UFO | re:group performance collective
On the putting green at the edge of a regional town, a group of young people have been recruited for a highly confidential and, it turns out, highly dull job: to keep tabs on a grounded UFO.
Sitting still and silent for weeks, the workers are about to call it quits when…
Using an innovative blend of science fiction tropes, live cinema and exquisitely detailed 1:8 miniatures, UFO is a funny, freaky encounter of the third kind from re:group performance collective’s Kirby Medway & Solomon Thomas that we promise you’ve never experienced before.
★★★★ ‘A near perfect mix of format and function’—Time Out Sydney (for re:group performance collective and Coil)
Production History
2020 Performed at The East Sydney Community and Arts Centre as part of BrandX The Flying Nun Season
2022 Performed at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre as part of MERRIGONGX
2023 Performed at Griffin Theatre Company as part of Griffin Lookout
About re:group performance collective
re:group are a group of friends based between Hobart, Wollongong and Sydney. Inspired by the highs and lows of pop culture, we mash theatre and movie-making together to create live cinema. The aim of our work is to turn the typically comfortable, nostalgic and passive movie-going experience into something immersive, irreverent, sweaty and live. We strive to be ironic and sincere in equal measure.
Coil showcases growth in our storytelling capabilities as an experimental independent theatre company. As young artists of a widely considered apathetic ‘Generation Y’ who live vicariously through mass media and technological immediacy, we are passionate about creating innovative work that questions the role and meaning of the arts in contemporary society. The technology is core to the ideas present in the work and is not a prosthetic or aesthetic addition.
Our practice of live cinema is an accessible, energetic, and highly visual medium. Presenting a counter-narrative to on-demand streaming sites, Coil seeks to reinstate and augment the communal cinema-going experience by meshing theatre and film together, live on stage. Woven into Coil is the story of us gradually reducing our ensemble size to continue to be able to make theatre work. It is a reflection on the forces that play upon emerging experimental arts collectives – the friendship and discipline that keeps it together, and the economic austerity and personal experiences that drives it apart. How do you continue to work together when you all live in different cities?