarat Arts Academy and Regional Arts Victoria on a re-imagining of Joan Littlewood’s Oh What a Lovely War as a town-wide series of activations and events, and Ricercar as part of Theatre Works Selected Works. Ongoing training is the cornerstone of our shared practice and the key to developing a mature, complex and responsive collaboration language.
![Bryce Ives has been immersed in gorgeous work at the alkantara [lisboa] Festival in Lisbon, meeting with artists from Po...](https://img3.glartent.com/529/003/1081024815290035.jpg)
