DEBORAH LEISER-MOORE
Deborah is an interdisciplinary performance maker/director who makes bold visceral works investigating, culture, identity and contemporary issues. She is equally adept at large scale works or intimate performances and is known for her visual and physical approach to text. Deborah was a core member, for four years, with the physical performance company, Entr’acte Theatre (Sydney), and has trained in Japan with Tadashi Suzuki (and has taught the work for many years), in Rasaboxes with Richard Schechner (NYC), and in the Furan performance language as taught by ex La Fura dels Baus member, Younes Bachir (with whom she has collaborated many times).
Most recently Deborah performed in/co-created the promenade performance work, Day After Terrible Day, with Danger Ensemble, directed by Stephen Mitchel-Wright and presented at Theatre Works. She also directed/co-created unHOWsed, in which eight older ex-homeless women share their experiences of homelessness, for Theatre Works St Kilda’s main season. In September 2020 the filmed version played in competition at the 2020 Cairo International Festival of Experiment Theatre, in 2021 it was presented at Drum Theatre, Dandenong and in 2022 at ProAct Festival, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Deborah has toured extensively, notably to New York performing and collaborating in Richard Schechner's Imagining O in the Peak Performance Festival. In 2017/2018 she worked with Ranters Theatre in collaboration with Korean company, Creative VaQi, in Unknown Neighbors at Ansan Festival, Seoul, Korea and as part of Festival of Live Arts at Theatre Works. She presented her solo duration live-artwork, My Body, My Country at the 2017 Queer Zagreb Festival, Croatia and toured the promenade production of Chi Vu’s The Dead Twin (originally presented at FCAC), which she directed and performs in, to George Town Festival in Penang, Malaysia. In 2018 she traveled back to George Town Festival with her performance/video-installation work KaBooM: Stories From Distant Frontlines for which she interviewed ex-soldiers from global conflicts (previously presented at fortyfivedownstairs and the Alice Desert Festival in Alice Springs). In 2019 Deborah’s work, Medea: Kaddish For The Children - based on the classic Euripides text, told from the woman’s perspective and intertwined with the Kaddish, the Jewish Mourners Prayer - was presented by FCAC as part of their 2019 Women, Arts and Politics program. The film version was presented at SerformanceP Festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2021. Deborah recently directed ‘Bayonet’ by Alex Borovenskiy for Ukraine. War. Text. 3.0 at Les Kurbas Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Deborah’s film work includes: Thank G-d shown at JIFF nationally, Women in Film Festival and Oaxaca Film Festival, Mexico; lead role in Emily Avila’s ‘Fitting’ - Sydney Film Festival, BFI London International Film Festival, McGrath Cancer Centre and Vimeo Staff Pick, and numerous other international festivals; ‘Pause’ a short film at the The Centre for the Less Good Ideas (founded by William Kentridge) and ‘A Few Home Truths’ at Arts Films Awards. Deborah completed her practice-led PhD at La Trobe University and her MA (Performance) at Victoria University. She has taught at universities and has presented her work at numerous conferences.
