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e-dition march 7


in the loop - march 7

realtime news and advance word


Zoe Coombs Marr, And That Was The Summer That Changed My Life Zoe Coombs Marr, And That Was The Summer That Changed My Life
photo courtesy of the artist and Imperial Panda
panda strikes again

Since their sell-out events in 2008 and 2009 (RT90), we have been eagerly awaiting news of the next Imperial Panda festival. This year it’s bigger and better than ever, thanks to funding from Arts NSW and the City of Sydney and the indefatigable team of Rosie Fisher, Mish Grigor, Zoe Coombs Marr and Eddie Sharp. The action started on the weekend with the premiere of Gareth Davies (of Black Lung) and Charlie Garber’s (of Pig Island) show Masterclass, but there are two more solid weeks of performances, exhibitions, events, talks, drinking and dancing to go.

Other new shows include What Is Soil Erosion? by Claudia O’Doherty, also of Pig Island (RT85), and Rhubarb Rhubarb’s Some Film Museums I Have Known. Suitcase Royale will also be premiering their Test Flight #1 and one member, Miles O’Neil, will be stepping out on his own in World Around Us. New to Sydney, but not entirely new, is Coombs Marr’s show And That Was The Summer That Changed My Life (RT98).

Brown Council are presenting A Comedy again (RT98; RT100). One Brownie, Frances Barrett, is also curating Man Up: A Night of Male Impersonation. Elsewhere Tim Webster and Sarah Rodigari are presenting In Periscope (RT98) and overseeing a weekend of activities at Firstdraft Gallery. If that doesn’t persuade you to come on down, then surely the promise of a Cab Sav party will! Imperial Panda, various venues, Sydney, March 4-20; www.theimperialpanda.com

When the Pictures Came, Terrapin Puppet Theatre and the Children’s Art Theatre of China Welfare Institute When the Pictures Came, Terrapin Puppet Theatre and the Children’s Art Theatre of China Welfare Institute
photo courtesy of the artists and Come Out Festival
come on, come out

A little more sedate perhaps, this year's Come Out Festival is billed as an event for children, young people and families. Some shows are for schools only (such as the Living Library), but there is a range of other events that will appeal to innovative arts seekers. If you have a dinosaur enthusiast at your house, or even if you don’t, you might enjoy Erth’s amazingly life-scale puppet show Dinosaur Petting Zoo (RT84). Other highlights include Restless Dance Theatre’s new work Take Me There, which Jonathan Bollen will review in our May 9 e-dition. There’s also the Border Project’s collaboration with Windmill Theatre, Escape from Peligro Island, which is billed as “choose-your-own-adventure theatre” an audience interactive format the Project has been honing for a while (see RT84).

In another interesting collaboration, Tasmania’s Terrapin Puppet Theatre have been working with the Children’s Art Theatre of China Welfare Institute to create When the Pictures Came. The play blends “the animations of award-winning film maker Zeng Yigang with black-light puppetry and live performance.” Cross-cultural exchange is also evident in Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui, a new Aboriginal play that brings together European fairytales with the Palaneri or Dreaming characters and stories of the Tiwi Islands. Come Out Festival, Adelaide, March 25-April 1; www.comeout.on.net

Re-enchantment: An Immersive Journey into the Hidden Meanings of Fairy Tales Re-enchantment: An Immersive Journey into the Hidden Meanings of Fairy Tales
photo courtesy of the ABC
multiplatform media magic

Fairytales also feature in the ABC’s newly launched Re-enchantment, which will be available almost everywhere. Billed as an “immersive journey into the hidden meanings of fairy tales,” Re-enchantment is an “interactive multi-platform documentary project exploring why fairy stories continue to enchant, entertain, fascinate and horrify contemporary adult audiences” (press release). Featuring Bluebeard, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Rapunzel and Red Riding Hood, Re-enchantment doesn’t so much strip away the mystery and magic of these tales, but rather shows “how threading together various interpretations and versions of a story from the perspectives of psychology, social history and popular culture, [can] deepen our connection to and fascination with the richness of fairy tales” (website).

The project was launched last week at the Adelaide Film Festival and also in a session on transmedia documentary at the Australian International Documentary Conference. You can already encounter it online (www.abc.net.au/tv/re-enchantment) and from tomorrow you see it on ABC1 and ABC2, which will be screening 10 x three-minute interstitials. Or you can listen to oral retellings of different interpretations of the stories on Radio National. There is also a two-day symposium, Fairy Tales Re-Imagined: From Werewolf to Forbidden Room, at ACMI in mid-March before the premiere in Sydney on March 24. For more information go to the website and keep an eye out for Kirsten Krauth’s review in RT102. Re-enchantment: An Immersive Journey into the Hidden Meanings of Fairy Tales, www.abc.net.au/tv/re-enchantment; Fairytales Re-Imagined: From Werewolf to Forbidden Room, ACMI, March 10-11, www.acmi.net.au/fairy-tales-reimagined.aspx


Jill Orr, Lunch with the birds  1979
ink-jet print Jill Orr, Lunch with the birds 1979
ink-jet print
photo Elizabeth Campbell, Monash Gallery of Art, City of Monash Collection
photography and/as performance

In recent years the rise of the digital has prompted artists, curators and academics alike to revisit the relationship between photography and performance and the possibility of photography as performance. In late 2004, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Photography curated Camera/Action: Performance and Photography. The following year, Vienna’s Museum Moderner Kunst presented After the Act: The (Re)presentation of Performance Art (curator Barbara Clausen has since published a book by the same name). Two years later, as part of Performa 07, the Aperture Foundation and the New School hosted a forum called You Didn’t Have to Be There: Photography and Contemporary Performance Art which featured RoseLee Goldberg, Marina Abramovic, Vanessa Beecroft and Babette Mangolte. Last year, the Guggenheim exhibited Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance (complete with catalogue essay by Peggy Phelan) and this year MoMA is exhibiting Staging Action: Performance in Photography Since 1960.

Now the Monash Gallery of Art is presenting Afterglow: Performance Art and Photography, the first major exhibition to focus on the Australian relationship. The artists include Gordon Bennett, Juan Davila, Cherine Fahd, Bert Flugelman, Hayden Fowler, Tim Johnson, Ash Keating, Ben Morieson, Jill Orr, Mike Parr, Robert Rooney, Linda Sproul, Slave Pianos, Stelarc, David M Thomas, Peter Tyndall and Justene Williams. In addition, the gallery is presenting a series of talks. Curator Stephen Zagala, Mike Parr and Anne Marsh will have already discussed whether “photography kills performance art” but you can still catch Stelarc’s presentation, "Circulating Flesh: The Cadaver, the Comatose and the Chimera" on March 19 and then Zagala on the theme "Performing Identity" on March 23. Bookings essential. Afterglow: Performance Art and Photography, curator Stephen Zagala, Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Jan 28-April 3; www.mga.org.au

RealTime issue #101 Feb-March 2011 pg. web

© RealTime ; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]

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