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Nicola Gunn, In Spite of Myself |
Melbourne Festival, quick picks from local works
The Melbourne Festival will kick off just before our next print edition hits the streets so here’s a run down of some of the local works. Particularly impressive are the number of festival co-commissions, nurturing Melbourne artists and the creation of exciting new performance experiences.
In Spite of Myself, Nicola Gunn, co-commission with Arts Centre Melbourne
Nicola Gunn and the Sans Hotel team have been in residence at the Arts Centre dreaming up an almost true life story for Gunn, presented as a faux retrospective of performance art titled Exercises in Hopelessness: Nicola Gunn (1979-present). Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio; 9-13 October; http://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/whats-on/event.aspx?id=3684
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A Small Prometheus, Stephanie Lake & Robin Fox photo Robin Fox |
A dance work involving fire-driven kinetic sculptures and interactive sound. Arts House North Melbourne Town Hal 15-20 Oct; http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/program/genre/dance/a-small-prometheus.html
The Shadow King, co-commission with Malthouse
Michael Kantor and Tom E Lewis have co-created this Indigenous re-interpretation of King Lear melding “Shakespearian pathos with Aboriginal language, music and dance” (website). Malthouse, 11-27 Oct; http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/program/genre/theatre/the-shadow-king.html
M+M, co-commission with Theatre Works
Daniel Schlusser tackles Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Theatre Works, 8-16 Oct; http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/program/genre/theatre/mm.html
Room of Regret, co-commission with Theatre Works
The Rabble takes on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray filtering it through performance art, installation and audience interaction. Theatre Works, 21 Oct – Nov 3; http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/program/genre/theatre/room-of-regret.html
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Sonic Flock, Click Clack Project courtesy the company |
Enter a tee-pee and experience intimate music performed just for you. Over at Footscray Arts Centre there’ll also be performances by the Amplified Elephants, Rawcus and visiting Japanese sound artists. Atrium, Federation Square & Footscray Arts Centre, 12-13 Oct; http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/program/genre/music-classical/the-sonic-flock.html
The Black of the Star (Le Noir de L’Etoile), presented by Speak Percussion and SIAL Sound Studios
A percussion masterpiece by French composer Gérard Grisey featuring the pulses of neutron stars. (See review from Totally Huge 2011) Deakin Edge, Federation Square, 16-17 Oct; http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/program/genre/music-contemporary/the-black-of-the-star.html
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Celestial Radio 2012, Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich, originally commissioned by Performance Space and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia with the support of the Keir Foundation photo Colin Gray |
Niteworks, Bundanon
This year’s Siteworks at Bundanon Trust’s Riversdale complex will be a Niteworks. The star of the evening will in fact be the stars with a presentation by scientists from the Anglo Australian Observatory. The Shoalhaven Astronomers club will also be bringing their telescopes for audience members to peer at the heavens. David Haines and Joyce Hinterding will create sounds via natural VLF transmissions and Nancy Mauro-Flude and Linda Dement will conduct a starlight séance of sorts calling up recently deceased rockers Ari Up (The Slits), Poly Styrene (X-Ray Specs) and Chrissie Amphlett (Divinyls). UK artists Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich will sail their glittering vessel transmitting Celestial Radio sounds down the Shoalhaven and Diego Bonetto and Caterina Mocciola will take the audience on a moonwalk. There’s also the option of some rustic overnight camping.
The Bundanon Trust, Niteworks, Riversdale, 12 Oct; https://www.bundanon.com.au/siteworks
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Nicole Henriksen. (For the 2013 festival Nicole will be performing a piece enticingly titled Naked Unicorn Vomit.) courtesy Cracked Theatre Festival |
This Is Not Art, Newcastle
It’s the time of year to head north to Newcastle to experience the multi-headed beast that is This Is Not Art. This year the Crack Theatre Festival showcases a diverse selection of performances ranging across “circus, dance, cabaret, verbatim theatre, installation, multi media, comedy and live art” (press release). The National Young Writer’s Festival provides activities for budding scribes, including a writing workshop on the streets of Newcastle in the Paper Trail Tour, a Penguin Plays Rough presentation in the tunnels of Fort Scratchely, plus tips from celebrity chef Adam Liaw on cook book writing. The quiet achiever of TINA, the creative research symposium Critical Animals offers an impressive program of artists and thinkers including Tega Brain, Julian Day, Erica Secombe and Ben Kolaitis. There’s also the return of prodigal festival Electrofringe, presenting a day of showcases and the final festival party.
This Is Not Art, Newcastle, NSW 3-6 Oct; http://thisisnotart.org/
Festival of Toy Music, Brisbane Powerhouse
Curated by the tricksters of new music, Clocked Out, the Festival of Toy Music will feature performances by Margaret Leng Tan from the US (the queen of the toy piano we’re told), plus Australian musicians Matthew Horsley, Adam Simmonds, Clocked Out and of course there’s no show without the circuit-bent Barbies of Toy Death. There’s also a Dream Percussion installation sited in the Turbine Hall and available for everyone to unleash their inner percussionist.
Festival of Toy Music, 5 Oct, Brisbane Powerhouse; http://brisbanepowerhouse.org/events/2013/10/05/festival-of-toy-music/
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Wedhus Gembel, Snuff Puppets |
Wedhus Gembel, Snuff Puppets
Wedhus Gembel is a long-time collaboration between the Snuff Puppets and a range of Indonesian artists. An outdoor performance, it’s “a parable about the cycle of life, the destructive power of nature and how innocence and beauty can be disguised in a monster” (website). Premiering in Yogyakarta and Jakarta in 2011, the wild mega-puppet antics of Wedhus Gembel will have its Australian debut at Federation Square featuring six guest artists from Indonesia.
Wedhus Gembel, Snuff Puppets, Federation Square Amphitheatre, 2-5 Oct; http://www.snuffpuppets.com/shows/Wedhus_Gembel
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Not About Face, Luke George and collaborators photo Jeff Busby |
Not About Face, Luke George
In RT115 Rennie McDoougall gave us a sneak peak of Luke George's work in development, Not About Face. "[T]he audience enters a rehearsal studio like cheap Halloween ghosts, donning bedsheets with eyeholes cut out…George, at first unidentifiable from the rest of us ‘ghosts,’ eventually emerges to claim his presence as shepherd to our flock. Once revealed he undergoes a series of transformations: channelling deceased performers, communing with a past version of himself through a television set and guiding us into summoning incantations of colour, to name a few." George and collaborators are now ready to present the show to live a be-shrouded public at Dancehouse.
Luke George and Collaborators, Dancehouse, Melbourne, 9-13 Oct; http://www.dancehouse.com.au/performance/performancedetails.php?id=165
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Aaron Bradbrook, Borderlands © the artist |
Aaron Bradbrook, Perth Centre for Photography
Aaron Bradbrook is the 2012 winner of the Perth Centre for Photography’s UNCOVER Award which offers an emerging artist printing support, mentorship and a solo exhibition. Bradbrook’s exhibition Borderland focuses on the house as a site of endless playful possibilities, but also suggests a darker side as people appear only as segmented body parts. Bradbrook writes, “Like the subjects themselves, I want the viewer to feel they are being held captive in another world, a world in which they cannot leave” (press release).
Aaron Bradbrook, Borderland, Perth Centre for Photography,
26 Sept – 26 Oct, http://www.pcp.org.au
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Yeondoo Jung, Documentary Nostalgia, video still, 2007 |
Yeondoo Jung, MAAP Space
The next exhibtion at MAAP Space in Brisbane presents South Korean artist Yeondoo Jung. Jung creates ambitious video works that explore memory truth and construction. The centerpiece of the exhibition is Documentary Nostalgia. shot in a single 84-minute take. Various scenes from the artist’s memory are literally constructed as theatre sets. More intimate in scale is Twilight Seoul created in collaboration with German artist Luka Fineisen. Using materials lying around in the studio the artists recreate by hand a scene of the hills around Seoul.
Yeondoo Jung, MAAP Space, 27 Sept-8 Nov; http://www.maap.org.au/projects/maap-space/yeondoo-jung/
in/Visible Women, Magdalena Australia
So if Tony Abbot is Minister for Women, it’s time to get a little forthright about women’s issues. Magdalena Australia, a coalition of female arts workers, is a long time advocate for women in the arts, but given the current political climate they are stepping up their activities. In particular they are responding to what they’ve identified as “an apparent lack of strong images of women in the printed program” of the current Brisbane Festival (press release). They will be presenting a Long Table discussion (a performative public talk format pioneered by Split Britches [US/UK]) around the visibility of women in performance. The discussion will be followed by a cabaret co-presented with Access Arts and Vulcana Women’s Circus.
Magdalena Australia Long Table, 27 Sept 5pm, cabaret 7pm; The Stores Studio, Brisbane Powerhouse; http://www.themagdalenaproject.org/en/content/invisible-women
Women’s issues continued… Live Art Development Agency
While we’re on the matter, the visibility of women in the arts is of course an international concern, one being addressed by a number of upcoming activities by London’s Live Art Development Agency. Through their Restock, Rethink, Reflect (RRR) series they’ll be presenting Just like a Woman, a program of talks and performances as part of the City of Women Festival in Ljubljana (Slovenia, 11-12 Oct). Back in London, Lois Weaver, inventor of the Long Table discussion format, will present a Long Table about Live Art and Feminism (16 Oct). Then the LADA partnership project Re.act, a performance archive of “feminist, gendercritical and queer performance art” (website) will return to Berlin, after a tour of Europe collecting even more material. Check out the website for workshops, performances, talks and other activities.
http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/
Still in the loop
OzAsia, Adelaide Festival Centre
13-29 Sept
http://www.ozasiafestival.com.au/
Art and About, City of Sydney
20 Sept-20 Oct
http://www.artandabout.com.au/; http://metroscreen.org.au/whatson/
Gigi Scaria, Dust, Ian Potter Museum
18 September 2013 – 2 February 2014
http://www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au/
Memory Collective, Toowoomba Art Gallery
Memory Collective, Toowoomba Art Gallery, 21 Sept-5 Nov; http://ww2.toowoombarc.qld.gov.au
User Generated Architecture, Tin Sheds Gallery
27 September-15 November
http://emergencity.net/user-generated-architecture/
Super Discount, Back to Back, STC, Malthouse
Sydney Theatre Company
20 Sept-19 Oct
http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/what's-on/productions/2013/super-discount.aspx
Nought, ADT, Samstag Museum
25 -27 Sept
http://adt.org.au/; http://w3.unisa.edu.au/samstagmuseum/
Kate Murphy, Probable Portraits
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM), 13 Sept-14 Nov
http://www.sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/
Open Frame, Room40
Brisbane Powerhouse and various venues
12-28 Sept
http://openframe.room40.org/2013
Craig Walsh, Embedded & Primavera, MCA
12 Sept-24 Nov
http://www.mca.com.au/
ikono On Air Festival
global, online
6-29 September
http://ikono.org/festival/
2013 Brisbane Festival
7-28 Sept
http://www.brisbanefestival.com.au/
arte magra: from the opaque, AEAF
5 Sept-5 Oct
http://www.aeaf.org.au/exhibitions/ArteMagra.html
The boat goes over the mountain, Happy Dagger Theatre
The Blue Room, Perth
10-28 Sept
http://blueroom.org.au/events/the-boat-goes-over-the-mountain/
Windows to the Sacred, S.H. Ervin Gallery
presented in association with Buratti Fine Art; 30 Aug-29 Sept
http://www.shervingallery.com.au/
Malthouse’s Helium
Little Ones Theatre, Salomé, 30 Aug-14 Sept
Smack! Bang, City of Shadows, Rachael Dease, 21 Sept-5 Oct
http://www.malthousetheatre.com.au/helium-2013/
In Confidence: Reorientations in Recent Art, PICA
31 Aug-13 Oct
http://www.pica.org.au
RealTime issue #116 Aug-Sept 2013 pg. web
© RealTime ; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]
