The 12 Best Things to See at the Melbourne Festival 2013

Melbourne loves itself some culture. We are a City of Literature. We have all the artistic acronyms in the land: NGV, ACCA, MWF, EWF, HMT, CCP. We have that one guy in Degraves Street subway who's always doing covers of 'Wonderwall'. What a champ.

But if there's one thing we all hold close to our art-lovin' hearts it's the Melbourne Festival. From October 11–27, our fine city becomes host to a whole new crop of international artistic talent, and while the full program is impressive, it's also a little unwieldy. No one person could see it all.

So, we've made a little list to get you through — from neon discotheques to harmonicas carved from handguns. This year's festival really does cater to all tastes.

Life and Times: Episodes 1-4

Imagine your autobiography — meaningless, small, incomplete, full of diversions and 'ums' and 'likes' — was turned into a play. That went for 24 hours. Who'd watch that? Well, it turns out, if you're Kristin Worral of the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, who then rave about it as if possessed. The New Yorker calls you "a masterpiece" and the Guardian gives you all the stars. The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma (who are from NY; their name comes from a Kafka novel) are trying to remake everything we know about theatre, and for a company so experimental, they're also eminently watchable. The idea is that with each episode, the form shifts — from a musical to an '80s pop video, a murder mystery, an animated film and an illuminated manuscript. The first ten hours of Life and Times will be featuring at Melbourne Festival (the rest are still being developed), which you can watch over three nights or in one marathon performance broken up by a barbecue and snacks.

October 22-26; Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse

ACTIVE CHILD

Active Child is my 'night walking' music. That full ethereal voice, those hypnotic synth-laden hooks, and the harp — oh, the harp. It perfectly suits that surreal yet peaceful journey between your last pint, the cold wind, and a warm bed. But as much as I love these intimate headphone sessions, this performance at the Melbourne Recital Centre is going to be a much more impressive spectacle. Active Child's live recordings really showcase the talents of lead man, Pat Grossi, and his technical prowess is sure to deliver an enriching and ethereal performance when translated to a big stage. In a Melbourne Festival exclusive, he will also be premiering tracks from his unreleased second album, as well as old favourites from 2011's You Are All I See. Supported by local talent Oliver Tank, this will be a show to tell your friends about — and maybe relive through your iPod on the walk home.

October 26; Melbourne Recital Centre

Tacita Dean: FILM

This installation by Young British Artist, Tacita Dean, is going to be one of the most spectacular sights of this year's festival. Her surreal and finely crafted 35mm film will be projected onto a towering 13 metre vertical screen in the vast main gallery of ACCA. The sheer grandeur of the piece will be awesome to behold, but it will also raise some interesting questions about the medium itself. Does it stand in simple celebration of the artistry of celluloid cinema, or is it a bittersweet elegy for the decline of analogue art? FILM has been received well during its exhibition in the Tate Modern last year, and Dean will be speaking about the work at a free public lecture on October 10.

October 10 to November 24; ACCA

AN EVENING WITH YO LA TENGO

Listening to Yo La Tengo is like hanging out with an old friend. It's comforting, calming and you can't help but get nostalgic. With 13 albums to their name — count 'em — Yo La Tengo are one of the true bastions of indestructible indie rock, and they're sure to draw a crowd of diehards at this one-off show. But the evening won't all be spent dwelling on the total glory of their 1997 classic I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. Their newest album, Fade, was released in January this year, and is proving itself testament to their adaptability and ongoing popularity. For those that like the sound of all this hype, but are maybe too young to know the full story, here's a cheat sheet to get you up to speed. You'll fit in with the diehards in no time.

October 18; The Arts Centre

Minsk 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker

In Australia, it's common to think of theatre as a safe diversion for a small elite. Not so in Belarus, where theatre is dangerous, and the political ensemble Belarus Free Theatre is outlawed. Instead of performing for their countrymen, then, they travel the world, doing works like Minsk 2011, a combo critique of and love song to their home city. With a particular focus on underground subcultures and sexual policing under a dictatorship, their work is renowned for being inventive rather than polemic, and of striking a note of hope. This is theatre on the edge.

October 24-27; Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio

WERK

The description of this event makes it sound like the greatest thing ever. When I read that it's a "late-night haze of neon and performance, live art, and discotheque", all I could think of is this. Irish theatre dynamos THISISPOPBABY — the ones behind this enigmatic cluster of buzzwords and fluro-fantasia — look like they know their way around both a stage and a dancefloor, so something fantastic is sure to go down. I know this is a vague description, but when an event is forced to describe itself as a 'happening', it's best to go in with an open mind. That way when you walk out half-covered in spandex, sweat, and someone else's body glitter, you can aptly remark "Well, that happened."

October 26; Foxtel Festival Hub

URBAN CHAMBER - BEYOND

The Melbourne Festival is known for its endorsement of experimental music, but this one is a doozie. Combining young local hip-hop artists with classical chamber music, dance, and performance poetry, the event is described as both a "multi-cultural ode to Melbourne" and a "hip-hop/classical throw down". That's a lot to digest. The kids from the MASSIVE hip-hop choir look really exciting though, and we'd love to see how it all comes together. At worst it could be a bit confusing, but at best it could be a really unique and entertaining hybrid — it's exactly the kind of adventurous project festivals like this should be supporting.

October 25 and 26; Melbourne Recital Centre

DISARM

Because 'Make Love, Not War' is so over, Pedro Reyes latest exhibition has suggested a new alternative: make music! It may be a simple premise, but the result is amazing. Using discarded weapons confiscated by the Mexican army, Reyes has created a grand total of 47 very unique instruments. Electric guitars, violins, flutes, and intriguing hybrids — all fashioned out of artillery. Of course, it has a pretty hefty political bent, but when it comes down to it there's a simple joy in watching someone play a harmonica carved out of a handgun. Keep an eye on the Melbourne Festival site to find out when the concert's going to be (oh yeah, that's happening), and check out Pedro Reyes' free talk on October 13 to hear more about it.

October 12 -27; NGV International

Room of Regret

Amid all of the international superstars flying in, some of the most unmissable events are from locals. Newly commissioned pieces from popular indie companies THE RABBLE (with Room of Regret) and the Daniel Schlusser Ensemble (with M+M) will play at Theatre Works. Both works take a classic text as the subject for their boundary-pushing inventions. Staged in a labyrinthine network of corridors, Room of Regret will do Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray as seen through a Hall of Mirrors, while M+M is an adaptation of Mikhael Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita that introduces some equally dark references from contemporary Russia.

M+M: October 8-13; Room of Regret: October 21-19; Theatre Works

TANDERRUM

This year's festival will be opened with a traditional tanderrum — a welcoming ceremony from elders of the Kulin nations granting permission for guests to use the land and resources. However, this won't be any ordinary Welcome to Country; the tanderrum will be orchestrated by the Ilbijerri Theatre Company and will include music and performance, as well as rich storytelling which adheres strongly to the traditions of the land. Once the ceremony is complete, Archie Roach will be performing a free concert with a 10-piece band. All on the wide, open grounds of Fed Square, the evening promises to be a respectful and community-oriented first note for a festival that showcases talent from all over the world.

October 11; Federation Square

THE SONIC FLOCK

Have you ever been at a gig with an awkwardly small number of audience members? Felt like they were just playing for you? Well, if this was a feeling you enjoyed, you're going to love what the Click Clack Project has lined up. Over the first two days of the festival, Federation Square will be littered with a series of small black teepees, and inside of each, an artist will be performing to an enthralled audience of one. While admittedly terrifying — oh god, what facial expression am I making / how are they maintaining eye contact with me while playing the flute?* — it also sounds a little amazing. Check it out on Saturday for Shadow Tales performed by the Footscray Community Arts Centre, or head down on Sunday if Japanese sound art is more your thing.

*We really can't guarantee anyone will be playing the flute.

October 12-13; Atrium at Federation Square

Teenage Riot/All That Is Good

You don't truly realise how parental and limiting adult writers can be towards children until you've seen the works of Belgian youth theatre group Ontroerend Goed. Their self-devised pieces are anarchic, freeform, funny, dramatic, frequently loud and generally unpredictable. The seminal Once and for all we're gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen has now spiralled out into a trilogy that somewhat progresses through the stages of youth. Melbourne Festival 2013 gets the later, angstier chapters. Teenage Riot has eight teenagers trapped in a room inflict twisted games on each other, and recording it on camera, while All That Is Wrong has single writer/performer Anna Jakoba Ryckewaert, 18, undertake a more introspective coming-of-age — what Melbourne Festival are calling "a final, poignant dispatch from the consuming borderland between youth and adulthood".

October 15-20; Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio

By Meg Watson and Rima Sabina Aouf