Pin Drop single work   drama  
Issue Details: First known date: 2010... 2010 Pin Drop
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The stranger breathing down the phone, the thump on the roof in the dead of the night, the danger lurking in the unlit street. Part documentary, part art-house thriller, Saulwick's interdisciplinary work, Pin Drop, explores the phenomenon of fear in our day-to-day lives, and its impact on how we choose to live. Built around a series of audio recordings from one-on-one interviews, Pin Drop is told through twelve voices: one live, eleven pre-recorded. The solo performer is not alone in what becomes a seemingly 'peopled' environment...'

Source: Artshouse website, www.melbourne,vic.gov.au/ArtsHouse (sighted 31/08/2010)

Production Details

  • First produced by Arts House and Tamara Saulwick at the Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall, North Melbourne, Victoria, 25 August, 2010.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Performing Technical Innovation : The Pioneering Audio Work of Tamara Saulwick Miles O'Neil , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , October no. 75 2019; (p. 182-206)

'With Pin Drop, Saulwick cemented her reputation as an acclaimed performance-maker, creating sound-centred works across a variety of mediums - live performance (Pin Drop 2010, PUBLIC 2013, Endings 2015, Permission to Speak 2016); installation (Alter 2014); and audio walks (The Archives Project 2016) - all of which utilise dramaturgies of sound as a key creative feature in both their development and final production. Reviewers particularly noted Saulwick's ability to 'call up your memories of fear or threat',4 making 'the hairs on the back of your neck stand up'5 in 'a tour de force of fear'.6 It was a one-woman performance piece, created collaboratively between Saulwick and Knight and performed by Saulwick herself, supported sonically by a combination of live voice, pre-recorded voices, and live and pre-recorded sounds. Saulwick constructed part of the sound design through the manipulation of objects positioned in close proximity to two microphones and then further manipulated through different sonic processing tools by Knight, who was situated behind the audience at the operator desk. If performance is a summoning of other worlds, as Marvin Carlson has famously asserted,9 both real and imaginary, and for Saulwick, perhaps also worlds of spiritual and deathly import, then Saulwick needs to be understood as part of a neo-Gothic revival.10 Saulwick's mysterious and transfixing sonic innovations challenge orthodox ideas of the single voice in theatre and go far beyond English constructions of the received theatrical voice and the emphasis on the actress who can project up into the gods in the service of a conventional playtext.' (Publication abstract)

Untitled Cameron Woodhead , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 30 July 2011; (p. 24)

— Review of Pin Drop 2010 single work drama
Pin Drop Richard Watts , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: ArtsHub , July 2011;

— Review of Pin Drop 2010 single work drama

'MALTHOUSE: A sudden noise that wakes you in the night. A shadowy movement glimpsed down a darkened alley. A visceral, theatrical exploration of fear.'

Untitled Cameron Woodhead , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 30 July 2011; (p. 24)

— Review of Pin Drop 2010 single work drama
Pin Drop Richard Watts , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: ArtsHub , July 2011;

— Review of Pin Drop 2010 single work drama

'MALTHOUSE: A sudden noise that wakes you in the night. A shadowy movement glimpsed down a darkened alley. A visceral, theatrical exploration of fear.'

Performing Technical Innovation : The Pioneering Audio Work of Tamara Saulwick Miles O'Neil , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , October no. 75 2019; (p. 182-206)

'With Pin Drop, Saulwick cemented her reputation as an acclaimed performance-maker, creating sound-centred works across a variety of mediums - live performance (Pin Drop 2010, PUBLIC 2013, Endings 2015, Permission to Speak 2016); installation (Alter 2014); and audio walks (The Archives Project 2016) - all of which utilise dramaturgies of sound as a key creative feature in both their development and final production. Reviewers particularly noted Saulwick's ability to 'call up your memories of fear or threat',4 making 'the hairs on the back of your neck stand up'5 in 'a tour de force of fear'.6 It was a one-woman performance piece, created collaboratively between Saulwick and Knight and performed by Saulwick herself, supported sonically by a combination of live voice, pre-recorded voices, and live and pre-recorded sounds. Saulwick constructed part of the sound design through the manipulation of objects positioned in close proximity to two microphones and then further manipulated through different sonic processing tools by Knight, who was situated behind the audience at the operator desk. If performance is a summoning of other worlds, as Marvin Carlson has famously asserted,9 both real and imaginary, and for Saulwick, perhaps also worlds of spiritual and deathly import, then Saulwick needs to be understood as part of a neo-Gothic revival.10 Saulwick's mysterious and transfixing sonic innovations challenge orthodox ideas of the single voice in theatre and go far beyond English constructions of the received theatrical voice and the emphasis on the actress who can project up into the gods in the service of a conventional playtext.' (Publication abstract)

Last amended 7 Sep 2010 14:28:34
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