Nocturna

Brothers Daniel and Jordan Askill and childhood friend Adam Linder share an aesthetic sensibility developed in a decade-long conversation while growing up together in Sydney, Australia. After a long period working as informal collaborators, their first major project together, commissioned by the Sydney Dance Company was a piece on show this past spring, entitled Are We That We Are, choreographed and performed by Adam with costume design by Jordan. "We used neutral, tight-fitting base costumes that allowed the audience to follow the performers’ movements whilst giving the characters a sensual allure," says Jordan. "They wore headdresses with bells, trinkets, flowers and chains to represent these heightened states of mind."

On the night after the final performance, the three men and friend Anne Ryan took to the streets to create a film tableau, drawn from Adam's performance – "a strange little nocturnal world of bodies and light," according to Daniel. "The shoot was me with a digital SLR and Adam, Jordan and Anne spasming, convulsing and running in the darkness with hand-held strobe flashes." As if members of a tribe partaking in a bacchanal ceremony, the dancers wore headdresses covered in hundreds of bells, designed to convey the physical sensation of their ecstasy pulsating from their minds through their bodies. "The costumes created a texture in this fast-paced nocturnal interlude and helped the viewer visually understand the mindset of the characters," says Jordan. All before morning came and the reverie subsided.

Credits
Film Direction: Daniel Askill
Costumes: Jordan Askill
Movement: Adam linder
Featuring: Anne Ryan, Adam Linder
Music: Adapted from Steve Reich's Piano Phase
Special Thanks To: Rafael Bonachela, The Sydney Dance Company
and George Macpherson at Starworks.