DEAD HORSE GAP

Original concept by Lindy Hume, Leland Kean and Heath Cullen

Original Lyrics and Score by Heath Cullen

Dead Horse Gap is a dark trippy Western with music by Heath Cullen, a noir comedy revelling in odd characters, surreal twists, fire and flood, set on the South Coast of NSW in the 1860s. It’s a ballad (told through actual historical and invented events and people) of the mysterious disappearance of Charlie Chaste, a travelling photographer and Addy Bock, an adventuress. Both are drawn to the town by a mystery benefactor, the publican of the Dead Horse Gap Hotel and soon encounter the outcasts, drifters and fortune-seekers of the Colony who form a desperate diaspora, oblivious until now, to the dark secret of the Hotel. It’s a ballad that does not end happily.

(Note – Our fictional town has no relation to Dead Horse Gap near Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains. We just liked the name. Check out the real Dead Horse Gap.)

DEAD HORSE GAP PROOF OF CONCEPT and SHOWING
COBARGO SHOWGROUNDS, DECEMBER 2024

This was a celebration of firsts for Crimson Rosella. We welcomed our first audience to our first public event, a proof-of-concept showing for our first project, Dead Horse Gap. The showing was the culmination of a two-week creative development period at the Cobargo Showground, during which the brilliant Dead Horse Gap team – creative artists, actors, musicians and technicians – made about 40 minutes of the action and music, which we shared with a small gathering of Cobargo locals, friends, family and guests.

Dead Horse Gap has been a long time in the making, starting life as ‘The Candelo Project’ at a workshop in Kameruka Hall near Candelo at the end of 2017. Through a creative journey interrupted by fires, floods and Covid, with many twists and turns in its story, Dead Horse Gap has always stayed true to songwriter Heath Cullen’s original vision for a ‘dark trippy Western’ set in a fictional version of the South Coast, with its musical roots in Candelo.

THEATRICAL AESTHETIC: ANTIPODEAN NOIR

The show revels in an analogue-meets-digital aesthetic clash we call ‘Antipodean Noir’, inspired by the Holtermann Collection of glass plate photographs (SLNSW) depicting Australian colonial life in the 1870s. Still in its infancy in C19th Australia, photography was a cultural phenomenon that changed the world with its miraculous powers: capturing the spirit, freezing time, manipulating reality. Charlie’s trade is that of a travelling commercial photographer. An Antipodean Noir environment looks hand-made, eccentric and improvised, edges are left deliberately rough and stitched-together. Colonial, Gothic and contemporary styles clash: C19^th goldfields calico tents and photography meet Victorian vaudeville, Shakespeare, illusion and magic realism, with digital imagery, contemporary rock, and even a little psychedelia thrown in.

CONNECTION TO COMMUNITY

One of the most important things about Dead Horse Gap is its connection to local community. Earlier in 2024 we held a series of skills-development community workshops and locals from those workshops played the residents of Dead Horse Gap in the proof of concept showing in these images. Colonial-era props, furniture and decorations were locally sourced by generous Cobargo residents, then carefully curated by designer Katja Handt into an entrance installation and into the performance itself.

TRUTH, FICTION & ILLUSION

The proof of concept tested a similar “collage” approach to the storytelling. It’s fiction, but there is some truth behind every scene. Many of the characters and events in Dead Horse Gap are real and historically accurate. We used original sources like colonial newspapers, advertisements, documentation of actual events and people; then rearranged these real things, real people and real colonial obsessions in a particular order, to construct a story that – like a ballad – may or may not be true.

For example, Addy the petty criminal played by Tamlyn Magee, is based on a colonial con artist called Amy Bock, who had dozens of aliases including a male alter ego called Percival Redmond, who scammed and married a woman in Otago New Zealand. Our optimistic hero Charlie Chaste is based on the colonial photographer Charles Bayliss.

This proof-of-concept phase allowed us to experiment, test concepts, document our progress and make some decisions about the future of the work.

IF IT WORKS IN THE COBARGO SHOWGROUNDS, IT’LL WORK ANYWHERE

Creating a performance, not in a theatre but an agricultural pavilion, was a deliberate strategy – if it works in the Cobargo Showgrounds, it’ll work anywhere. We wanted to make sure our design ideas for an immersive canvas tent environment, animated with Antipodean Noir digital projections worked for audiences. We envisage the show will in future travel to other regional places, in agricultural pavilions and community halls, in urban environments but also outdoors.

The showing was the culmination of a two-week creative development period at the Cobargo Showground, during which our team of creative artists, actors, musicians and technicians made about 40 minutes of the action and music, to share with a small gathering of Cobargo locals, friends, family and guests.

We’re grateful to our audience and team for our community showing on December 1^st 2024, and to the following supporters

• Photographs from the Holtermann Collection, State Library of NSW
• Loans of scenic, costume, prop & lighting elements from Opera Australia, Merrigong Theatre, Fling Physical Theatre, Navigate Arts and Kirk Hume
• Michael Menager for use of his song Looking Good, Going Nowhere
• Cobargo residents Vicki Hoyer, Rowan Dixon from the Butter Factory and Bev Holland from the Cobargo District Museum for the objects in the entrance installation.
• Zena Armstrong and the Cobargo Folk Festival team, Alfredo for stage construction, Greg Holland and the Cobargo Showgrounds team, the Cobargo Hotel.
• Original co-creator Leland Kean for dramaturgical, script and directorial support.

CREATED IN REGIONAL NSW FOR AUDIENCES EVERYWHERE

Dead Horse Gap’s spiritual home is on Yuin Country, the Bega Valley in the Far South Coast of NSW where has been developed over several years, and where most of the creative team is based. Still recovering from bushfires, COVID border closures and floods, the music-loving Bega Valley community thrives on the connection, social expression and celebration of place that artists offer.

DESIGN REFERENCE

Download Katja Handt’s Design Treatment for Dead Horse Gap HERE

Creative development and proof of concept team