Photo: Bryony Jackson

When

2018: commissioned by Arts House and presented in their Season 2

Team

Lead artist, concept and text Michele Lee

Dramaturg and collaborating artist Jessica Bellamy

Performer and collaborating artist Jem Lai

Sound designer Russell Goldsmith

Voice over Josh Price

Producer Tara Prowse

Speakers: Dr Julian Druce : Head of Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) at the Doherty Institute for Infection & Immunity

Steve Cameron: Coordinator of Community-based emergency management at Emergency Management Victoria

Justin Dunlop: Acting Director Emergency Management for Ambulance Victoria and State Health Commander

Dr Ines Rio: Chairperson NW Melbourne Primary Health Network, GP liaison at Royal Women’s

Dr Cassidy Nelson: Principal Public Health Medical Officer, Communicable Disease, Department of Health and Human Services

About

Format

Live art, panel discussion

Content

Hypothetical: What If? (or An assistant’s notes for a pandemic) presents a fictional epidemic to a panel of real-life experts from the fields of emergency response, disaster and crisis management, public health and virology. Organisations from these sectors frequently use hypothetical exercises to plan and perfect responses to particular emergency situations – such as extreme weather, bomb threat or lock-down. In real life, these exercises are commonly realistic, interactive and moderately stressful for participants.

In this highly performative and humorous iteration of a disaster exercise, our unlikely heroine/assistant/presenter will navigate the key moments of a terrifying Melbourne outbreak with the expert panel, all the while wishing she was at home bingeing Hollywood trash in a cocoon of disaster denial. She’ll need you. You’re invited to help her reveal what happens next.

Production photos

By Bryony Jackson

         

Video

By Arts House

Text

An Assistants Notes for a P… by on Scribd

Supporters

Development and presentation: Arts House