STEPHEN BAIN
live performance maker
Gallery
THE DRIFTING ROOM
2020 - 23
The Drifting Room is a mobile performance, an intimate tour of the city’s real and fictional landmarks for the participants inside. Walking together, they share a common identity, collaborating to manoeuvre the structure and observe the city. Yet for the passers-by, the theatre is a parody, too small to be taken seriously, passing through prime real estate untroubled by the normative rules and laws of public space.
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Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design & Space 2023 (Czech Republic)
Whangarei Fringe Festival 2022 (Whangarei)
Urban Walking Festival 2022 (Tamaki Makaurau/ Auckland )
Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival 2021 (Hamilton)
NOWHERE festival of Adventurous Sounds 2020 (Tamaki Makaurau)
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THE FLOATING THEATRE
2017 - 2023
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A purpose-built, fully operational theatre for an intimate audience of 30 people at a time, afloat on Whairepo Lagoon. The performers have adapted to this curiously restrictive environment with a banquet of theatre illusions that distract the audience from the one thing they seek: themselves. Meanwhile on the shore, The Floating Theatre presents a spectacle of its own to the lagoon and all those who come across it.
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Auckland Fringe Festival 2017 (Auckland, NZ) - WINNER
Best Production Design Overall, Auckland Arts Festival Award, Best Musical Score
Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival 2017 (Hamilton, NZ)
Performance Arcade 2023 (Wellington, NZ)
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NULL ISLAND PERFORMANCES
2021 - 2023
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Null Island is an experimental series of performances combining film, sound and language-based arts presented at the Old Folks Ass Hall in Newton, Auckland. Curated by Stephen Bain, with collaborations from multimedia artists. Website here
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Welcome to Null Island - Sept 2023 (Old Folks Ass)
3 Lane Self-Checkout - Dec 2022 (Old Folks Ass)
Mindset Shipping - Aug 2022 (Pyramid Club, Wellington, NZ)
Re-enactments & Rewrites - May 2022 (Old Folks Ass)
Broadcast en plein air - Feb 2022 (Gundry St., outside Old Folks Ass)
Public Intimacy - July 2021 (Old Folks Ass)
Phantom Feelings - June 2021 (Old Folks Ass)
DIY LIFE
February 12, 2016
A DIY Performance
Do-It-Yourself with the knowledge that you are becoming a better human. It’s fun, it’s easy, it will make you money. No experience necessary, no prior use of power tools required.
‪#‎DIYfriendships‬, ‪#‎DIYpositivechange‬, ‪#‎DIYperformance‬,‪#‎DIYdebtavoidance‬, ‪#‎DIYreligion‬
Somewhere Series #5 - Cross St, Auckland
Te Uru Gallery, Titirangi, Auckland - They Come From Far Away - Feb 2016
THIS MEANS YOU
August 31, 2014
Created & performed as part of the Taipei Artist Village residency, Taiwan.
This Means You is a camouflage performance on the margins of certainty. A temporary structure unearths a fragile persona who teeters on being and not-quite-being with an urgent message to share.
Also performed at -
Turku New Performance Festival, FINLAND
They Come from Far Away, Te Uru Gallery, Auckland
Massey University Campus, Palmerston North
Meyers Park, Auckland
A video installation accompanies the performance, shot entirely in Taipei, it charts numerous sponteneous performances in and around the city.
HD 23mins
M&A - Senneby+Goldin
September 30, 2013
Goldin+Senneby have been working concurrently with New Zealand’s playwright Jo Randerson, who has been scripting a speculative scene for the gallery. The actor, Stephen Bain, will be rehearsing the script on a daily basis. The theatrical production is entirely dependent on the speculations’ financial performance. The rehearsals will continue as long as the trading budget lasts.
The project speculates on a variety of issues like the precariousness of labour in conjunction to the variations in funding both from private and public sources. It problematizes the relationship between the world of art and that of finance, against the backdrop of globalization and its local consequences.
Artspace
The Long White Cloud - William Pope L.
August 02, 2013
Performer for William Pope L. installation film The Long White Cloud
August 2013
BABY, WHERE ARE THE FINE THINGS YOU PROMISED ME?
2007 - 2011
Baby, where are the fine things you promised me? gently invites the public to reflect on the lost utopia of the quarter-acre block. Based on one of the country's earliest models for simple houses for the working class, Baby where...? is somewhere between installation and street performance. The house changes location every day, mysteriously appearing in the city's financial district one day and on the waterfront the next. Curious visitors are amazed to discover that the house is occupied ship-in-a-bottle style by a man who plays music, cooks or shares a cup of tea with passers-by.
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Touring highlights
The Living Room - Festival of public art COMMISSIONED 2007 (Auckland, NZ)
Christchurch Arts Festival 2007 (Christchurch, NZ)
Awesome Festival 2007 (Perth, AUS )
Noordizon Festival 2008 (Groningen, NL)
Singapore Museum Nights 2008
 (Singapore, SG)
TAZ 2008
 (Ostende, BE)
Hasselt Festival 2008 (Hasselt, BE)
10 Days on the Island 2009 (Tasmania, AUS)
Boulevard Festival 2009 (Den Bosch, NL)
Ghent Fest 2009 (Ghent, BE)
Les Tombee de la Nuit 2009 (Rennes, FR)
Oerol Festival 2009 (Terschelling, NL)
Small is Beautiful 2010 (Marseille, FR)
Summer nights at the Kröller-Müller 2010 (NL)
Cactusfestival 2010 (Brugges, BE)
National Theatre Watch This Space 2010 (London, UK)
Norfolk & Norwich Arts Festival 2010 (Norwich, UK)
Les Escales Improbables 2011 (Montréal, CAN)
Mulhouse 2011 (FR)
Namur en Mai 2011 (Namur, BE)
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