The farm
The farm
The Farm is one of the following:
a) a reality competition television franchise that originated in Sweden
b) a CIA training facility near Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S
c) a contemporary dance-theatre company located on the Gold Coast with roots in Perth and Berlin
d) a song by Aerosmith
If you guessed any choice other than c) then you are probably in the wrong place, but while you’re here, let us tell you a little more about our company…
The Farm has a long history. It originated independently in different parts of the world, as hunter gatherer societies transitioned to food production rather than food capture and its origins may be traced back as far as 12,000 years BC…
Wait, no. That’s wrong. We must stop using wikipedia for these things. Let’s start again.
The Farm story first started when a young moisture farmer intercepted a communique from a princess and was led into a world of intrigue and…
wait, dammit! That’s Star Wars.
OK, let’s keep it simple…
The Farm is a collective and we make our decisions collectively through our core group of artists that we call:
The Gathering of the 6
This is their story…
In 1993, the same year that Bill Clinton became President of the United States and told the world he never inhaled, Gavin Webber and Grayson Millwood met at a dance company in Adelaide. In the same moment, through a warp in the space/time continuum, a young cowboy baby called Michael Smith burst into the world in Gladstone and in Rockhampton a teenage girl named Kate Harman dreamt of winning yet another eisteddfod and of one day transitioning from ballet to contemporary dance. At precisely the same moment, give or take five years, a ten year old Merinda Davies sat back in her hammock chair on a hippy commune near Nimbin and thought about studying law and art at the same time while, finally, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, a yet to be married couple started thinking about how much they liked Barry White’s early albums. The two of them began a slow dance that, over the next couple of years, culminated in a lighting designer commonly known as Chloe Ogilvie.
Though none of them knew it yet, the seeds of The Farm were already being sown (sometimes quite literally) and this unlikely group of strangers began a progression of life events and interests that would draw them together and lead them to many Helpmann Awards (one) and critical acclaim (much).
We are that group of six core Farmers who have now grown up (or got old) and who decide what the Farm does and how it does it. We don’t always agree (yes we do!) but we do like working together. We’re from different generations, backgrounds, genders, and star signs. We are designers, performers, choreographers, writers - all of us independent in our own practice but deeply integrated because we all want to contribute to human connection in a completely bonkers and confusing modern world.
Our mission; to demystify contemporary performance and restore order to the galaxy.
