House, which is a collaboration between Robyn Stacey and The Historic Houses Trust, is an interesting kind of a show in that it has a foot firmly in the fine art camp and another in the museum exhibit territory. A sequence of ornate still-lives painstakingly composed of objects selected from the collections of Vaucluse House, Elizabeth Bay House, Rouse Hill House and Farm, the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection and period-appropriate fruit and vegetables and flowers sourced from HHT and other heritage gardens, Stacey's photos work both as symbolic aesthetic creations in their own right and as evocations of the time and place from which they are drawn. There is something in the meticulous labelling of exhibits at a good museum that speaks to my soul — the orderly means by which the same kinds and amount of information is provided for each item on display is immensely comforting. The Museum of Sydney always does particularly well at this, and there is a lushness of detail in House. The video account of the project, narrated by Stacey, the accounts of the houses, the captioning of the objects and the enumerations of the contents of each photograph all speak the of the historicity of the project as much as the works and objects within it.
Kicking off this year is the new UR{BNE} festival. Organized by the crème de la crème of the river cities’ creative types, its aim is to bring something different, culturally unique, and exciting to Brisbane’s public spaces. As part of the festival's initiative, a weekly film screening will be held at the State Library. Showing this Sunday is the documentary entitled NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell. Chances are, if you're a fan of content such as rock, punk, hip hop, street art, politics or suburban crime, this film will surely not disappoint. It documents the year the New York underground reached the mainstream, the year the forgotten and downtrodden became the people of importance, the year New York showcased its renaissance. Set during a period when the city was at one of its lowest ebbs financially, politically and socially, NY77 narrates how a a new cultural zeitgeist emerged from the ashes of a crumbling metropolis. Featuring interviews with luminaries and icons of their field, coupled with ground-breaking animation and never before seen footage of its time, this movie will leave you yearning to have been there, to have been a part of something special, wishing you could've been a New Yorker in the '70s.
In a world where design is pushed to new limits every day, how much do the things we’re surrounded by make us smile? Does fresh, innovative architecture enrich our cultural belonging? An Australia design collective is pointing a microscope on the value of design, delivering three days worth of discussions as part of the forthcoming designEx convention. And the talking heads bear some pretty serious street cred. Staged over three days, seven discussions will be led by keynote lecturers including the International Herald Tribune's design critic Alice Rawsthorn, designer Stefan Sagmeister, who founded the New York-based design firm Sagmeister Inc and has worked on projects for the Guggenheim and HBO in the past, and British Elle Decoration magazine founder Ilse Crawford. They'll be chatting about how the material world affects our emotional wellbeing and how happiness may be the key to creating so much more sustainable design. Each seminar is held within the 'Happy Place', an area created specifically for this seminar series and constructed entirely of doonas. Sagmeister will even premiere The Happy Film, a film that explores the concept right down to how we can try to be more happy every day. True design buffs will get a kick out of Trent Jansen's talk on the Tuesday, which will delve into the history of Australian design and discuss what needs to be done to improve the future of local design. Guaranteed to turn even the most downturned frown upside down. Want to win tickets to 7 Kinds of Happiness? Enter here.
Every night during Vivid Sydney, the city's most iconic landmark is transformed into a psychedelic spectacle of light. From 6pm until midnight, German light projectionists URBANSCREEN will be lighting the sails of Sydney Opera House. As the sun sets, head to Walsh Bay, The Rocks and Circular Quay to take in the handpicked collection of 50 interactive and immersive light art sculptures, as well as projections on the buildings of the MCA and Customs House. Artworks have been selected from artists around the globe, including Europe, Asia, the USA, South America and Australasia. Get the map and check out the complete programme at the Vivid Sydney website. See our picks for Vivid LIVE and Vivid Ideas.
Take an uncommon peek into the massed cultural holdings of national art-loan service ArtBank. One of the biggest buyers of art in Australia, Art Bank rents it back to offices around the country and some private homes. Their vaults are buoyed by up-and-comers, and more established artists around the country. It's not a collection whose spaces are often open to a general public, but for one day in March they're letting regular punters into what's otherwise a more mercantile environment. With a staff on hand to help you get a better look at their massed cultural holdings, this Art Month offering is a slice into a hidden art world, its own micro Sydney Open. 10 March, 2pm - 4pm Artbank. (Free) Bookings: enquiries@artbank.gov.au For more info on Art Month 2012, check out our Ten Best Things to See and at Art Month 2012.
You know John Kaldor's stuff. Commissioning public art like Jeff Koons' puppy at the MCA, domestic wrappers on public sculpture and luring Christo and Jeanne-Claude to cover australian shores, his impressive and extensive collection of modern art now graces the Art Gallery of NSW. During Art Month, Kaldor Public Projects is preparing to launch its twenty-fifth project, The Dailies by Thomas Demand. Demand is printing his art on the Commercial Travelers' Association in Martin Place, even bringing a faint suggestion of scratch-and-sniff to the proceedings. Sitting down in tune with this new endeavour, John Kaldor takes to the stage at Customs House to discuss his collecting proclivities and his love for art, interviewed by ABC art maven Fenella Kernebone. RSVP (free) here. For more info on Art Month 2012, check out our Ten Best Things to See and at Art Month 2012.
ARIs (Artist Run Initiatives — galleries run by artists, for artists) are, on the whole, a good thing. They encourage their artistic operators to get au fait with the business side of the creative arts, while they offer their exhibiting artists the chance to get their work shown by in a sympathetic space at (hopefully) sympathetic prices. The only problem for the outsider can be getting your head around where they are and what they do. While those in the know can do worse than checking out an online how-to, those seeking a more personal touch might look to get themselves shown around by someone who knows the traps. Match Box Projects are those someones, offering a series of four ARI Tours around inner Sydney to get you in the know. The tours are in Newtown on March 10 at 2pm, the Rocks March 11 at 1pm, Chippendale March 17 at 1pm, Surry Hills March 18 at 1pm. Tours are free, but you need to book. For more info on Art Month 2012, check out our Ten Best Things to See and at Art Month 2012.
Why do films make us cry? Usually, and most obviously, it's because they move us in some way, tugging on our emotional heartstrings through subjects like love, death, family and horses. Sometimes, too, it's because they manage to surprise us. Just as occasionally it's because they're so craptastically awful that crying is the only way to feel something real again (I'm looking at you, Jack and Jill). The key thing, though, and this really can't be stressed enough, is that a movie should never set out to make its audiences cry. That's when things become cynical. That's when people leave the band shouting, "You used to be all about the music, man." That’s when LeBron chooses Miami over New York. Bottom line: it's just not cool. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) is a movie that's just not cool. It's drama by numbers and quite possibly the most contrived grab for an Oscar since Crash. Based on the bestselling book by Jonathan Safran Foer, it tells the story of 11-year-old Oskar Schell (in an impressive debut by Thomas Horn) and his agonising attempts to make sense of the loss of his father following the devastating attacks of September 11. When Oksar discovers a key hidden in his late father’s wardrobe with nothing but the surname 'Black' affixed to it, he embarks upon an uncompromising search of the five boroughs of New York to track down its owner by identifying and then interviewing every single 'Black' in the phone book. It doesn't take Oskar long to realise, however, that "everybody lost somebody or something" that day, and so begins this supposed tale of redemption in what the producers insist is not a 9/11 movie but rather a movie about "every day since". Bollocks. Daldry's two-hour indulgence uses 9/11 as a constant emotional trigger, peppering the story with regular (and repeated) answering machine messages left by Oskar's father as the building blazed, buckled and finally crumbled around him. When that's not enough, we're shown photos of some of the hapless souls who chose to jump rather than burn. It's an incomprehensible attempt to remind us about something we're quite clearly never going to forget, and seen through a child's eyes it becomes so reductionist we're not even afforded the possibility of understanding or context. On the positive side, Horn proves incredibly accomplished for someone of his age and his portrayal of the hyperintelligent, borderline Asperger's-afflicted character is as impressive as the character is unlikeable. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock play Oskar's parents, but neither receives enough screen time to make any sort of meaningful impact, just as Max von Sydow's performance is rendered mute, quite literally, courtesy of a character trait that's entirely dispensable. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is an emotionally charged movie that will absolutely make audiences cry, but the calculated nature of it renders those tears more bitter than sweet.
As the City of Sydney pioneered filling empty spaces with arts at a peppercorn rent, the Paper Mill pioneered filling that space, dealing with the City as landlord, as well as the business of exhibitions and art workshops. It all seemed to go quite well. Its former directors have been ruminating on the months since its closure, resulting in their exhibition Ex Post Facto ("after the acheivement"), sharing space with Justin Balmain's In Case We Never Meet. Ex Post Facto is a collection of oddments. Stephanie Peters' Junk Drawer has a model railway apartment jut out of the hollow of a drawer, greenery and garden included. An inevitable closing threatens to wipe out its domesticity. Christopher Hodge's Painting to Indicate physicality i,ii,iii collects three canvases, two abstract, one ruminating on the "hip new" versus a "new hip," while Kate Campbell's video work, Bifurcation Home, follows two halves of a house down a freeway, moving on trailers theat seem briefly parted and barely separate. Siân McIntyre's "...if you keep on walking" slides sylvester Stallone's face under wallpaper-like patterns. Stuck onto mirrors, they line up along a shelf in readiness to Stallonify a kitchen. Star of the show is Laura Pike's Map Study. Four maps: Hurstville, Canterbury, North Head and the CBD are cut into coloured projections, the paper fringes cut clean away, leaving only a spider web of streets behind. In the holes formerly filled by these urban blocks, dark abstract shapes loom through the paper. Justin Balmain's In Case We Never Meet sets dual cameras following the images of two running lovers. Looping through George Street and the Galeries, they look for one other, push deftly around people and fail to meet. Their running is absorbing, dragging you over their shoulders to follow across shiny night streets and through indifferent crowds. Image: Still from In Case We Never Meet by Justin Balmain. © the artist.
In Broken Eloise Laurence plays Skunk, a girl on summer holiday on the verge of her first year of high school. She lives with her lawyer father, Archie (Tim Roth), brother Jed (Bill Milner), au pair Kasia (Zana Marjanovic) and Kasia's much-admired boyfriend Mike (Cillian Murphy). Their neighbours are arrayed around the circle of their dead-end street: another single father, Bob (Rory Kinnear), raises three raucous girls, and an older couple try to nurture their mentally ill son Rick (Robert Emms). We watch adult problems through Skunk's eyes, a familiar trick that works well here. It's a trick Broken has carried through from Daniel Clay's original novel of the same name, which in turn has borrowed it from To Kill a Mockingbird. The film follows that same lead, also adding a stylistic touch of Terrence Malick's Tree of Life into its hospital-bound framing sequence. Broken successfully draws out much of the emotional richness of its earlier counterpart. Also, most of the plot. There's the decent father, rude neighbours, false accusations of assault and enigmatic neighbour — all building into a surprising, climactic confrontation. And while Roth's Archie is a decent man, Broken never gives him the same moral depth at the centre of Harper Lee's version of this story. Powerfully acted all the way through, the film observes suffering and love through a child's eyes, but it throws away its own beauty and carefully built tone to opt for a snack of needless drama at the end. It's a final melodrama that seems to come from Clay's book much more than screenwriter Mark O'Rowe's script. Some of the fun definitely lies in drawing out the parallels to Lee's book, but nothing is as much fun as simply watching these actors act. In the end, the fidelity to Lee's plot structure competes here with the story's fidelity to the characters' inner lives. Especially for Rick, whose ending seems to show a deep misunderstanding of mental illness, as well. Most of this film is fantastic. By no means avoid it. The acting alone makes it rewarding viewing. But maybe it shouldn't sit at the top of your cinematic list this weekend, either.
Long the butt of jokes about its obscurity, contemporary dance responds to its accusers with a successful dose of humour in Sydney Dance Company's first season for 2013, De Novo. De Novo is organised into two halves. The first is Rafael Bonachela's own new work, Emergence, which is as coldly attractive as a catwalk model. In contrast, the second half features two smaller pieces, Fanatic by Larissa McGowan and Cacti by Alexander Ekman, that are like the wildly fun eccentrics to be found hanging around a Fashion Week afterparty. The instigating thought for Bonachela in Emergence is the revelation of something previously concealed out of a moment of collision. To prime this process, Bonachela collaborated with composers Nick Wales and Sarah Blasko, fashion designer Dion Lee and lighting designer Benjamin Cisterne, and it is clear that their individual talents have all been shaped in Emergence through the principles of collision, contrast, revelation and shifting structures. The resulting work is stark and architectural. The dancers are bodies-as-architecture, they move in tension with sculptural light fixtures, overlocking layers of score and sound, and are costumed in Lee's hard-lined silhouettes - it is very clear that Bonachela and his team are in thematic unison. This unity comes at a price however, and of the three pieces in De Novo, Emergence may be too aloof for audiences not accustomed to high concept contemporary dance. Bonachela's programming seems to acknowledge this, as he warms his audience in the second half with McGowan and Ekman's more accessible pieces. Larissa McGowan's Fanatic first appeared in 2012's Spring Dance event, Contemporary Women, and it is well-deserving of a longer appearance on a Sydney stage. The premise is straightforward and timely: an alternating cast (on opening night this featured dancers Natalie Allen, Thomas Bradley and Chris Aubrey) channel a YouTube feed full of fans commenting on the Alien and Predator films. Fanatic combines three choreographic strands: dancers lip synch the words of fans who are disappointed with the latest Alien vs Predator flop; dancers jolt in abstract sequences that rhythmically match the machine-gun opinions of online complaints; and, most enjoyably, there are moments where McGowan recreates action sequences and horrific aliens that could easily have spurted straight out of a Blu-Ray feature, and yet are very much still an act of dance. Natalie Allen especially leaves no doubt that she shares some DNA with Lieutenant Ellen Ripley. Concluding De Novo's mixed bill is Cacti, the Australian premiere of Swedish-born choreographer Alexander Ekman. Mercurial in form, Cacti is a hilarious essay that pushes the white elephant straight into the spotlight: modern art doesn't have to mean anything in particular, and you're not stupid if you respond in a different way to the cultural elite. To address this, Ekman guides the Company dancers through a series of absurd, beautifully executed sequences involving an orchestra of bodies and stringed instruments, domineering lights, a duet of immensely cute inner monologues and, as labelled on the box, a chorus of cacti. De Novo is a smart programme, and would make for a well-measured degustation with which to introduce friends to contemporary dance – but be prepared for a couple of debates after the show. https://youtube.com/watch?v=AYSNYHk1hDU Image by Peter Greig.
Biopic Hitchcock joins the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock when he is already well established as the 'Master of Suspense'. It's 1959, though, and that title doesn't yet cover the movie genre we'd perhaps consider most suspenseful — horror — which is widely thought crass. This is the year he'll start making Psycho. Hitchcock is a portrait of this changing time, an analysis of why we humans are so interested in horror stories, and a fantasy explaining the romantic relationship between Hitchcock and his wife, screenwriter/editor/assistant director Alma Reville. It's fair to say the film is pale and uneven at times, but it also does a number of things well. Foremost are the formidable performances of Anthony Hopkins as 'Hitch' and Helen Mirren as Alma. Hopkins is transformed into a man both rotund and orotund. His idiosyncratic sway of speaking is completely charming. Mirren, meanwhile, has our favour the moment she walks into any film these days, which suits perfectly here, because Hitch's wife has to put up with a lot of ego, and as a woman in the 1950s, her own professional work is routinely disregarded. A lot of Hitchcock is about Alma accepting her place in the world, and the world around her reciprocating with some recognition in return. Like the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady, Hitchcock uses the interesting technique of externalising its subject's thought processes through their interaction with another person, one of their own fantasy — like an imaginary friend. Hitch has many conversations with Ed Gein, the serial killer whose case inspired the book Psycho. In this way, the film is able to explore how physical anxieties are linked to emotional anxieties, which is really what is exorcised when we watch a horror movie. For some people, this 'imaginary friend' technique is a debasement too far in a study of a real person's life, but, as a clearly fictionalised element of the story, I think it can be both legitimate and useful. Hitchcock uses it far better than The Iron Lady, although after a while, the hallucinations become more tiring than illuminating. One of the real successes of Hitchcock, though, may be that it avoids hagiography. In it, Hitchock is just another mortal among mortals, who with drive, vision, good fortune, and the input of other talented individuals makes truly great films. It's a good, meaty alternative for anyone tired of watching historical figures turned into saints on screen.
Abbe May's 2011 album Design Desire is all distorted riffs, heavy drums and a disarmingly angelic voice that softens the noise just enough to make it attractive to people who decide on the soundtracks for commercial television. Her new single is a bit different. "Karmageddon" is gloomy (duh) and no less visceral than last year's stuff, but by toning down the loud guitars it makes mass destruction sound mysterious and seductive. With its cyclonic winds and hazy smoke clouds shrouding her sultry vocals, the video for "Karmageddon" gives you a good idea of Abbe May's new direction even if you've got the sound switched off. Even more alluring though will be her performance in Goodgod's Danceteria, which features smoke machines aplenty. https://youtube.com/watch?v=bDJx-yLk3d0
Is Love Story the first crowd-written film? Indie filmmakers have been financing their projects directly from fans for a while, but this pseudo-documentary rom com credits “the people of New York City” as screenwriters. Affable, skinny-jeaned Kiwi, Florian Habicht, sees a beautiful young woman, Masha, on the streets of New York. He misses his chance to get her number, but can’t forget her. Armed with a steadycam and a gutload of courage, he asks regular New Yorkers what he should do. The suggestions of strangers prompt his next moves and the development of the romance. What emerges is less of a love story and more of a testimony to the fact that Americans will truly say and do anything on camera. But this film’s directive isn’t realism or even true love. It's cleverness and kitsch, of the stripey socks and frosted cupcake variety. It’s all pretty meta: in these post-everything times, Love Story takes the idea of a film within a film, and rewrites it on the fly. It doesn’t work like Hollywood and it doesn’t work all the time. But it’s so sweet and silly and earnest, and goofy Florian is such an entertaining host, that the film’s foibles are forgivable — just. Love Story is a fun and admirable cinematic experiment - the trick is not to think too much.
Be warned: the Dobell Prize for Drawing is a decidedly 3D, video, live art and soundscape free zone. There are no lasers, no mechanical drawing machines, no Frankenstein music/art installations. No way: this is Australia’s top shelf prize for drawing, and there’s some serious, old school, two dimensional technique on show here. Drawing is no longer the scaffolding upon which the rest of an artist’s practice hangs. And perhaps it’s natural that audiences will be drawn to labour intensive works, as if the dedication of time leads to deeper integrity and intelligence in a work. Of course it doesn't, but it’s comforting to know that in an art world of immersive installations, large scale video works and YouTube mashups, hand drawn images can still captivate. This year’s Dobell is a reminder of what an honest and direct form of communication drawing can be. It’s an art show for those who want to go back to basics. The artist bringing home the $30,000 bling this year is 73-year-old Gareth Sansom. His work, Made in Wadeye, comprises twenty A3-sized, expressive, colourful drawings on paper, and with its collage-like approach, it’s one of the more contemporary works in the show. Materially, it’s got a bit of everything: ink, graphite, coloured pencil, felt-tipped pen, ballpoint pen and even earth. Perhaps Sansom’s win is an indication that this comfortable drawing prize is trying to get off the track it’s beaten for the last twenty years. Along with this year's winner, it was announced at the prize’s launch (at the stubbornly unhip time of 11am on a Friday morning) that 2012 will be the Dobell’s last year. It's to be replaced by an overhauled biennial prize aimed at refreshing drawing in a contemporary format (aka, getting with the program). We’re keeping our eyes peeled for a new, improved prize that expands the boundaries of what drawing can do and be in a digital, 21st Century age of art. Image: Dobell Prize for Drawing 2012 winner: Gareth Sansom,"Made in Wadeye", 2012
Initiated by Sydney Institute students and presented by A Series of Fortunate Events, Bizarre Bazaar has a cult following of style-conscious Sydneysiders. The twilight fashion market reclaims a Sydney laneway (or, on colder occasions, an indoor space) on odd Thursday eves to showcase the quirky garments and new collections of numerous local designers. The next Bizarre Bazaar will be held in Angel Place, with Eat Art Truck providing the sustenance and Festival Couch providing the tunes. New labels on show include Ann & Albert, Lauren Cass and Maple and Ray. Lusting after an item you saw but failed to snap up? Try the newly opened Bizarre Bazaar permanent flagship store, #crosssection, at 62 Glebe Point Road, Glebe.
The UTS Design, Architecture and Building school is going above and beyond for their end of year show. Not content with your usual cheap-wine/crumbly-cheese/dried-fruit opening night combo, they're taking over Building 6 of the uni with food trucks, bars, music and installations, and billing it as a vertical street party. As well as projects from the next generation of local creative thinkers and doers, the exhibition includes international contributors, Francois Roche (R&Sie(n)), Philippe Bloch (ETH Zurich), Adam Russell (DRAW), Thierry Lacoste (Lacoste+Stevenson), Matthew Bennett (Bennett and Trimble), Damien Butler (Assemblage), curated across all levels of Building Six. Who'd expect anything less from a show billed as exploring "the future of architecture"? After the big night, Index 2012 continues from November 28-30.
The number of galleries on show at Art Month’s precinct nights in Chippendale and Surry Hills in March suggested an idea that’s slowly becoming obvious: Sydney’s art world is shifting westwards. So it’s a good thing for Surry Hills that a new art spot is popping up. 10x8 Gallery is setting up shop there, boosting the numbers of the suburb’s artistic hangouts. To help usher in their digs, 10x8 has whipped together an impressive lineup for their inaugural group show. Star players in this debut line-up of photography include Andrew Quilty (not to be confused with cousin Ben), Raul Canibano and narrative image-maker William Yang. 10x8 is open Wednesday to Saturday 11–6. The public opening for the show is at 2pm, Saturday April 13. Image Vinales from Tierra Guajra Series by Raul Canibano,
Art plus bar. This almost universal gallery opening deal is a pretty tasty mix already. But the MCA adds extras to this time-honoured tradition with its now SMAC-winning series ARTBAR. They're evenings of strange and interesting things at play among the art, recurring monthly and curated by a rotating cast of local artists. This month's art interventionist is Emma Price of the Starbuck-buzzing Kingpins. Her Artbar occupation runs along the theme of love, with performance promised, a kissing booth and some lecturing on amore.
Daniel Lopatin's 2011 album Replica won him Best New Music, but he was steering analogue synths through unchartered territory long before the tastemakers caught on. Not to suggest Pitchfork was slow on the uptake or anything — Lopatin's first few albums were released on cassette only, making them significantly less RTable than SoundCloud uploads. It's the retro equipment though that makes Oneohtrix (pronounced "one-oh-trix) Point Never's progressive sound so immediate and so immediately recognisable. Droning synths (made on an old Roland Juno-60) are scraped through astral echoes and across jittery chord progressions, giving them an intimacy that's heightened further by the hiss of black thread. He's managed to keep that sound while incorporating both noise and accessible melodies in 2010's Returnal, and venturing into 2011 with an album recorded on studio software. Which is great because, you know, Spotify and stuff. https://youtube.com/watch?v=hiwi7d0f91Y
After recent exploits in the US and Europe, PVT are becoming old hands at the whole ‘touring’ thing. They’ve supported high profile acts such as Bloc Party, Menomena and Gotye and, over the course of their career to date, have toured Australia several times in support of their creative efforts. The latest of these efforts is Homosapien, a thrilling example of PVT’s instrumental prowess and creative capabilities. This album is their fourth, and it brings together all of the great elements of their previous releases dating back to 2005 (released under the name Pivot). They have wasted no time in inserting themselves into the Australian music consciousness. Indeed, the trio have had taken the country by storm with their brand of electro-laden music that blends ethereal elements with grounded, contemporary hooks. Homosapien sees the band place more emphasis on vocals, adding an intimate element to their experimental soundscapes. Joining PVT on their tour is the up and coming electro-RNB duo, Collarbones, who have been making waves since releasing Die Young last year. They are being hailed as a great genre-bending talent, much like their tour buddies, PVT. Get in quick and secure a ticket. Trust me, you’ll be blown away.
Since selling out two Oxford Art Factories in less than ten 10 minutes back in January, Foals have relased their third studio album, Holy Fire — a sweeping follow up to their sophomore effort Total Life Forever. Holy Fire is an uninhibited mix of emotion and instrument, and should give Yannis Philippakis and the crew plenty of juice with which to fuel their notoriously savage live sets. But while it doesn't stray far from Foals' addictive sound, a blend of riffy math rock and danceable electronics, the album does sound more cohesive than anything the band has released previously. Tickets for Foals Enmore Theatre show go on sale Monday, 18 March at 9am. https://youtube.com/watch?v=qJ_PMvjmC6M
It seems pretty safe to say that us Sydneysiders are absolutely, undeniably food obsessed. And not just in an instagramming our food way. Just check out how many food festivals we have. Yup, it's a lot. Taste of Sydney is the next one on the food calendar, running from March 14-17, and if you've never been before, just picture Centennial Park covered in food, alcohol, and chefs under white tents. It's kinda like the food and cocktail circus is in town. You might also want to drop by one of the 20 restaurant stands, like 4Fourteen, The Woods, or Efendy. Here are our picks of the best stuff on. Read our guide to grazing your way through Taste of Sydney here.
Noel McKenna takes centre stage in the MCA's South of no North. The exhibition matches up McKenna with overseas artists Laurence Aberhart (New Zealand) and William Eggleston (USA), whose photography has been selected by McKenna to accompany his paintings. The three artists' plaintive urban landscapes are a perfect match for one another: McKenna's blue-tinted world, Eggleton's quiet streetscapes and Aberhart's visions of New Zealand and the USA. McKenna's Priest in Room feels like it escaped from Picasso's blue period with its optimism intact. Picasso's harder realism from the period doesn't make the leap, but the cool bleakness of scene does. At its centre, the priest sits behind a candle and religious toy blocks. Amid the grey malaise, he's a ray of diligence, reassurance and optimism. His eyes radiate warmth much more than his candle. Eggleton's Untitled from Troubled Waters and Untitled (Greenwood Mississippi) move this same sense of urban drift outside. The warmth of McKenna's images of animals and people are the highlight of the show, especially Boy Dressed as Batman's mix of adult savvy and child's instinct, as well as Boy's room, Brisbane 1967 where a watchful cat stands in for a missing owner. He also paints three of Australia's oversize roadside attractions, including the Big Rocking Horse, Gumeracha. They match nicely with Eggleton's Untitled, Memphis, a striking photo of a child's tricycle framed as though gargantuan. The composition and subjects of Aberhart and Eggleton's photography are beautiful. It's hard to deny their technical skill. But the distance in these images is relentless. They are not new images, many coming from in or before the 1970s. They show big American urban sprawl, where the pop culture of the roadside attraction mixes with the realities of everyday life. It's a combination of cool and decay. A decade ago there would have been easily enough fun in that to hold up an exhibition. But since 2000, pop culture has given us more nuanced explorations of rural and urban wastelands, like Ghost World or No Country for Old Men. The American cultural overflow we receive by proxy on our screens these days have moved on to weightier themes and to different locales, the occasional Breaking Bad notwithstanding. It's hard for a contemporary Australian viewer to connect with these empty spaces without a stronger sense of who should be filling them. There's no fault in the photos themselves. They are simply orphaned here in 2013. Their emptiness doesn't move you. And they don't bring the past into the present. Noel McKenna, Big Rocking Horse, Gumeracha, South Australia © the artist
Is the Biennale of Sydney (BOS) the Australian art world's Hollywood blockbuster? It’s an institution. It is big budgets, celebrity artists and dazzling settings. But if it is art’s equivalent of the blockbuster, it’s not just disposable entertainment and pure spectacle. The BOS is also not just a three-month exhibition and program of artist talks, performances, forums and film screenings (all free, might I add). It’s also a link to the global art world, which can often feel far away from Australia. There are dozens of international artists exhibiting at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cockatoo Island, Walsh Bay, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Carriageworks. The joy of the Biennale is that it disproves that much beloved myth: that contemporary art is inaccessible, irritating and elitist. The BoS, now coming of age with its eighteenth birthday, has thoroughly wound itself into Sydney, no, Australia’s, arts calendar. Thousands of pilgrims will ferry over to Cockatoo Island, once an industrial graveyard and now a premier entertainment and tourist precinct, and a work of art in and of itself. It is at once a portal into Sydney’s industrial past and a glimpse of contemporary art’s future. The big question is: will the Island overbear the curated artworks, as it has in earlier years? Let’s do the impossible and pinpoint a couple of highlights. The 18th Biennale of Sydney, themed "all our relations", kicks off with a special ARTbar night at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Friday June 29. This is a new range of events for the MCA, and it’s exciting to see more Sydney institutions dip into the realm of late night programming with a focus on culture and community rather than clubbing and drunkenness. This ARTbar installment is all about the mechanics and bipolar excellence/strangeness of cinema. There’ll be pianos with pinballs, inflatable delusions, 1960’s 3D cinema and the opportunity to view the Biennale exhibition spaces on levels 1 and 3. Lastly, Art Lounges at Cockatoo Island and Pier 2/3 will provide more free, public spaces to engage with the ideas of the Biennale. FBi Radio is coming on board to run the Biennale Bar from 6.30–9.30 pm every Friday throughout August (3, 10, 17, 24 and 31 August) at Pier 2/3, Walsh Bay. Image by Ann Veronica Janssens "Blue Red and Yellow" (detail) 2001
As digital accessibility continues to erode traditional methods for the communal experience of artistic events, more and more creatives are coming up with new ways to keep old-school activities relevant. Underground Cinema is one of the champions. No more checking schedule times, reading reviews to determine the pick-of-the-programme, queuing for tickets or choosing between popcorn and choc tops. Underground Cinema (or UGC for short) doesn't involve merely seeing a film; it's an immersive experience. Participants purchase tickets online knowing only the theme, date and time of the event. They're clueless as regards to where they're going to meet, what they're going to see or who's behind the programme. Upon receiving notice of a top-secret location (anywhere from a parking lot to a disused ballroom to an abandoned warehouse), they turn up to enter not a cinema but an alternate universe, arranged according to the ethos of the movie they're about to see. That means live performances, music, costumes and who knows what else. The next UGC event intends to transport attendees to 1950s Hollywood. "It's swinging, saucy and sexy," reads the site. "We've got big bands, colour TV and stars in our eyes. It's a world of glitz and glamour, allure and attraction, but beware — all that glitters is not gold." Tickets for the Sydney event go on sale on Tuesday, August 27, at 1pm from the Underground Cinema website. https://youtube.com/watch?v=3UMG2fXsyAU
This article is sponsored by our partner The City of Sydney. The tail end of 2013 is heating up for Sydney's fashion set, as Vogue brings Fashion's Night Out back to the CBD on 5 September, hot on the heels of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival (21-24 August). It's your annual chance to taste the VIP experience as our premier shopping precinct is transformed into a playground of style from 5pm. Shoppers can expect exclusive deals from select participating retailers, including a Christian Louboutin shoe style that will only be available on the night through their Westfield store, along with live entertainment and celebrity appearances. Enjoy champagne and 10 percent off the Spring/Summer 13/14 collection at Manning Cartell, canapes and artisanal leather embossing at MIMCO, and fashion blogger styling and 15 percent off your favourite designers at The Corner Store. Runways are set to litter the city, while beauty consultants and manicurists attend to your grooming needs. There is no word yet on specific musicians and DJs performing this year, but if 2012's celebration of the songstress (headlined by Megan Washington) is any indication, we can vouch for the entertainment value. For full details on participating retailers and events head to the event website. Image by Nicole Bentley.
So it's a book. Not a film, not a day at the beach, not a party. James Joyce's (recently more public-domained) Ulysses is set across the single day of June 16 in 1904. And on June 16 every year, Bloom lovers (like Stephen Fry) get together to read the book out loud, attempting to squeeze it into a single day themselves. This year's Irish odyssey is being brought to life with the first Bloomsday on Bondi. Leaving you with film, Guinness, and a bit of beach to go with your book loving. It's a drop-in, drop-out affair, with music and beer on tap throughout the day, and a midday, free reading followed by a screening (also free) of Nora, starring Susan Lynch and Ewan McGregor (possibly only once before screened in Sydney). Before lunch, the opening chapters meet Buck Mulligan's Breakfast and after seven O'Punsky's Theatre offers up the day's climactic reading. Breakfast and evening sessions are paid events and need to be booked. Can't catch it at Bondi? Listen to the BBC version the day after or download the original. https://youtube.com/watch?v=JT367gsMEvo
The Lunarcade is rolling into town this week and you had better be concerned. A circus of madness and joy, of lateral thought and digital poetry, Lunarcade will have you prying open your ribcages and allowing the child inside to leap bloodily for the nearest game controller. Landing in Serial Space for just seven days, Lunarcade is an international festival of independent games that are putting the art back into artificial intelligence. The theme for the Sydney season is 'Spatial Narrative', and audiences are invited to take part in games both completed and in-development that engage storytelling practices in real and virtual spaces. Heavily represented are games that place more focus on exploring alternate worlds, with almost none of the bloodshed that has become the opiate of mainstream gaming masses. In place of the lust for gunfire, you have atmospheric, taut mysteries that unfold in realtime. Already available for purchase is Dear Esther, a ghost romance by Dan Pinchbeck that often feels like you're reading a novel hidden in beautiful graphics. Equally seductive is the yet-to-be-completed Lifeless Planet, which plunges you into the suit of an American astronaut exploring a distant, presumed uninhabited planet, only to find that Soviet Russia got there first. More intriguing, though, may be the emergent tales from the in-progress Memories of a Broken Dimension, with a game world that appears to be glimpsed through an MRI scanner and almost nothing else known about it except for some forum posts about satellite orbits. Similarly, there is the aptly titled TRIP, which all but challenges you to explore its polygon acid kingdom with your sanity intact. Finally, and perhaps the most likely to enthuse with bursts of glee, is the real-space game J.S. Joust, which runs each evening at 7pm. Grab your friends, prepare your slow-speed control, and prepare to make some new enemies before the night is over. https://youtube.com/watch?v=5y1P2BUCeuc
Theatre is the art of the voice, of the story, and of the connection between people to create a temporary community. What is necessary in a city of Sydney's size is that the voices making these connections are not all speaking with the same timbre. One representative of this broadening chorus is the StoryLines Festival — a co-production of bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company, Tamarama Rocksurfers, and the National Institute of Dramatic Art — which has a boutique program featuring artists from African, Indigenous, Islamic and Malaysian backgrounds. At the core of the festival, which is hosted both at NIDA's Parade Theatres and the Bondi Pavilion, are three plays written by award-winning Australian playwright Justin Fleming: A Land Beyond the River, Junction, and Coup d'Etat. However, surrounding these works are exhibitions and a public forum, hosted by James Valentine, that seek to connect communities throughout Sydney via the arts. Found herein are works from Sarah Barker, Steven Floyd, the Villawood Refugee Centre and the Kinchela Boys' Home, all presented under the title 'Voices and Visions'. As well as these cultural events, the StoryLines Festival is supporting fundraising for South Sudan Educates Girls and the establishment of the Kinchela Boys' Home Belonging Place. The StoryLines Festival runs from July 31 until August 5 at NIDA Parade Studios, and from August 8-26 at Bondi Pavilion.
It was the late Robert Hughes who asked: “What does one prefer? An art that struggles to change the social contract, but fails? Or one that seeks to please and amuse, and succeeds?” Following the downfall of the Soviet bloc more than twenty years ago, the question of changing the social contract fell out of the international conversation entirely. It wasn’t until the Global Financial Crisis and the Occupy movement that the other 'c' word (capitalism) returned to the collective vocabulary, and suddenly even Time magazine was asking whether Karl Marx was right after all. These questions have finally trickled down to the art world, which is often concerned more with such incisive issues as the musical abilities of Laurie Anderson’s dog. Everything Falls Apart (Part II) is a curated exhibition about the collapse of political systems, and it arrives at a time when the social order seems more threatened by its own myriad internal contradictions than by outside dangers like terrorism or invasion. As such, the show’s strength lies in its portrayal of an empire crumbling from the inside. Its weakness is that solutions and alternatives to capitalism’s crisis are only remotely alluded to, perhaps due to a fear of reinforcing the idea that political art is necessarily preachy, myopic and didactic. Vernon Ah Kee’s four channel video work Tall Man stands out as a confronting reminder that Australia’s colonial nature does not lie in some mythological, distant past, but continues into the present. The video is accompanied by two spectacular close-up large-scale portraits of an Aboriginal man whose steely and unashamed gaze is profoundly moving. It's a reminder that contemporary artists can talk about the things that should matter in a universal and human way that doesn't alienate audiences. The show is accompanied by a symposium entitled 'Another World' on Friday August 17 (free, 10am-4.30pm) which discusses the role of art in a volatile society, and three free film screenings of New Zealand doco Patu! by Merata Mita (details here). Image: Tall Man by Vernon Ah Kee, 2010
Every year, pioneering artists, activists and thinkers come together to collaborate on how to better our world at The Creative Time Summit in New York City. This occasion is viewed by over 4000 live audience members and watched online by more than 30,000. If you’re one of the thousands that has tuned in, this year is your chance to be there without having to jump the pond. This year, the curatorial collective Original Affluent Society is bringing the Summit to the Newtown Library in Sydney to explore the same issues on a local level. The theme of this year’s summit is ‘Art, Place, and Dislocation in the 21st Century City’, which focuses on the role of art in creating sustainable cities, gentrification and modes of resistance to urban development. The Sydney Program will feature highlights from New York, including a discussion panel made up of speakers such as performance artist Vito Acconci, renowned art theorist Lucy Lippard, Creative Time chief curator Nato Thompson, artist and Occupy activist Michael Premo, My Brooklyn director Kelly Anderson, artist Lucy Orta, Project Row Houses founder Rick Lowe, and more. Local responders include Yellow House co-founder and artist Jonny Lewis, Grow It Local’s Jess Miller, artist Lucas Ihlein and Ian Milliss on Green Bans, and artists Diego Bonetto and Adrian O’Doherty. Following the summit is the Summit Social, a closing party and exhibition held at the local artist-run gallery Archive_Space from 5-8pm on Sunday. Works from artists Keg de Souza, Diego Bonetto & Adrian O’Doherty, and Belem Lett will be on display, as well as live performances from Beth Dillon and James Gatt, and Alex Guthrie. The Sydney Creative Time Summit is a platform for people of all sorts to come together to explore the changing role of art in the world and Sydney in an informal way. So if you want to become a better-informed citizen of the world, then this could be an event worthy of your time.
Hitting the snowy slopes of Thredbo can be tough work. After a full day of ski runs, all you probably want to do is relax with drink in hand and contemplate whether or not to push for selection on the Winter Olympics team. Whilst Thredbo may not be able to get you to the pinnacle of winter sports competition, they can put a drink in your hand and then some when Clicquot in the Snow takes over the village from July 29 until August 4. The Veuve Clicquot-sponsored winter celebration will transform the village, decking it out in Clicquot Yellow (don’t worry, there will be no yellow snow) and providing a place to relax that's open to anyone and everyone. There will be an accompanying variety of outdoor and indoor Clicquot-inspired events, which you can book for online. Our picks are Clicquot Snow Croquet, Clicquot Apres-Ski Sessions and the Clicquot in the Snow Picnic. Special Clicquot in the Snow
From humble beginnings to a hugely successful career spanning two decades, You Am I have become veritable legends of Australian music. Their hall-of-fame-calibre resume reads like this: three No.1 albums, seven albums reaching the Australian top ten, countless tours and sold out shows and numerous accolades to go along with it all (despite still being labelled as 'cult favourites'). Tim Rogers, Andy Kent, Russell Hopkinson and David Lane are bringing the jams that made them a classic act, a show for the dedicated fan, performing their albums Hourly, Daily, and Hi Fi Way in their entirety. They are taking the show across Australia and the response has been massive already. Their first Brisbane show sold out, a second has since gone on sale — we wouldn't be surprised if that sold out, too. You'd best make sure it isn't the same in your city (it probably is), so you can score a ticket in time. For long-time fans of the band, this is an opportunity that cannot be missed, for there is no telling if it will come around again soon. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Nwsyr5gAEuM
As far as Henry Miller was concerned, alone time is crucial to creativity. “An artist is always alone,” he wrote, “if he is an artist. What the artist needs is loneliness.” But spending day in, day out, with only your cat for company isn’t always a recipe for inspiration. Luckily, Etsy is well aware of the problem. So, every year, they host an enormous, worldwide Craft Party. Artists and craftspeople all over the planet are encouraged to get together to paint, draw, sculpt, sew and make — with like-minded others. This year, the gathering will be happening on June 6 and the theme is 'Recapture: bring new meaning to your photographs'. You scour the family photo album for your most archaic, treasured, embarrassing and bizarre images and take them with you. Etsy Craft Parties will be held all over Australia. You can organise your own, or to attend one of Sydney's major bashes, book a spot online.
For those of us unable to hang about at Splendour this year, sideshows are the next best thing. Thankfully, Foster The People are among the Splendour acts making their way to Sydney and boy, are we excited for some indie dance pop to lift our Splendourless spirits. FTP's debut album Torches sold nearly two million copies worldwide, and their sophomore effort Supermodel has already produced some incredibly catchy singles, such as 'Best Friend' and 'Coming of Age'. We can't deny we're looking forward to a sneaky singalong to super singles 'Pumped up Kicks' and 'Call it What You Want' — and just generally leaving all our worries at the door (the unashamed blessing of indie dance pop). This Enmore Theatre show is going to be a metric bucketload of fun. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ndzln1UEyf0
Cross-dressing spitfire MC Mykki Blanco is in the country for Dark Mofo, heading north afterward to blow Sydneysider minds at Good God. One seriously multitalented artist, NYC-based Blanco is a rapper, performance artist and poet who grew up listening to riot grrrl music. The significantly internet-hyped New Yorker's setlist will inevitably include writhing party jam 'Wavvy' and heavier tracks like the recently released 'Initiation' — both as likely to intrigue audiences as attract them to the dance floor. Think bass heavy, post-trap anthems with a killer MC at the helm. While Blanco certainly stands out and makes her presence felt, she doesn't aim to make a 'statement' as such; rather fluidly transcending many identities. https://youtube.com/watch?v=w39Fxx10CEI
The Biennale may have wrapped for another two years, but hot on the heels of genre-defying and New York-based art stars is Performance Space's Sonic Social. Hauling in some participatory and experimental ideas, Performance Space is teaming up with the MCA to keep your cultural calendar topped up. The month of June will be studded with sound-based performances scattered throughout the museum. Whether the works be roaming between floors or tucked in discreet nooks, Sonic Social's aim is to respond to the MCA's architecture and activate neglected spaces. Sonic Social will see the formation of temporary communities — both organised and impromptu — from marching bands and dance parties through to support groups and choirs. Recruiting a group of sound savvy artists, Performance Space's programme is about examining the noise threshold of museum etiquette and then violating it. What embarrassing tune do you have lurking in your iTunes library? Requesting a dig through your playlist is Song-Ming Ang with Guilty Pleasures. This work sees Ang act as councillor and confessor, bringing a bit of daggy pop pleasure to high art. Make sure you bring along an incriminating track to be absolved of your trashy listening sins. Weeding out more guilty admissions is Malcolm Whittaker's work Ignoramous Anonymous, a support group for the unsure and the unaware. It's time to fess up that you're out of the loop with what's going on in Ukraine or that you can't spell 'pterodactyl.' It's a shame-free sanctuary for clearing up misconceptions. There's also Michaela Davies' use of Electronic Muscle Stimulation to animate the passive limbs of musicians and produce unconventional sounds. And investigating the tension between regiment and release, Lauren Brincat and Bree Van Reyk unpick the structure of the marching band. Finally, Luke Jaaniste and Julian Day are dishing up Super Critical Mass, a participatory project taking the shape of a 'sonic flash mob'. If you're keen to get involved, nip 'round for rehearsals.
Pulsing synths, addictive percussion and mellow crooning have seen this Perth trio launch from strength to strength, making waves both locally and abroad. From Unearthed beginnings through to shows at Groovin' the Moo and Laneway, Crooked Colours have generated a following hypnotised by their feelgood ambience. These electronica lads are currently on their first ever national tour, promoting the brand spanking new EP, In Your Bones. Hot off the back of sold out shows in Melbourne, Crooked Colours will be touching down at Goodgod Small Club, ready to churn out some tender tunes and audiovisual witchery. Cranking up the tempo, there will also be killer supports from electronica duo Deja, as well as Sydney five-piece and celestial dream pop weavers, I Know Leopard. This is going to be a seriously vibing, all-night dance party, so get down and sweat it out before the boys kick on up north. https://youtube.com/watch?v=UvVPInNtU_Y
It wasn't that long ago that Dylan Baldi was just a kid churning out power-pop ballads from the basement of his parents' house in Westlake, Ohio. Nowadays Baldi's copy of GarageBand is gathering virtual dust. Under the pseudonym Cloud Nothings, the now 22-year-old has replaced the mechanical-sounding backing instruments with a full live band. The change in personnel has also rung in a change in the sound. Out are the bright and upbeat lo-fi sounds of his previous works and in is a dark and aggressive take on the genre. The new sound is prevalent across their latest LP, Attack on Memory — an album that was described by Baldi as being "an attack on the memory of what people thought the band was”. It has taken three full-lengths, but finally Cloud Nothings are set to hit Australia in 2013. Appearing on the already immense Laneway Festival bill, the band has announced two sideshow dates for Melbourne and Sydney. And if YouTube is anything to go by, the new Cloud Nothings live show will most likely leave you sweating for days.
There doesn't seem to be much going on in Iceland these days — well, at least from an international perspective. Of Monsters and Men are the exception to that statement. This six-piece act are one of the biggest Icelandic musical exports that isn't a black metal band, and they have been wowing audiences across the globe with their bright, bubbly, and overwhelmingly cute take on folk. Accordions, glockenspiels, and horns add something uplifting and atmospheric to their catchy creations. Their debut album, My Head Is an Animal, was released earlier in 2012 to critical acclaim. It even managed to get itself into the ARIA Top 50 charts, which we all know is a hard task for anyone who isn't Birds of Tokyo. You'll be able to catch it all in their debut Australian appearances in 2013, as they venture to our shores for the Laneway Festival and two exclusive shows in Melbourne and Sydney. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ghb6eDopW8I
Campfire Collective is a boutique arts production group, and they’re sticklers for doing things properly. That means they make new stuff happen that otherwise just wouldn't exist — switched-on, intelligent, DIY kind of stuff. Lately, they've curated a season of Late Night Library, organised a bunch of alternative stand-up comedy nights, and hosted storytelling workshops for writers and performers to hone their skills. Now they're turning over the stage to you. Forget that it's in a library; Bites After Work is a night where real people tell real stories around the proverbial campfire. At Storytelling 102, the collective tips, techniques and tricks to help you tell your story. It's free, but book online before 5pm Monday or join the stand-by queue on the night.
It might be a blazing stereotype of a nation and its people, but Italians are passionate. They know food, they know wine, they know love and, boy, do they know drama. For all of the above pictured on celluloid, head along to a Palace Cinemas late September and October for the Lavazza Italian Film Festival. This annual celebration of the creative talents of Italian filmmakers is always a sight to behold. Topping this year's fest is the comedy hit Welcome to the North (Benvenuti al nord), the sequel to Welcome to the South that won the Nastri d'Argento Award for Best Screenplay. Exclusive preview screenings of Woody Allen's new film, To Rome with Love, starring Penelope Cruz, Alec Baldwin, Jesse Eisenberg and Woody himself (among a cast of other familiar faces) will also feature at the festival. Other standouts are Caesar Must Die (Cesare Deve Morire), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, and the divorce comedy A Flat for Three(Posti in Piedi in Paradiso). Italian comedies are big and bawdy, dramas are dark and insular, and romances make you want to find the closest person and make sweet passionate love. Nothing is sedate; Italian films are always life on steroids in the best possible way, so make sure you don't miss this highlight of the international film calendar. Image from Welcome to the North.
The Sydney Architecture Festival 2012 is so much more than just a celebration of our city’s architectural heritage. Closely connected to the Super Sydney project, it seeks to open a discussion the future of our diverse and continually evolving metropolis. The programme contains the usual tours and peeks inside the city’s gems you would expect — including the biennial Sydney Open — but it goes far beyond this with a plethora of talks, exhibitions and activities taking place throughout Sydney and its surrounds. These explore the challenges that collective living poses, both social and environmental. Innovators from Australia and elsewhere offer creative solutions from a whole range of perspectives and provide an excellent opportunity to learn about urban planning and our future. The time is yet to come for our wonderful city, as it works to find its identity and share its wealth with all. But that time is near. Though the issues of affordability, housing and transport continue to beset us, great changes are most definitely afoot. Image: 1 Bligh St, looking up, Courtesy DEXUS, DWPF & Cbus.
p>When playwright Robert J Merritt first saw his script The Cake Man performed, he was wearing handcuffs. An inmate of Long Bay jail at the time, he had been let out for opening night, on the condition that he did not stray from the watchful eye of police guard. The entire script had been written in incarceration. The Cake Man is as potent for its historical significance as it is for its tragic yet poetic portrait of European paternalism from an Aboriginal perspective. It was the very first full-length stage production presented by the National Black Theatre, which, in 1975, moved into a run-down Redfern terrace with a mission: to deliver hard-hitting Indigenous theatre. The Cake Man's menacing opening scenes are a fitting starting point for the realisation of such a vision. A group of black dolls crowds around a humpy — representing a simplistic, Eurocentric portrait of life in 'terra nullius' — only to be interrupted by three white missionaries. The condescending preaching of so-called 'Enlightenment' ends in a brutal murder by rifle. We leap forward in time — into the world of an Aboriginal family, living on a mission in Cowra, where poverty and the delusion of affluent, urban dreams are the consequences of invasion. While Sweet William (Luke Carroll) grapples with alcohol addiction, his strong but misguided wife Ruby (Irma Woods) seeks consolation in the Bible and his son, Pumpkinhead (a rather charming James Slee), engages in petty theft. Director Kyle J. Morrison handles the script deftly, emphasising the dynamic created by the interspersing of rich monologues with domestic drama. The writing, though slightly laboured from time to time, is at its strongest when in full poetic flight, interweaving psychological struggles with natural and mythical imagery. Carroll delivers a particularly charismatic and powerful performance, displaying impeccable timing for both tragic and comic impact. "It's not that I just want my culture back. It's not as simple as that," he explains, the script acknowledging that coming to terms with contact history cannot be articulated in platitudes but involves a complex struggle — philosophical, emotional and temporal — between two competing realities. Stephen Curtis's set, subtly lit by Jenny Vila, is rustic and sparse, comprised of wood and metal furniture. It's a convincing interpretation of context that keeps a burning focus on the human drama. This production — a collaboration between Belvoir and Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company — is evidence of The Cake Man's ability to resonate in the 21st century: a moving, disturbing unravelling of irretrievable loss not devoid of a glimmer of hope. Image by Heidrun Lohr.
You may have heard that performance art is dead. In fact, it was murdered recently by the godmother of performance art herself, Marina Abramovic. The epic fail occurred at MoMA in New York, when she got Jay-Z to rap his art-inspired song called 'Picasso Baby' at her whilst walking around emoting on a white square. It looked like the most awkward thing ever. It's actually almost too embarrassing to post this visual evidence that such a thing happened. But we also can't not. Anyway, who needs MoMA when you've got Sydney's PACT Centre for Emerging Arts? And who needs Marina Abramovic when you've got Rebecca Cunningham and Nicola Morton curating exist-ence 5, a whole festival of actually good live art, action art and performance art? Brisbane artist-run initiative EXIST started the exist-ence festival in 2008, with the aim of developing live art audiences. In 2013, they're expanding to include partnerships with PACT in Sydney and A is for Atlas in Melbourne. The Sydney line-up is exciting enough to make you want to stage your very own happening (do it) and includes John G Boehme (Canada), Henrik Hedinge (Sweden), Bonnie Hart (Australia), Naomi Oliver (Australia) and Sandra Carluccio (Australia), with more to be announced. There's also a program of free artist talks, presentations and discussions featuring some of the country’s biggest live art heavyweights including Julie Vulcan, Rebecca Cunningham, John G. Boehme, Henrik Hedinge, Bonnie Hart, Naomi Oliver, Sandra Carluccio, John A. Douglas, Sarah Rodigari, David Capra, Jess Olivieri, Boni Cairncross, Jodie Whalen.
Have you ever seen a show and wondered what the heck was going on in the mind of the director? The Directors' Cuts at Carriageworks will offer audiences a rare glimpse into the inner-workings of the directorial mind, inviting nine former directors to reflect on the last 30 years at Performance Space, covering the highs, the lows and all the in-betweens. Over 12 days you can check out a series of live talks, screenings, projected works and performance installations led by some incredibly creative, visionary minds. Not only can you get a taster of what it takes to be a mover-and-shaker in the field of performance art, you can join in. Pet some animals in Angharad Wynne-Jones' A Parliament of Animals session (seriously) and throw back some ouzo with Nick Tsoutas at his night of good conversation and rembetika music. This is a never-to-be-repeated opportunity to experience a potentially eccentric, inevitably interesting behind-the-scenes-retrospection by a very big player in the Australian cultural landscape. Who knows what forgotten gems will be rediscovered? The Directors' Cuts is part of the You're History season, something of a birthday party for Performance Space, but don't worry about bringing a gift. They're actually giving you the presents: wrapped-up pieces of performance, visual art, dance, music and more, celebrating their big 3-0. Also showing is Brown Council's ode to feminist performance artist Barbara Cleveland, the bite-sized art of 30 Ways with Time and Space, a creative send-off to analog TV and plenty more. Wed-Sun 7pm, Saturday screenings 5pm. Tickets range from $10-15 for a single screening to $70 for entry into all nine shows. Members get free entry.
Practise your Cockney accent, rehearse your favourite drunken London tale and prepare for high tea: the British Film Festival has arrived in Australia for the first time ever. There'll be a dozen contemporary features, five 20th-century classics (The Third Man and Lawrence of Arabia among them) and a chance to quiz Eric Bana during a live Q&A session, and a simply smashing opening night party. Here are five of our must-sees: Jump A massive hit at the Toronto International Film Festival and winner of the Palm Springs Festival's Bridging the Borders Award, Jump is a comic thriller set on New Year's Eve in Derry, Northern Ireland. A witty, fast-paced script captures the stories of three troubled individuals, who find themselves entangled by doomed romance, theft and revenge. Good Vibrations This eccentric, unstoppable rock movie comes to the British Film Festival following sold-out sessions at the 2013 Melbourne International Film Festival. Set against Ireland's Troubles of the 1970s, it follows the story of rebellious, maverick music lover Terri Hooley, Belfast's 'godfather of punk', and his determination to show the world the power of the seven-inch single. Dom Hemingway A gangster film in the style of Sexy Beast, Dom Hemingway stars Jude Law as the outrageous, volatile Dom, and Richard E. Grant as his best friend, Dickie. Following Dom's release after twelve years of imprisonment, the two travel from London to the south of France, encountering all number of misadventures along the way, from a car accident to an inevitable femme fatale. Mission to Lars How far would you go to meet your favourite rockstar? In this quirky documentary, siblings Kate and Will Spicer find out when they take their autistic brother, Tom, to Los Angeles to pursue Metallica's Lars Ulrich. Still Life The latest offering from Uberto Pasolini (producer of The Full Monty), Still Life is a drama in the British humanist tradition. A calm, meticulous ex-councillor, John May (Eddie Marsan) enters the lives of a mischievous adventurer, Billy Stoke, and his abandoned daughter, Kelly (Joanne Froggatt).
It’s a rare thing, to see a live theatre audience cry. But when darkness falls on Stop Kiss, tears are streaming down at least two faces in the front row opposite. It’s testament not only to the potency of the script but also to the devastating emotional intensity sustained by the cast. On October 6, 1998, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was tortured and left for dead in a field near Laramie, Wyoming. He was the victim of an anti-gay attack that made international headlines and, ultimately, led to groundbreaking hate crimes legislation. Two months later, on December 6, 1998, Diana Son’s play Stop Kiss made its world premiere at the New York Public Theatre. Such timing meant that the work’s impact was particularly acute. But, even though a homophobic act of horrendous violence drives Stop Kiss’s dramatic arc in part, it is very much a tale of love — told in an extraordinarily smart and sensitive fashion. Late-twenties New Yorker Callie (Olivia Stambouliah) divides her time between her radio traffic reporter job, which she finds meaningless, and her on-off boyfriend George (Aaron Tsindos), to whom she doesn’t want to commit. When she agrees to cat-mind for St Louis export and Bronx schoolteacher Sara (Gabrielle Scawthorn), the two discover a mutual connection that quickly turns into sexual attraction. For the next 90 minutes, Son plays a transfixing game of pass-the-parcel with the audience. Except that she’s the only one doing the unwrapping, and we’re the five-year-olds looking on — part of us thoroughly enjoying the suspense, the other wanting to tear the thing open in one fell swoop. Two narratives run concurrently, one beginning where the other ends. In the first, Callie and Sara grow closer and closer, all the while tiptoeing awkwardly (and occasionally hilariously) around their real feelings, each trying to figure out how to address their undeniable chemistry. The second begins right where it explodes. Callie and Sara have just kissed for the first time when a passerby attacks them, beating Sara so brutally that she’s hospitalised and comatose. Their relationship becomes headline bait and Callie finds herself under media, police and familial scrutiny. Under the brilliant direction of Anthony Skuse (4000 Miles), the Stambouliah-Scawthorn combination is potent — beautifully restrained yet electrically charged. The slightest glance or movement speaks emotional volumes. Stambouliah bubbles with offhand charisma, delivering an infectious balance of city-slicker cynicism and underlying fragility. Scawthorn’s transformation from idealistic primary teacher to potentially brain-damaged victim is utterly devastating. The parallel stories are conducted on the same stage, which serves as Callie’s eclectic ‘90s New York apartment, police station, hospital, waiting room and West Village street. Some incredibly smooth scene changes and clever sound design carry us seamlessly from one world to the other. Two of the actors even double up as musicians: Ben McIvor, who plays Sara’s beleaguered ex, Peter, gets behind the drum kit, while Suzanne Pereira, a sassy witness to the crime, sings several ballads a cappella. Presented by Unlikely Productions, Stop Kiss is the first show in the ATYP 2014 Selects season (previously titled Under the Wharf) and an official 2014 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras event. Despite Matthew Shepard’s tragic death having occurred 16 years ago, the work remains every bit as relevant today. Image by Gez Xavier Mansfield.
What Chris Thile wants to know is this: how is it that anyone can consider Radiohead's '2 + 2 = 5' less staid than Bach's 'Third Brandenburg Concerto'? Why should he be shooshed for getting loud at a classical concert and yet shout his head off in a rock arena without reprimand? When you see Thile play, you're likely to find yourself asking the same questions. Not only is he a virtuoso mandolinist, vocalist and composer, he also approaches any repertoire — classical or otherwise — with an overwhelming sense that the song is what matters most. His live performances are drenched with a liveliness and rawness that you don't always get when it comes to formal music. Thile's ability to cross genres has seen a Grammy Award-winning collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Stuart Duncan, titled The Goat Rodeo Sessions, as well as the receipt of a MacArthur Fellowship (also known as the 'genius grant'). According to the Independent, he's "the most remarkable mandolinist in the world". You can catch him at one of two shows at the Spiegeltent during the Sydney Festival. He'll be playing pieces from his most recent recording, Bach Sonatas & Partitas Vol. 1, as well as contemporary tunes and originals. Want more Sydney Festival events? Check out our top ten picks of the festival. Image by Brantley Gutierrez. https://youtube.com/watch?v=cXDL6_3gFu0
