Overview
For public playtime festival Art & About, it's nearly time to pack up and put Sydney city back the way they found it. Having already thrown a block party in suit central, allowed kids to guide adults around and put on theatre at your house, they're gearing up for a big final three days of events, ending on Saturday, October 12. Here are five weird, wonderful and day-brightening things to see before then.
Bodies in Urban Spaces
Austrian choreographer Willi Dorner and his company see an odd little city space and think: human Tetris. The movement artists (whose skills are not solely focused on dance — he also hires climbers, martial artists and circus performers) gracefully shove themselves into any sort of architectural gap they can find, hold their positions for several minutes and then effortlessly wriggle out of the tight spot and move on to the next. What it means for the passer-by is that your eyes fall on brightly colour-blocked human staying perfectly, magically still in an otherwise dead space, including up walls, under walkways and squished into public art works.
October 10 and 11 from 12.30pm - 2pm around Archibald Fountain, Hyde Park north.
Australian Life
Sydneysiders always know when Art & About is on because these large-scale photo reproductions arrive to dominate the stroll along Hyde Park's St James walkway. A regular festival fixture, the exhibition and competition Sydney Lives has this year become the broader Australian Lives, attracting a record number of entries. The resulting shortlist (notably mostly made up of NSW photographers) is a significantly diverse patchwork of Australian daily life in its weirdest, funniest and saddest moments. Riding bulls in Broome, empty pie shops, Western Sydney's total boss suit-wearing sapeur trend straight from the Democratic Republic of Congo — it all gets a showing at Australian Life.
Until October 12 at Hyde Park.
Numskull: Here Now
This time-lapse video's out-of-control (and super fun) tempo is pretty much the opposite of Here Now's message, which is actually a call for stillness. "Modern society is fast paced," Numskull (real name: Elliott Routledge) states on the Art & About site. "Time is precious and often neglected. We need to slow down, take it all in and start living in the moment. This mural will inspire onlookers to challenge their perspective about how precious life's moments are." If you're looking to take a break, while basking in Here Now’s brilliant colours and striking typography, you'll catch the best view from the corner of Park and Pitt Streets.
Until October 12 at 307 Pitt Street.
Neon Nomads
Walking through the park at night has never been so inviting, thanks to this little village of five three-metre-high tepees, each illuminating the works of impressive graphic artists like Wendy Red Star, Phil James, Jonathan Zawada and Brett Chan. It's a little back-to-nature throwback in our otherwise full-steam-ahead urban world.
Until October 12 at Hyde Park.
Trolleys
Turn everything you know about ballet completely on its head. Even then, you probably won't be able to get close to imagining the performance that is Trolleys, a street dance crossed with ballet crossed with public art. Choreographed by Shaun Parker and Company (who at last year's Art & About took us to the playground with the impressive Spill), Trolleys sees various dancers engage with five shopping trolleys in different locations around the Sydney CBD, enacting stories of love, anarchy and friendship. Using the trolley as a prop/stand-in dance partner, the 20-minute performance promises to push the boundaries of our spatial relationships.
Until October 12. Noon and 1.30pm at Customs House Square.
By the Concrete Playground team. Images courtesy of the City of Sydney.