The Agile Opera Project was a partnership with Chamber Made, the Australia Council and Federation Square. The project developed collaborative research techniques, produced digital iterations of live performance works, and explored digital platforms to support the production of chamber opera — preserving and extending the quality of intimacy essential to this performance form — in an evolving digital marketplace.
The Agile Opera Project commenced in 2013, with the support of an ARC Linkage Grant. The project aims were to advance a new type of integrated performing arts company by:
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Researching and transforming the intellectual, artistic and social capital of a contemporary performing arts company via a series of interdisciplinary microlabs;
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Researching and developing new physical and virtual platforms for the sustained delivery of chamber opera in the 21st Century, and;
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Discovering new modes of interaction between an Australian contemporary performing arts company and national and international sectors that return value.
Main project outputs
Agile Opera Digital – a comprehensive website of essays, videos, images and other writing. Agile Opera Digital is an online resource for creative arts organisations to discover approaches for adapting live performance to digital and spatial forms and for academics to access research from the Agile Opera Project. The site includes detailed descriptions of the Microlabs, DigiWorks, Agile Chambers exhibition, Agile Recorder and Critical Concepts and Major Essays (Listed below).
Agile Chambers – exhibiting performance research. Agile Chambers was a week-long program (7-10 December, 2016) included Microlabs (interdisciplinary workshops), open labs, performances, presentations and roundtable discussions aimed at exploring digital iterations of Chamber Made performances created during the period of 2013-2016. The concept and program were developed in Microlab Three. The event was designed to expand the existing network of Agile Opera Project participants to include invited guests and members of the public.
Major essays on Agile Digital
Negotiating a shared language of value in the arts
Lawrence Harvey and Louise Godwin
A social science reflection on the built environments of the Chamber Made Opera: From physical place to code
Dr Alexia Maddox
Distributed Opera: new stagings, new roles
Juliana Hodkinson
Agile Chambers exhibition
Some brief notes toward a developmental perspective on the experience of performance in the arts
Greg Hooper
Another Other: 0:00 and 1:24
Sam McGilp
Desperate Measures
David Young
Rhythm of a Year: investigating the sophisticated networks of a small arts organisation
Lawrence Harvey
The Value Chamber: Performance and digital iterations across art, design and education
Agile Opera Team
Mirror Play
Dr Alexia Maddox
The project also supported creative works research:
Permission to Speak
Tamara Saulwick and Kate Neal
Between 8 and 9
Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey
The Digital Platform
Concepts by Sam McGilp; programming and implementation by Pete Brundle and James Sandri (PDA Studios)
2013 – 2018
Key Project Team:
Associate Professor Lawrence Harvey – Lead Chief Investigator
Professor David Forrest – Chief Investigator
Greg More – Chief Investigator
Margaret Trail – Research Associate
Sam McGilp – PhD Candidate
Louise Godwin – Researcher, writer, editor
Tracey Nguyen – Research Assistant
Edward Hubber – Research Assistant
Chamber Made:
Tim Stitz – Creative producer, CEO of Chamber Made
Tamara Saulwick – Artistic Associate
Ekki Veltheim – Artistic Associate
Sarah Kriegler – Artistic Associate
Christie Stott – Artistic Associate
Fed Square Pty Ltd:
Matt Jones
Kendyl Rossi
Australia Council for the Arts:
Mr David Sudmalis
Mr Andrew Donovan
