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Overview
This year has been a stellar one for art lovers, with the Sydney Festival and Art Month keeping our calendars packed with creative delights between January and March. Luckily, the artsy fun is far from over. Up next is The National 2017: New Australian Art, a new biennial initiative from Sydney's top cultural institutions: the Art Gallery of NSW, the MCA, and Carriageworks.
Celebrating the latest and greatest in contemporary Aussie art, The National will present a series of exhibitions and performances across the city between March 30 and July 16. To kick things off, head over to Carriageworks to catch one of these opening-weekend performances—the events won't cost you a cent, but bookings are essential.
Justene Williams, Two Fold 2016. Image courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier.
A METAL CRY
This epic new work by Sydney-based multimedia installation artist Justene Williams promises to be unlike anything you've ever seen. There will be dancers in fluoro pink concertina fan costumes fitted with accordions, dresses with chimes sewn into them, singers climbing up three-meter-high fake trees, electronic violinists, and a live score to boot. Yes, it's going to be intense. It's also going to be utterly mesmerising. Drawing on Japanese dance theatre and the modernist avant-garde, Williams has created a work that explores contemporary suburban culture and our place in a chaotic and fracturing world.
Saturday April 1, 11am and 12pm
Image: Zan Wimberley.
ALL I HAVE IS DREAMS OF YOU
Born in Colombia and raised in Australia, multimedia artist Claudia Nicholson draws on her South American heritage to explore issues of identity through sculpture, performance, and internet-based works. For her newest piece, All I have is Dreams of You, Nicholson has created a memorial to the Queen of Latina pop Selena Quintanilla, who was murdered by the president of her fan club in 1995. Nicholson's vibrant and creative tribute will include an Andean teenage band playing Selena's greatest hits and dancers performing over an alfombra de aserrín, a colourful sawdust carpet that appears in many Latin American religious ceremonies.
Saturday April 1, 4.30pm
Alan Griffiths & Robert lazarus Lane, Bali Bali Balga 2017. Courtesy the artists and Waringarri Aboriginal Arts, Kununurra, WA.
BALI BALI BALGA
A traditional Indigenous dance, the Bali Bali Balga captures the history of the Noongali people, telling stories about spirits and country through movement. Indigenous artist, dancer, and senior law man Alan Griffiths will bring this iconic cultural ceremony to the Carriageworks stage along with a team of dancers. In this intricate ritual, 15 dancers move to the accompaniment of clapping sticks and singing while carrying large woven dance boards that depict key elements of the dance story. This performance features dance boards designed and built by Griffiths and offers a snapshot into the rich culture of his community.
Friday March 31, 7pm
Brett Whitely. Production poster for National Black Theatre's Basically Black. Image courtesy Wendy Whitely, Brett Whitely Studio.
BASICALLY BLACK SCREENING
In 1973, ABC screened a pilot for a TV version of Basically Black, a production that had taken Sydney's Nimrod Theatre by storm the previous year. Presented by the National Black Theatre, the performance was a series of political and satirical sketches about Indigenous Australia. While the planned television series never went beyond the pilot, Basically Black was an important sociopolitical work that still resonates today. If you've never seen the show, now's your chance with a screening that will be introduced by Richard Bell, a Brisbane-based artist and activist whose work is renowned for challenging conceptions of Aboriginal art.
Saturday, April 1, 3pm
Winds of Woerr, 2014. Performance documentation, Next Wave Festival. Image courtesy the artist. Photography: Gregory Lorenzutti.
THE UNSETTLING
Award-winning choreographers Atlanta Eke and Ghenoa Gela have joined forces with Ghost Bird, Sezzo Snot, and RDY STDY (Hana Miller and Jacob Perkins) to create this innovative work that delves into the issue of invisible violence in Australian culture. A supernatural horror film produced in real time, The Unsettling is bound to be pretty epic. Each performance will include live music as well as pre-recorded and live video feeds. You can catch the show in the form of an exhibited rehearsal between June 19 and June 23, or as a performance on the weekend of June 24.
Various dates in June
All five of these performances take place at Carriageworks—245 Wilson St, Eveleigh. For more information and to reserve a space, head to The National's official website.