JOANNA DUDLEY

No expectation can prepare you for the performance of Joanna Dudley. She has created a creature as riveting as anything I’ve seen on stage. Her singing and vocalisation — yelps, throat stops and growls, often distorted into something akin to a theremin — is extraordinary, her conveyance of emotion piercing.

The Australian

Joanna Dudley works internationally as a director, performer and singer creating performance, choreography and installation. She studied music at the Adelaide Conservatorium, Australia and the Sweelinck Conservatorium, The Netherlands. She also studied traditional Japanese music in Tokyo and traditional dance and music in Java.

Joanna has collaborated with the visual artist William Kentridge for the past seven years as a co-creator, singer and performer. Works include the performance Refuse the Hour, produced by the Holland and Avignon Festivals which toured internationally for six years. Paper Music premiered at Carnegie Hall New York and has been touring for five years now appearing at major venues and festivals such as ArtBasel, Paris Philharmonie, MartinGropius Bau Berlin and Holland Festival. Kentridge invited Joanna to create a solo role for his production of Lulu for the Metropolitan Opera New York, English National Opera and Dutch National Opera. Together they co-created and Joanna performed The Guided Tour of the Exhibition: for Soprano and Handbag for the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin and has been shown at major venues throughout the world including the Louisianna Museum, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. Joanna developed her soloist role alongside William Kentridge for his ensemble piece The Head and the Load. She is a featured performer in the original cast that co-created and performed the large scale piece originally commissioned by MASS MoCA, 14-18 NOW for the Turbine Hall at the TATE Modern, The Ruhrtriennale and the Park Avenue Armoury New York.

Joanna worked as a guest director and performer at Berlin’s Schaubuehne. Works created there include My Dearest, My Fairest with Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola and colours may fade with Esnaola and Rufus Didwiszus. Other works in collaboration with Didwiszus include the solo performance, The Scorpionfish, Who Killed Cock Robin? with the Flemish vocal ensemble Capilla Flamenca and LOUIS & BEBE with the noise musician SchneiderTM. Joanna’s sound installation Tom’s Song for 32 music boxes and 16 LP players has given regular appearances at major art festivals.

Other collaborators include Seiji Ozawa, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Thomas Ostermeier. For more, visit Joanna's Vimeo Channel.