Alicia Belle

THE AVIARY

The Aviary is an investigation of memory as a simulacrum: the notion that memory is reconstructive, simulatory, and slippery. The concept of the performance arrived to the artist in the event of a departure, and is a meditation on the following transmutative process:

Moment (event experienced) —[converting to]—> Memory (event passed) —[converting to]—> Myth (merging with other memories, symbols, and mythemes in the mind space).

As such, the production depicts the widest possible subjective access to past time. Repetitious choreography, suspended motifs, a droning soundscape and indeterminable monologue collage. In the landscape of The Aviary, matter accumulates or exchanges, rather than passes, dislocating the audience from a mode of reading that is unanimous, sequential, or progressional. The primary image (and perimeter) of the performance is a 9-square, rectangular grid structure: an intentionally flattened synthesis of space and time. Confined to this domain, performers are mediators through which memory becomes material (both physical and metaphysical). Observational of (but not entirely separated from) this idiosyncratic system, the audience is encouraged to observe the work intuitively, thus exciting their capacity to meditate on memories, or conjure myth by reading the gestures and scenography as mythemes. The Aivary choreographically and sonically references the artist’s first production of 2025, Copoiesis (performed on the 19th June 2025); a meditation on Bracha Ettinger’s Matrixial Border-space theory, destabilisation of self-identity and eros. 

WORKSHOP Collective

Most integral to the formation of these productions has been the artist’s ongoing collaboration with members of WORKSHOP, an experimental theatre collective operating in Naarm. The collaboration formalised in March 2025, when the artist began facilitating bi-weekly movement sessions, production rehearsals, and reflections. The group fundamentally meditates on Bewegung: a German translation which transmutes ‘motion’ to emotion– noting that movement is always effectual, and instigated from the ‘soul’. Collaboration, improvisation, and experimentation are integral to the collective and inform the artist’s ongoing practice-led research methodology. The exchanges and shapes that emerge from the repeated improvisation sessions are consolidated through documentation and discussion, and inform productions. In 2026, the collective will continue developing their performance-as-research methodology in a shared studio; collaboratively transposing and ordering findings from the workshops to formulate matrices for new performances. Deepest appreciation is extended to the performers and core members of 2025 (alphabetically ordered): Angelina Innocent, Ashley Jaksch, Cohen Saunders, Dharani Kommalapati, Dougal Campion, Isabelle Browne, Isabella Pihas, Minnie Nancarrow, Sophie Halbert, Thomas O’Brian, Yvonne Rambeau, and Zoe Pietrzniak. Special thanks to Izzy Grigorian and Augusta Bandelli for their musical contributions, to Isabelle Browne for Costume production, and Yvonne Rambeau for Scenographic production. 

Alicia Belle is an interdisciplinary performance artist based in Naarm, Australia. Oscillating between sound, movement, writing, and theatre, Alicia’s work mediates memory, absence, and the ambiguous relationship between fact and fiction. Alicia has performed, exhibited, and been published in London, UK and across Australia. She has curated and hosted a range of experimental sound events, written and directed plays.  Her most recent works include; an experimental sound performance at Granary Square, supported by UAL [Jul 2025, London] and Copoiesis: a test play [Jun 2025, Melbourne].

Contact:

aliciabellex@gmail.com

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