Janis Balodis

Our Associate Artists will join Julian Louis (Artistic Director) and Kirk Page (Associate Director). Together they will invigorate and inspire NORPA as a brave artist-led company. Our artists are Janis Balodis, Caroline Dunphy, Darcy Grant, Mitch King, Jade Dewi, Kate McDowell, Emma Saunders and Valley Lipcer.

...It was a very challenging proposition from the outset, because the book does not lend itself directly to dramatisation. It has no particular storyline, little in the way of characterisation, and the setting is constantly shifting as it describes a psychological journey of an unhappy girl through surrealistic landscapes. The solution was to break the book down into components, and then reassemble them as a new kind of creation... I was particularly interested in a number of scenes devised by the Peter, Richard and Janis which involved the girl interacting with different puppet versions of herself, and how she tries to ‘escape’ certain nightmarish situations.

Eureka Hall is a place where generations meet and time dreams. Its overlapping eras and composite histories are given weight and words by playwright Janis Balodis and director Julian Louis in the latest site-specific production by Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA), Dreamland.