Dark Matter

A Sound & Light Installation

Winner 'Best Film & Multi-Media Award' & 'Best Design' - Dunedin Fringe Awards 2016

I'm Martyn Roberts, a Dunedin-based lighting designer and theatre artist. After 15 years of creating a series of work as afterburner, I'm asking for your help to bring my latest award-winning work, Dark Matter, to the 2017 New Zealand Fringe in Wellington.

What is Dark Matter?

Set within a pitch black environment, Dark Matter explores what light can become when it is the central actor in space. Within a void of haze and ultra crisp sonics, you will be transported to a dreamworld of architectural beams, shafts and whirling vortexes, immersed into a space that suspends time and thought. Dark Matter pushes you towards the threshold of perception. My lighting design is accompanied by Dunedin-based dancers Megan Wilson and Katherine Kennedy, and with sound design by Jeremy Mayall.

Why do we need your help?

There's significant cost in transporting and setting up Dark Matter from Dunedin to Wellington, and for the four artists involved in presenting the work. We need your help in getting there! So please donate, and share this campaign with your friends, family and colleagues.

What is afterburner?

afterburner was founded by designer Martyn Roberts in 2001 with the intimate theatre installation Man on the Moon at BATS Theatre before moving on to create The Telescope for the 2002 STAB season (also at BATS), and Fog and Mirrors, a series of light works around Wellington in 2005 with artist Marcus McShane and winner of the Visual Art award at the Wellington Fringe Awards that year. Other afterburner works include The Singularity directed by Miranda Manasiadis, Hubble created by Martyn Roberts, and the recent wairua=a=line=near with collaborator Rua McCallum. afterburner has represented NZ at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space.

"Most of the haiku are dreamlike, in that so little light illuminates the bodies of the dancers (Katherine Kennedy and Megan Wilson), it feels as if I am grasping at what I am seeing, trying to catch it before it disappears when I awake"   Hannah Malloy, Theatreview, Dark Matter, March 2016

Thank you very much for your support, and we'd love to see you at the NZ Fringe 2017!