Hello My Name Is

Following her participation in Vitalstatistix’ Adhocracy program, Nicola Gunn and her theatre company Sans Hotel have returned to Adelaide to present Hello My Name Is.

After winning a swag of awards, including Best Experimental Performance in the Melbourne Fringe Festival and The Blue Room Theatre Judge’s Award for Outstanding Theatre in 2012, Hello My Name Is will be something to behold and experience. The show is billed as a performed conversation, where the audience enters a space, sits in a circle and takes part in a workshop entitled, ‘How to Change the World Through Social Transformation’. Flexing between improvised conversation, social manipulation and subversive comedy, Nicola Gunn plays a volunteer team leader and guides the audience to change the world they exist in. Hello My Name Is is an exploration of the way strangers interact with one another. What expectations do you have of a stranger and what customs influence the way you treat them? Subversion is the name of the game as Gunn humorously challenges the audience’s preconceptions of one another and the very way we interact. This is a mix of performance, art and anthropology. Part of Hello My Name Is’ great promise is the fact that no two shows will be exactly alike. While there is a key structure to the performance that will draw the audience through parallel worlds of life, work, reality, representation, fact and fiction, much of the show’s direction lies with the audience members and their own idiosyncrasies. The Age described Hello my name is as an “uplifting and effortlessly clever show” and that “Nicola Gun is an extraordinary comic talent.” In their words, “someone should throw some serious money at her and see what happens”. Vitalstatistix uses the Adhocracy program, that Gunn took part in last year, to support and develop new experimental and interdisciplinary projects. Emma Webb, Creative Producer for Vitalstatistix explains: “We are thrilled to present this gorgeous show, one that feels so perfectly suited to Vitals, the Waterside Workers Hall and our audiences. It is wonderful to have Nicola and her team back after their participation in Adhocracy, or national artist hothouse, in 2013. Nicola is an incredibly interesting Australian artist and performance-maker; this show is a definite do-not-miss.” Hello My Name Is Waterside Worker’s Hall, Port Adelaide Wednesday, April 2 to Sunday, April 5 Post-performance Q&A on Thursday, April 3 vitalstatistixtheatrecompany.blogspot.com.au