Rebecca heads for Jakarta

Woy Woy resident Rebecca Conroy will be among a crew of community TV producers heading to Jakarta for 12 weeks in February.

The producers will collaborate with an Indonesian factory workers theatre company on a multimedia performance event called "Beyond the Factory Walls".

The crew of video artists, performance practitioners, designers and TV producers from the community TV group Activelyradical will be working with 40 factory workers to produce a performance in May.

A feature documentary will also be made about the collaboration.

"We will be working with TBI (Teater Buruh Indonesia), an exceptional organisation of factory workers from Indonesia who gather every Sunday to write and rehearse stories about their lives," Rebecca said.

"These workers are involved in making garments and footwear for high profile brand names such as Reebok, Triumph, and Marks and Spencer in slave labour conditions."

"The theatre they make helps them understand their suffering.

"It then helps them to make changes to their lives."

Ms Conroy, who is completing her PhD in Theatre at Newcastle University, has been researching TBI and other performance troupes in Asia for more than five years.

"Beyond the Factory Walls builds on this research, as it attempts to straddle multiple sites of creative expression and languages in a unique intersection of art, politics, and global community solidarity," she said.

"This project will put us in contact with the ordinary people of Indonesia, the ones who are never depicted on glossy tourist brochures."

"We hope to be able to bring their stories out to the First Worlds."

Beyond the Factory Walls crew will be on the Central Coast screening films at Avoca Beach Cinema on December 4., Harmony House Cafe in Avoca on December 5 and at Laycock St Theatre on December 7.

With inquiries, contact Rebecca Conroy on 0411 153 440.

Press release, November 27