Interview with Daniel Brine - new Artistic Director of Performance Space

It's a journalist's worst nightmare. After organising a time, date and venue, reading background information, preparing questions and conducting an interview with a subject, you suddenly lose the recording due to some technological malfunction or misadventure.

The fact that I had flown all the way from Sydney to London to catch Daniel Brine, the newly appointed Artistic Director of Performance Space before his arrival in Australia made it that little bit more painful. The fact that I lost the recording on my MP3 player on the last leg of my journey after twenty-one days of keeping it safe made it just pure frustration.

Kindly, Daniel afforded me some extra time while he was in Sydney for a quick catch up during a handover week with the outgoing AD Fiona Winning who has left after nine years.

The changing of the guard at Performance Space and Brine's appointment to the role of Artistic Director is one of the biggest changes to occur in the contemporary arts scene internationally this year as he fills what he describes as 'Fiona's very, very large shoes'.

It's extraordinary that not one major newspaper in this country has reported on the change. But we've seen this laziness before and know that they are able to editorialise similar appointments. Performance Space is no small-to-medium organisation out the back of hickville. It is, quite simply, a company that is at the forefront of contemporary art experimentation and presentation with an international reputation in excellence. And not a single column inch was spared by any news outlet.

My first meeting with Brine found us at the headquarters of the Live Arts Development Agency UK where he is finishing up his role as Associate Director. Based in a converted old girls school, the headquarters couldn't be more English with a beautiful old lawn courtyard with a walled garden nestled behind one of those typical London squares with a canopy of leaves. It's quite an oasis in the Shoreditch area of London just ten minutes walk from the hustle and bustle of the Liverpool Street financial district.

The day I arrive the stock markets worldwide had lurched downwards, Halifax Bank of Scotland had collapsed and suits were loitering in office buildings reconsidering their career choices. Maybe it is a good time for Brine to get out of the UK.

An Australian, Brine has been based in the UK for over eleven years after working for Live Arts, the Arts Council England and the NOW Festival. His biography reads like a degustation menu of contemporary performance, curating Live Culture at the Tate Modern, You Are Here for the Liverpool Biennial, Performing Rights for Performance Studies International Tanzquartier and China Live at the Chinese Arts Centre. He has even worked with Forced Entertainment, La Ribot, Blast Theory and Janine Antoni.

A quiet and considered man, Brine has acquired that slight English accent despite his heritage. "My move back to Australia is not about returning home, it is about going to work at Performance Space," he explains.

The industries in Australia and the UK could not be more different. In a forward to one of the many books that Brine gives me he co-writes with Lois Keidan (of Live Arts as well) and David Micklem from the UK Arts Council;

"Over the last decade or so there has been a growing sense that artistic directors and programmers across the UK are expressing greater interest in work that pushes at the edges of our expectations of what theatre could be. Some venues are actively programming experimental works. Others are expressing a keenness to explorethe opportunities for taking their audiences on new journeys. Whilst it is acknowledged that this work is challenging, sometimes difficult, often compelling and engaging, it is also work that can attract new audiences, offer new experiences, and add bold new strands to a venue's programme. Whether it is the National Theatre collaborating with Shunt, Duckie's events at the Barbican, Noble & Silver at Soho Theatre, or Gob Squad working on the main stage of Nottingham Playhouse it is increasingly evident that theatres in the UK are excited about a new set of relationships with experimental artists and companies."

Maybe that is where he sees the future role of the company he is about to take over. His respect for Performance Space is immediately obvious. "The role of the company internationally places it as one of the top three organisations presenting inter-disciplinary practices. It's part of the international infrastructure of contemporary performance," he says.

What's most interesting about Brine's experience is his role in developing unique and tangible avenues for artists and the arts industry to have a dialogue. Whether it be through publications, conferences, events or library resources, it is clear that his greatest strength is the way he inspires conversations.

If he brings his experiences in creating dialogue to Australia's shores it will be a much needed element to an extremely fragmented and fractured industry. Do we have a situation where it is increasingly evident that theatres in Australia are excited about a new set of relationships with experimental artists and companies?

As he takes me on a tour of the agency's premises he explains that the three pillars of Live Arts work is based around offering resources, professional development services and projects. "As you can see, we are not a performance space and we do not present works. Live Arts is more a resource, an organisation that brings together artists and venues to expand the cultural sector," he says.

He escorts me to an astonishing library where from floor to ceiling, tapes, DVDs and books document years of performance and contemporary arts writing. It's the sort of place you could spend months in, pulling out one DVD and then another until your eye catches something else you have always wanted to watch.

"Working at Performance Space gives me a chance to build more resources and focus on professional development through consultation and strategic thinking. It will also allow me to bring together art form practices particularly in film and dance," he says emphasising that until he takes up his position and has time to listen to the staff at Performance Space, speak with artists and the industry, the future direction of the company could involve anything.

The role of Performance Space after their move two years ago from their home of twenty years on Cleveland Street in Redfern to Carriageworks is one of the greatest challenges Brine will face. Winning oversaw the transition but it is now Brine's role to consolidate. Performance Space no longer enjoy the privilege of being a stand alone performance and artist space, now sharing the converted train yards with a family of other similar minded arts organisations under the umbrella of the financially restricted Carriageworks management.

Seeing him a month later in the cavernous Carriageworks building and a world away from the well manicured lawns of the old girls school he is realistic about the challenges facing him.

"It's clear there is a challenge of making big things and there are big issues in the industry that need to be addressed," he says.

But it's not just the issues facing the fragmented industry, it is also the mere size of the Carriageworks space. "A lot of people told me that Carriageworks was big, but I had no idea it was this big," he says. "It is an enormous space to fill."

But you can see the excitement in his face ... and the adrenalin. Asking him about our conversation four weeks earlier in London and how he feels now that he is in Sydney he is comforted with the fact that the organisation feels 'familiar' to him.

Hopefully, before long, all of us engaged with the arts will also become familiar with Daniel Brine and the future path he will carve in inspiring creative dialogue between all the spheres of performance in the country. An enormous space to fill indeed.