One-man shows are a tricky enterprise to pull off. And it takes a brave, talented and personable actor to do it well. Enter Damian Callinan. Nominated for the Barry Award for most outstanding show of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, Callinan brings The Merger to Sydney audiences at the Seymour Centre. A show about one man's venture to save his town's football team, it’s a strange marriage of sport and theatre, but it somehow works. Set in the tiny country township of Bodgy Creek, the show features bogan accents, Afghani accents, and a radio broadcaster whose sponsors are as desperate as he is. Director Matt Parkinson calls Callinan a “natural storyteller, a gifted clown and terrific character actor” in his director's notes, and I couldn’t agree more. The protests over the American film insulting the prophet Mohammed may be dominating the news, but Callinan’s show rips through these recent tensions, as it’s Australia’s brightest moments of multiculturalism that shine through. The coach enlists asylum seekers to fill the footy team and stop Bodgy Creek having to merge with their arch rivals, the Hudson’s Flat Redbacks, and we find ourselves laughing and crying with these foreigners who have found a home and new friends in regional Australia. If you only like 'theatre' in the sense of plays and drama, then this might not be for you. In a combination between stand-up and theatre, Callinan breaks the fourth wall and makes friends with the audience by learning their names, planting jokes for later in a Ross Noble-esque manner. In this 75-minute show, we move between listening to Bodgy Creek radio, experiencing the footy team's coach Troy Carrington slag the teammates (coincidentally the audience members) and turn the team around, and seeing the action unravel through the (mimed) lens of a charmingly infantile documentary maker. Though it could probably be enhanced with a few more props and a stagehand, The Merger is still a fun and well-devised show. Self-referential and softly mocking, Callinan jested at the size of the audience, stating "I'm really big in Melbourne, you know? Maybe you guys up here don’t know me as well..." It’s well worth getting to know him in this intimate space and clever production. But Callinan, despite your talent, you really are a bad ventriloquist — and your puppets probably told you that already. Concrete Playground has two double passes to give away to The Merger. To be in the running, make sure you're subscribed to our mailing list then email hello@concreteplayground.com.au with your name and address.
"We're trying to make a difference in people's lives, and one way to do that is to stop them from killing themselves." At Seven Oaks College, a group of gorgeous young women are determined to improve the acrid-smelling, hyper-masculine culture that prevails at the once boys-only campus. Led by the obsessive Violet (played by the ever-delightful Greta Gerwig), the clever coterie run a suicide prevention centre with a focus on doughnuts and dance as therapy. The film is director Whit Stillman's first since The Last Days of Disco (1998), and fans can expect his deliciously wry, dry, comedic portrayal of America's preppy and proper. Violet is confident in her craziness, and her earnestness to improve the souls of her crude contemporaries is both comical and heartwarming in its sincerity. Her minions Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke), Heather (Carrie MacLemore) and Lily (Analeigh Tipton) are, yes, all curiously named after various flowers, and at once adorable and utterly ordinary. It is through this ordinariness that Stillman depicts the complexities of finding one's identity. Each player attempts to invent a version of themself — Rose, a Londoner; Fred (fidgety, fabulous Adam Brody), a suave playboy — to varying success. Though the clique's intentions are to help those students who are ignorant, unintelligent, and downcast through a celebration of hygiene and dance, they, too, are subject to despair, and the realisation of their (and, indeed, our) shared anxieties is as refreshing as it is unnerving. For all that Violet likes to 'civilise' those less intelligent than herself with both her soapbox and soap, new girl Lily is her opposite, questioning Violet's zealousness and suggesting that perhaps what society really needs is conventional, cool people en masse. The characters' seriousness, playfully contrasted by their retro-fabulous attire and self-deprecating rhetoric, keeps the film in a constant flux of funniness and unbearable awkwardness. Despite, and possibly because of, the pretty 1950s frocks and the tap-dancing to Gershwin tunes, Damsels in Distress is fresh and relevant. There is a longing for lost innocence and echoes of the familiar desire of college students for romance and ideas. Whimsical and witty, and often unnerving in its honesty, the film has a only a brief run at the Dendy, so get in for a hit of Whit while you can. https://youtube.com/watch?v=EVK4jrBKBls
Dappled Cities have made an electrifying return to the Australian music scene with their highly anticipated fourth record, Lake Air. The Sydney outfit are now into their 15th year as a band, and compared to their previous record — the critically acclaimed Zounds (2009) — they have this time travelled down a new avenue of sound. Their new material is drenched with disco-flavoured hooks and bold, euphoric melodies. And so, with a new album comes a brand new live show. To celebrate the release of Lake Air, the five-piece will be embarking on their first national headline tour in over two years, kicking off in Darwin and visiting all corners of the country. They'll be playing in Sydney with European electro-pop artist Jape at the Metro Theatre. https://youtube.com/watch?v=dCnnWlFfYn0
Director Leticia Cáceras writes that when Belvoir approached her to direct a version of August Strindberg's Miss Julie, she was in two minds: "As a director I was thrilled, as a feminist I was not so sure." Strindberg, often credited as the father of naturalism, had a misogynistic bent to his plays, and his Miss Julie, for all its good qualities, does seem to punish its main character for daring to being sexual. Not so in the hands of Cáceras and writer Simon Stone, and their changes in this regard are a blessed relief. Too often we see classics contemporised in setting, costume or language but are supposed to accept their weird plot points about a woman's purity untouched. If only the approach here was the standard. That said, 'Miss Julie' (Taylor Ferguson), does not escape lightly; she is subject to the many pressures our society puts on women. As the 16-year-old daughter (revised down from 25) of a prominent politician, every sext, flirt and short skirt is under scrutiny. But she also thinks she's found a new power: to make her father's security guard, Jean (Brendan Cowell), stare at her rather intensely. This circumstance shoots through the first act of the play, a mansion-set domestic drama in which the ingenue and employee spar, converse, eat a pizza and then, awkwardly, kiss. In the second act, their relationship gets rather more destructive. The enduring appeal of this play is that as well as being rich with sexual tension, it's a potent exploration of how class, gender and generation shape people and their interactions with others. Jean, a 30-something former sommelier, harbours admiration for the elite classes he works for. Julie, meanwhile, fetishises a more 'authentic' life with room to err and fail and be in danger. In drawing their ages even further apart, Stone is pushing the boundaries of our comfort, and it's a welcome addition. The power exercised between the pair is complex, but we're never in doubt about who is responsible. Perhaps this Miss Julie doesn't quite live up to its promise. It was exciting to see what would happen when Stone (Thyestes, Death of a Salesman), one of the most talked-about theatre makers of the moment and known for developing his works in the rehearsal room, wrote a traditional, printed-on-paper script and handed it over to Cáceras, whose chilling The Dark Room was one of the standouts of 2012. Their finished piece is spirited, smart and involving — it's well written and well directed — but it doesn't make a searing impression. Props must go to the formidable lead actors, who are not only convincing but seem to have a rare level of comfort in their roles. Blazey Best, as Julie's housekeeper and Jean's fiance, Christine, also stuns in her limited time on stage. With the high-contrast sound design of The Sweats (Pete Goodwin) rising, the final, tragic tableau is a poignant sight.
Ken Whisson’s connection to the world may well be ever-changing. And the world, too, is changing its connection with him. The As If collection — titled in reference to Immanuel Kant: ‘to live as if’, and the Paris surrealists' ‘let us live as if the world really exists’ — depicts the chaos, perversity and human spirit of a transient world. Here is an Australian artist who, though practising for sixty years, is decidedly underrated and obscure — although one gets the impression he may prefer it this way. Growing up and studying in Victoria, but based in Italy since the 1970s, Whisson’s paintings can be seen as a carefully curated amalgamation of journeys. This expansive retrospective is stuffed with a glut of glorious paintings, drawings, studies and books he has been inspired by. And for all that the artist himself is somewhat enigmatic, within his work there is a sense of the man behind them. Be it in the tobacco stains breathed into the oil paints over time, or the frequently rude humour of the figurative work. Here, Whisson’s figures levitate within the picture’s peripherals, and their bodies contort dreamily. Objects — vehicles, animals, humans, sheds — are crammed into the canvas; their relationships with each other created through their proximity. It is at once methodical and messy, and speaks of the world’s improbability. Landscapes are fragmented into snapshots, like the view from a car window, and this frenetic movement denotes the journey motif Whisson does so well. His earlier work is painted on board, and the paint, unabsorbed, sits richly on the surface. It is floating, superficial, incomplete. Here you will find ships, cars, aeroplanes and plains — dissected, deconstructed and floating. And in their lack of grounding they speak of a reluctance to commit to, or an inability to find, home. There are dream-like qualities to the exhibition: primary colours are grafted together; people are delicious assemblages of limbs, lips and bulbous heads; and a delightfully theatrical sense of humour. Whisson said that perhaps “we might need to relate together by entertaining each other.” Come, be entertained, and think about the world as if you know it. Image: Books and Landscapes, 1987-94, courtesy of MCA © of artist.
So that big brown building in the city that sticks out like a sore thumb isn't as dull as its exterior would have you believe. Showcasing the wonders and achievements in the world of animation, the University of Technology, Sydney presents its fourth annual International Animation Festival. There's a kids' program on at the Powerhouse Museum, but this festival's domain is mostly the fun, trippy, and sophisticated animation being made for adults. The most adult among them are even gathered in one spot, the Late Night Bizarre, which includes such heights of wrongness as Bear-Horse!, Vacuum Attraction, and There's a Dead Crow Outside. Most of the program is similarly divided into mini-marathons of shorts. There's an Australian Program as well as an International Program (make that two). You also have the opportunity to absorb the legacies of two leading animation schools, London's venerable Royal College of the Arts and the very happening University of Tokyo, in their respective sessions. Perhaps most intriguing of all is the cerebral Poemetrics, a curated set of expressive shorts that each take as their starting point a poetic text, including works by Charles Bukowski and Italo Calvino. The festival also includes two feature film premieres, the family-friendly, Luc Besson-produced A Monster in Paris (Un Monstre à Paris), which features the voices of Vanessa Paradis and Sean Lennon, and Alois Nebel, the Academy Award-nominated movie based on the Czech Republic's first modern graphic novel. https://youtube.com/watch?v=gha5l5qyD_0
There are some things you know are moving, but their subtle movements only become obvious with time. Watching living statues shift their weight, waiting for the clock of the long now to chime or measuring circumference of the earth with a stick. At the Carraigeworks this weekend, some subtle aggregation will come thanks to Indian artist Nikhil Chopra. Chopra plans to use over a tonne of coal and six moveable walls as he mixes three days of drawing into accreted art. Art that he’ll put together as he steps in and out of nineteenth-century character, the Carriageworks foyer and shopping among the crowds at Everleigh Markets. Chopra will put this shopping to good use Saturday evening as he cooks an 18-person banquet, inviting some of the public to join in. Chopra's art-making runs 10-9pm daily.
Ten years ago, during a year abroad backpacking, I was living in Seattle. Wandering into one of the city's many vintage stores, I was struck by the beautiful music playing, which sounded like '60s Dylan, yet I didn't recognise the song. Further enquiry led to the revelation that it was, in fact, a little-known singer called Rodriguez, a contemporary of Dylan's for sure, but who had slipped by virtually unnoticed. Fast forward to 2012, and I am reminded of the enigmatic musician once more. In the late 1960s, Sixto Rodriguez was making waves playing guitar and singing in bars around his native Detroit. The down-and-out singer, who at the time may not even have had a fixed abode, was discovered by producing legends Mike Theodore and Steve Rowland. His debut album, Cold Fact, was released in 1970, followed closely by Coming from Reality a year later. Though these were considered masterpieces by many in the music industry, they failed to make even a small splash, slipping away into obscurity virtually unnoticed, as did the musician who made them; however, in a parallel country, or reality, as it were, a completely different story was unfolding. Searching for Sugar Man tells how the singer Rodriguez became the voice for a generation of liberal white South Africans during the height of the Apartheid years. I've verified this fact with a South African friend, and he's assured me he can sing the lyrics to several of his songs. It's not clear how the music got there, but it has been speculated that a bootlegged cassette tape copy of Cold Fact may have been brought back from the States by a South African girl. Firm figures for sales of his records are not available, but the South African RPM Records estimate them to be at least half a million. Yet little was known about this incredibly popular artist and rumours abounded that the singer was dead, having committed suicide on stage in a most gruesome fashion. In the late '90s two South Africans — one a journalist, Craig Bartholomew, the other a record shop owner, Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman — teamed up to solve the mystery. They had little more to go on than the lyrics of Rodriguez's songs, the world wide web yet to have thrown its ubiquitous, all-knowing embrace around us. As they delved deeper, awakening several sleeping canines, a story began to unfold, much more remarkable than either of them could have foretold. A few years later, Swedish TV documentary-maker, Malik Bendjelloul, was on an overseas trip in South Africa looking for new ideas when he discovered the subject and instantly seized upon it for his next film, which he wrote, edited, and directed. The documentary cleverly weaves an intricate tale, filled with intrigue, quirky anecdotes, and moving personal histories, though it does leave many questions unanswered (such as, what happened to royalties?). It also reveals relatively little about Rodriguez's life over the last 30 years, the narrative focussing much more on the South African side of things. But to levy criticism in Bedejelloul's direction on these grounds would be unfair. After all, documentary filmmaking is by its very nature subjective. One could even argue that the genre itself can be defined as the art of telling a good story well, in which case he has done a stellar job. Furthermore, 30 years is a lot to fit into a mere 86 minutes. Take my advice and don't research the backstory too much; maybe watch the trailer and listen to a few Rodriguez tracks beforehand. Then go and see this documentary and let the emotive story and incredible music sweep you away. https://youtube.com/watch?v=QL5TffdOQ7g
Art projects like Renew Newcastle and Alaska Projects have taken charge of disused urban spaces and empty shopfronts. Art & About enlarges this idea to all vacant spaces. Can’t every grey wall, lonely corner and public mall be a site for creative action? Opening night sees Martin Place morph from shadowy wind tunnel to massive street party. It’s programmed by Stephen Pavlovic of Sydney-based music label Modular, the crew behind such artists as Cut Copy, Ladyhawke and The Avalanches. The Bamboos, Van She, Rufus and Jingle Jangle are on the line up, with more to be announced. Martin Place will be scattered with pop-up bars and food trucks, and the city's main galleries will be open late for our sauntering pleasure. And best of all, it’s free. So cheers - to art in unconventional places, and to free art and music events that are accessible to everyone. Have a look at the Art & About closing night, the full festival program, and Concrete Playground's top picks of the bunch.
When Charles M. Schulz announced his retirement from the daily comic strip business in 2000, he stated that Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang would not be appearing in future papers because his family didn't want the comic to be continued by anyone else. It would be interesting to know, then, what the late comic legend's relatives would make of Bert V. Royal turning his loveable pals into fully fledged hormonal teenagers complete with drug problems, gothic siblings, eating disorders and institutionalised ex-girlfriends. Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, staged for the first time in Sydney by the Actors Assembly, propels the Peanuts kids out of the daily papers and into a future rife with the harshest elements of adolescent debauchery. The play commences with Charlie questioning the existence of an afterlife after his beloved dog dies from rabies, but this is only the starting point for a sequence of events that encapsulate the gritty (yet often hilarious) reality of teenage life. Dog Sees God was Royal’s first play and is still earning him as much praise as it did when it premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival seven years ago. But the young writer hasn't rested on his laurels — the six-figure advance he subsequently received from Paramount to write them an original screenplay went toward penning a critically acclaimed teen comedy you might know as Easy A.
The West's love affair with Chinese artists is rolling on. White Rabbit Gallery’s new show was only recently unveiled, and now Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation are following with a sample of Swiss businessman Uli Sigg’s stockpile of contemporary Chinese portraiture. Go Figure! takes an enlarged view of the idea of portraiture — the face and the body are not thematic concerns but vessels for broader comments about Chinese politics. There are works by Yu Youhan and Ai Weiwei, but the exhibition’s centrepiece is Old People’s Home by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, an installation of motorised wheelchairs listlessly propelling ancient feeble men around the room. It's hyper-real and life-sized and downright creepy. There are no direct models of world leaders, but there are weird and deliberate resemblances — one is an Arab leader, one could be Fidel Castro, one is a Greek Orthodox priest. One holds an empty beer can, another reads the Moscow Times, one is sleeping, but he could be dead. The guts is in the details — traces of delicate white hair on the back of a hand, a hearing aid, an ominous melanoma spot. The overall effect is a kind of old people's dodgem car rink — the wheelchairs have censors to stop them from bumping into you, but you almost feel like they might. You're left with the gentle, eerie whirs of wheels and the stopping and starting of motors. Old People’s Home is a meditation on the transient nature of power, and perhaps best read as a psychological take on the depths of denial dictators plumb. Their self-mythologising is, to a point, futile, as their bodies and minds must eventually hurtle towards oblivion like the rest of us. However, leaders die but their systems and legacies live on — China is surely proof of this — so the analogy of Old People’s Home can only be drawn so far. But there’s an odd satisfaction in seeing once fearsome rulers caught in their own unstoppable senility. It's natural justice, a type of inbuilt obsolescence. The great contradiction of a country undergoing massive economic transformation without real political change, of a wide open free market with fierce authoritarian rule, remains the potent inspiration for generations of new Chinese artists. Go Figure! offers us one more glimpse of this strange new world. Image: Yu Youhan - Untitled (Mao Marilyn), 2005
Dirtier, filthier and nastier than Christina Aguilera circa 2002, The Nasty Show is about to get all up in Sydney’s face with the most crass, depraved and downright offensive run of comedy club nights ever billed at Sydney Opera House. Hidden away in the Studio theatre, US stand-up comedian Jeff Ross – aka ‘The Roast Master General’ from New York’s Friar’s Club and Comedy Central Roasts – will lead the shameless, unrelenting onslaughts of celebrity roastings, insults, attacks and “too-soon” bad taste comedy that’ll have audiences cowering from fear and snorting with laughter. The show features local wunderkind, and Comedy Store regular, Rhys Nicholson; winner of the Piece of Wood Comedian’s Choice Award, Tom Gleeson; trash-talking Mike Wilmot (also known as “Canada’s answer to Bill Hicks”) – plus Philadelphia’s colourful Big Jay Oakerson and Just For Laughs veteran Dom Irrera. Beware, this rebellious little sister of the Just for Laughs line-up is not for the faint-hearted.
At a speed that’d give Usain Bolt a run for his money, traditional forms of information dissemination — and knowledge storage — are slipping through our fingers. Album cover art has been all but resigned to museum relic status. Kindle has more or less stolen the fire from the print press. Newspapers are dropping off like flies. Don’t get me wrong. There are zillions of things to love about the internet. Like downloading every single one of Hitchcock’s films, being able to Google Shakespeare’s entire oeuvre and writing this in my pyjamas. But, should cinema ever be cast into the digitally dictated funeral pyre, I’ll cry a Pacific Ocean of cyber tears. So, thank god that the film creatives of this world keep on keeping up ways to keep it relevant. Exotic festivals, underground shenanigans and immersive experiences have been inspiring us to unplug and jump off the couch in droves. And thankfully, World Movies Secret Cinema is back. In fact, it’s triple back. Given that previous sessions have sold out in 15 minutes, 2014 will see five screenings over three days (April 11-13) — in a venue that’s never been used before for anything. Needless to say, the event’s classified nature means that there’s not much else we can tell you. But we do remember last October. In response to a last-minute clue sent by text, guests gathered at King Street Wharf. After boarding a boat — destination unknown — they were handed backpacks containing maps, water and weapons, which, they were told, might be necessary to survival. No wild beasts were encountered on Goat Island, but filmgoers did get to watch performances from TaikOz and burlesque artists, show off their Bruce Lee-esque moves in a martial arts lesson, eat and drink harbourside and, finally, watch the director’s cut of Battle Royale at their very own private island cinema. Oh, and witness a real-life, blood-soaked, dramatic death scene. Unfortunately, ticket prices have nearly doubled since last time to $63.15 (including booking fee), but that should mean the production values are equally increased. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday, March 12, at 9am via Oztix. They include a complimentary beverage and snack from Salt Meats Cheese. Session times are Friday, April 11, at 7pm; Saturday, April 12, at 12.30pm and 7pm; and Sunday, April 13, at 12:30pm and 7pm. Update April 11: All remaining sessions of World Movies Secret Cinema have been postponed due to "unforeseen circumstances". Get updates from the Facebook page.
There are neither aliens nor gods to be found in the latest instalment of the seemingly unstoppable Marvel movie franchise. Instead, this is an 'enemy within' offering, and it's very much the better for it. Captain America (Chris Evans) is the Avenger in question this time round, and for a movie about the perils of extra-governmental espionage and unregulated oversight, there could be no more suitable a hero than that unfailingly honest idealist Captain Rogers. In The Winter Soldier, Cap finds himself contemplating a life beyond the military, only to be drawn deep back inside the shadowy organisation S.H.I.E.L.D following an assassination attempt on his boss, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). With the story's many twists and turns, it's risky to disclose much more, but at its heart this is a film about trust, betrayal and (inevitably) good ole-fashioned right and wrong. Fitting, then, that his holiness the pope of '70s plot-based paranoia, Robert Redford, makes an appearance as S.H.I.E.L.D's chairman Alexander Pierce. It's difficult in any film not to get excited whenever Redford embarks upon one of his trademark disquisitions on the state of democracy, freedom or peace, and in The Winter Soldier you get the full-blown triple play. Joining him in the mix are S.H.I.E.L.D regulars Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Agent Hill (Cobie Smulders), as well as the instantly appealing newcomer 'Falcon' (Anthony Mackie). Inevitably, a superhero movie with a budget as big as its leading man's pecs is going to feature the periodic sensory onslaught of explosions, car chases, plane chases and carplane chases to keep the blockbuster fans satiated. The highlights in The Winter Soldier, however, are the smaller-scale, human melees, because let's be honest — Cap's superpowers aren't all that super ("Fitter than the average man, more honest than Abe Lincoln, Chris Evans is...the Truthy Runner"). As a result, his action sequences require more imagination on the part of the writers than they might for, say, Iron Man, and where the team most often delivers is in all the creative ways Cap uses his iconic shield, both in defence and on offence. Not quite as witty as Whedon's Avengers yet more engaging than Thor 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier offers a darker and more thoughtful superhero story than most, if not all, of its Marvel predecessors. https://youtube.com/watch?v=7SlILk2WMTI
Cam Knight gives new meaning to the phrase 'giving 100%', in that he does everything to the fullest. His aptly titled new comedy show, 100 percenter, discusses his goal of saying yes to anything, trying to live in the now and experiencing absolutely everything the world has to offer. Knight is a fixture in the Australian comedy scene, making appearances on Foxtel and The Comedy Channel programs. He has previously hosted two seasons of Stand Up Australia. Knight also performs with Sydney-based band ManChoir. His performance will be in conjunction with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The 25-day festival features some of the best and brightest international and homegrown comedic talent. With venues throughout the city and beyond, MICF is accessible easily accessible to Melbournites that need a little laughter in their life. https://youtube.com/watch?v=vl_nMq_Tt1Q
Take a sneak peek into the world of the Sydney Theatre Company's latest bunch of creative mavericks with Rough Draft. The program has benefits for everyone: invaluable week-long developments for artists, free entertainment for us once the masterpiece-in-the-making has a public showing. Expect to see fragments of scenes-in-progress, experimentation with new ideas and some intense discussion and debate: it's all in a day's work at the theatre. At the next Rough Draft on Friday, May 9, writers Gideon Obarzanek and Brian Lipson showcase brand new work Two Jews Walk Into a Theatre. They'll both be playing their own fathers, who, while waiting in a theatre foyer, strike up a conversation. In collaboration with choreographer and theatre director Lucy Guerin, Obarzanek and Lipson will be fleshing out what they've described as 'an unabashedly subjective character study'.
The latest project of multidisciplinary artist-run initiative Alaska Projects, this cinematheque is a series of ten films curated by Dr Alex Munt of UTS. It’s an eclectic and often provocative selection, offering a range of cinematic visions of Manhattan. The club kicks off with Spike Lee’s incendiary Do the Right Thing, about a Brooklyn community straining at the seams of racial tensions as a heatwave simmers. It builds up to an explosive climax which is still hotly debated in film schools everywhere today. Offering a much more genteel view of the city that never sleeps is the wonderful Hannah and Her Sisters, one of Woody Allen’s very best works, and writer-director Whit Stillman's 1992 debut, Metropolitan. The latter is a mannered, impeccable look at the indolent younger generation of the “urban haute bourgeoisie”. There’s also two of the most controversial films about the big Apple ever made, the brutal satire of American Psycho, based on Bret Easton Ellis’s infamous, career-making novel and the Larry Clark-directed sex and drugs dirge Kids. Based on a screenplay by a then teenaged Harmony Korine, the impact of Kids was sensational and divisive — many wanted it banned, but it had its strong supporters, including Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers, who championed the film as “daringly original, touching and alive”. Each film will be introduced a guest speaker and the first screening sees Alex Munt in conversation with Alaska Projects curator Sebastian Goldspink. Films screen at Alaska Projects, barring May 6 and November 6, which are both at UTS in the Bon Marche Studio. Here's the schedule: May 6: Do the Right Thing (1989) @ UTS May 18: David Holzman's Diary (1967) @ Alaska June 15: Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) @ Alaska July 6: Ms 45 (1981) @ Alaska August 10: The Warriors (1979) @ Alaska September 14: Liquid Sky (1982) @ Alaska November 6: Metropolitan (1990) @ UTS November 16: Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) @ Alaska December 14: American Psycho (2000) @ Alaska
Did you know that crabs' teeth are located in their stomach? Better brush up on your crab trivia in preparation for the Morrison Bar & Oyster Room's inaugural Crab Carnival, a two-week-long successor to last year's Oyster Festival. Enjoy the festivities while munching on crab menu specials — including $5 crab tacos — and sipping on crab-inspired cocktails. What would a carnival be without the games? Each Thursday for the duration of the Crab Carnival, the Morrison will hold hermit crab races at 7pm. If you're more in the market for eating crab, face off against the chefs in their crab eating contest, which will be held on Wednesday, April 2, at 7pm. The entry fee is $20 and all profits from the contest will go to the SeaLife Conservation Fund. Don't miss out The Morrison Bar & Oyster Room's inaugural Crab Carnival. Spaces will fill up fast for the crab racing and crab eating contests, so make sure to get there early.
Pretty Gritty is a bimonthly experimental electronica night at Redfern's 107 Projects. It's a place where music shoved under the 'ambient electronica' umbrella can let loose and spit uneven shards of broken melody all around the room, or strip back the layers and bare its quietly reverberating soul. Because electronica can be pretty too. Beats, bleeps and banging things — that is what's in store at March's Pretty Gritty. The lineup includes Tina Havelock Stevens, who experiments with "frequencies, the electromagnetic pulses of places and times and the inexplicable". Alon Ilsar is on hand to test his latest musical invention, AirSticks, an instrument that allows the user to trigger sound through gestures in the air. Performing using only a high-pressure gas cylinder bell is Steffan Ianigro, a proponent of combining the DIY instrument with electronics. Jon Drummond will work with glitches and textures using handmade electronics and instruments. By Emily Mchale and Hannah Ongley.
After spending most of his career dancing the tango with Simon Pegg, the loveable Nick Frost gets the chance to take the lead. It's a shame that the tune he's moving to is so embarrassingly out of key. A bland, salsa-themed rom-com without a single surprising bone in its silk-and-sequin-clad body, Cuban Fury is a comedy of the most risk averse and unimaginative kind. The premise goes like this: Bruce Garrett (Frost) is a former child salsa dancer, now lonely, overweight engineer, who spends his days being belittled by his womanising colleague Drew (Chris O'Dowd). But Bruce's passions are reignited by the arrival of his new boss, a beautiful American woman named Julia (Rashida Jones). She's way out of his league, physically speaking, but it turns out Julia loves salsa, which puts Brucey in with a chance. All he has to do is get his groove back. Frost is an endearing screen presence and ensures Bruce is easy to root for. He's also not a bad dancer, as it turns out. Sadly, natural comic charm and fancy footwork can only do so much when the script is as woeful as this. Working from an 'original idea' by Frost, Jon Brown has produced a screenplay that is predictable, cliched and strangely scarce in actual jokes; what few there come usually at the expense of either Bruce's weight, or the campy mannerisms of Bejan (Kayvan Novak), a flamboyantly gay man in Bruce's dance class. Such a cringingly one-dimensional representation is typical of all the supporting characters, which is an even bigger shame considering the genuinely high calibre of the cast. O'Dowd lands a handful of funny lines, but ultimately can't do much with such a stock-standard slime ball. The great Ian McShane, meanwhile, is left to slum it in his role as Bruce's grizzled former dance instructor Ron. Still, the most thankless part belong to Jones, whose talents as comic performer go unforgivably unexploited. Introduced via full body panning shot, it's immediately clear that Julia will be nothing more than the love interest; a pretty face for Bruce and Drew to dance-battle over. There's an unpleasant, all-too-common double standard at play in Cuban Fury's body and gender politics. Bruce finds his mojo and gets the girl in spite of his weight, yet Julia is only seen as an object of desire because she's physically attractive. That being said, it's hard to be seriously offended by a movie as generic and forgettable as this one. The highest praise Cuban Fury deserves is that will rightfully fade from the public consciousness as soon as it disappears from theatres, doing little likely long-term harm to the careers of anyone involved. https://youtube.com/watch?v=tpiyFHf7GKU
Robyn Beeche became known for her photographic work in London during the '80s. Australian-born Beeche's breathtaking photographs depicted painted bodies and came about through collaborations with counterculture personalities of the likes of Vivienne Westwood, Leigh Bowery and Divine. And now the home-grown snapper is bringing her work back here, with the retrospective exhibition Fade to Grey. Her work a fusion of London fashion and art, Beeche was a trailblazer — until an experience at an Indian festival altered her; the photographer made a life-changing pilgrimage to Vrindavan soon after. And there she remained, and has for the past 25 years. With selected works from the artist's most renowned creative period — a decade characterised by change — Fade to Grey is a trip back to the '80s. Minus the Lycra dress code. Prints and copies of Beeche’s book, Visage to Vraj, will be available for sale during the exhibition.
There's the parade, yes. But before that, nearly a month of cultural and celebratory events of all stripes makes up the festival of Sydney Mardi Gras, and there's something for everybody, even Straighty McStraight-Straight. Who relates absolutely and 100 percent to the social expectations of their gender and sexuality? Nobody, probably. And that's something to love, savour, and take away from this most iconic of Sydney events. This year, there's a sports festival, art you can dance to, DIY monster workshops and the next stage in the life of Strictly Ballroom, among all the parties between February 7 and March 2. With gay marriage rights firmly on the agenda again this year, 2014's Mardi Gras will definitely be one that's remembered. Check out our picks of the ten best events of the festival.
Carjakkr will see a bunch of electronic artists perform from cars, to people in cars, in a parking lot. Sounds like a scene from an '80s film, right? Wrong. Carjakkr is taking place on Sunday, February 16, 2014, thanks to artist-run Alaska Projects. So far, Horse Macgyver, Chris Petro, Short Future and Holden Hands have joined the bill, with readings from Jack Mannix. And with the help of a Kickstarter appeal, Brisbane performer X in O is also hoping to join Carjakkr (for which you can donate here). The drive-in event will take place at Alaska Projects on Elizabeth Bay Road, Kings Cross. All you'll need to BYO is your car and some shrapnel for the parking spot.
Brook Andrew is a master of the interdisciplinary arts practice. He has tackled a huge range of media and produced thought-provoking, innovative work that has been shown all over the world. Travelling Colony is made up of a number of hand-painted caravans standing together like a grazing herd in the large foyer of Carriageworks. The doors of each caravan are left wide open, inviting the viewer in. You can't help hesitating before you enter, expecting to interrupt a scene or trespass onto someone's space but each caravan is left stark, with almost no personal adornment, like a home left abandoned. In each, there is a small television set playing interviews of Aboriginal members of the Redfern community, those that have been here for their whole lives, have passed through at different times, or are newcomers. They talk about what Redfern means to them, the community and its place in history as the “Black Capital of Australia.” The works serve as a commemoration of achievements of the community, people who have made significant contributions to the Aboriginal theatre and arts scene. It’s a living history, archives that record the future and progression of the community as well as the past. Repetition is a strong theme in this exhibition; in the numerous caravans clustered together, in the linear, zigzagging pattern (based on traditional Wiradjuri patterns) that travels across the caravans as a kind of extended canvas, housing the stories of the community which are played on a loop. The vehicles imply that the stories will keep travelling, repeating themselves, living on in the memory of the people and of the audience strengthened by their visual potency. Andrew creates a playful way of inviting audiences to see a community through the eyes of its members and to question the nature of how history shapes the present. Travelling Colony forms the centrepiece of Black Capital, an art initiative at Carriageworks that considers Redfern’s place as Australia’s urban Indigenous capital, a part of Sydney Festival. Image: Susannah Wimberley
Is it dramatically poetic or just ironic that one of the few productions that has left me gaping like a fish is titled Babel, meaning words? This giant undertaking throws together 18 performers from across the globe (speaking almost as many languages and working across many modes of performance), choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, and visual artist Antony Gormley. Babel is the third in a trilogy that began in 2003 with Cherkaoui and Gormley's collaboration on Foi, yet it is imposing enough to stand on its own. Taking as its starting point the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, the production explores notions of language, communication (and miscommunication) and ongoing efforts towards cross-cultural empathy. With a work primarily composed of movement, which also utilises music, visual representation and a multiplicity of languages, it's inevitable that you will feel a tad lost at times. Think twists and turns, rather than questions and answers. The work manages to be starkly realist and profoundly inspiring in the same breath, punctuated by comedic hooks that ensure you're kept in the loop. From the first to the last moments of the work, Gormley's cube-like structures loom before us, as endeavours, obstacles, cages and shelters. Manipulated by the performers, they structure the home, the city, the nation, while transporting us to a world far removed from our own. The music and songs woven throughout echo this theme of unity and difference, blending Renaissance choirs with traditional Turkish melodies, alienating while at the same time comforting. The deep, resonant bass drum seems to throb even during moments of silence, the pulsing heartbeat that is part of the raw, almost primal nature of the production. Even when in unison, each dancer appears as their own being: a flick of the wrist or a nod of the head betraying their own particular mode. Rather than compromising the work, this frayed-at-the-edges feel only contributes to the energy of the performance as a whole. Energy and strength are very literally foregrounded in the choreography, prompting the audience that I was a part of to oscillate between gasps, tears and thick bursts of applause. Babel appears as a whirlwind, a storm that comes from nowhere and seems to depart only moments after it begins, leaving everything changed in its wake. It is an impressively multifaceted meditation on reality and possibility, otherworldly while utterly at pace with our times. https://youtube.com/watch?v=7TmlXlQqmM4
Picasso crossed Spain to Barcelona as a young man, before settling in to paint in France. To accompany the artist's Sydney show, the Art Gallery of NSW's series of celebrity talks brings dancer Rafael Bonachela to explain how the same two countries have influenced his work. With a gentle Spanish accent and a yen for making dance easy to enjoy, Bonachela has been reworking the Sydney dance scene since 2008, when he took up the directorship of the Sydney Dance Company. Bonachela's time with the company has seen it move from its blue period to more vivid and abstract movements. Having moved himself as a young man to Barcelona, where the new environment threw him into a world of dance and a more cosmopolitan life, he knows the strength of a locale's influence in the creative process. A spoken topography that might lead to another lingering look at Paris in the subsequent screening of Jean Cocteau's Orphée in the Gallery theatre. And while Bonachela may dance with an economy of movement, with his words he's generous to a fault. Orphée is free, but you may need to pick up tickets in advance from the Info Desk. Image by the Sydney Dance Company.
Manu Chao visits Australia for the first time to play exclusively at Sydney Festival. Having made music since the late '80s as leader of rock outfit Mano Negra and then as a solo artist, Chao is one of the world's most well-known and respected musicians, with a huge cult following in all corners of the globe - from South, Central and North America to Europe, Japan, Africa and back - selling more than 10 million albums. Chao's music is multilingual and broadly multicultural, blending rock, reggae, punk, ska, and found sounds in compositions sung in English, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Italian. The Paris-born, Barcelona-based artist of Spanish descent finds inspiration in street culture and local bar scenes, and has long collaborated with musicians and artists who share his ethos. Chao's first solo album, 1998's Clandestino, was a huge success, shifting in excess of four million copies worldwide to become the second biggest-selling world music album in history after Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social Club. His next album, 2001's Proxima Estacion: Esperanza ('Next Stop: Hope' - a reference to an announcement on a Madrid train station) consolidated his place as one of the world's most successful recording artists.
At most, I expected to tolerate I'm Your Man. It is, after all, about boxing, for which I (and, let's generalise, most theatregoing folk) care not. So it came as a surprise when I loved I'm Your Man, and if you allow yourself to be transported through the doors of Belvoir Downstairs into a so-real-seeming boxing gym, creator/director Roslyn Oades and her multitalented, impressively athletic cast ensure you will, too. My (self-appointed) job is to convince you to take that first step and turn up. I'm Your Man spends time with the fighters, trainers and aspirants at a Sydney gym, and one in particular, Billy Dib, as he gears up for his world title fight. Oades spent 18 months observing and gathering interviews with these athletes, scratching at the psychology and culture that makes them. Her little bit journalistic, little bit anthropological documentation is distilled through a technique she's pioneered called headphone-verbatim, last seen in her Stories of Love and Hate. Rather than memorising the lines, the actors have the recorded audio from these interviews fed to them onstage through headsets and focus on wholly and accurately replicating the subtleties of speech. It might sound awkward, but it really works. We're used to theatre speech being worlds removed from everyday speech, and there are some great verbal quirks — fast-talking, stumbling, on-the-run grammar — that would normally never survive the flattening of the rehearsal process. These rediscovered idiosyncrasies of voice prove totally bewitching, and it's a neat antidote to theatrey declamation. (Plus, no complaints about dodgy accents here.) But more than just document, I'm Your Man immerses you in its characters' world. Even before you see your seats, the walk down the corridor carries you into another, intoxicating world — one where whitewashed walls brandish fight posters, articles, autographs and inspirational quotes; one that sounds of fists hitting vinyl and sneakers squealing against the lino. It smells thankfully not of sweat but of Deep Heat. It's powerful. You soon get a sense for just how this milieu might become a clubhouse, and a comfort. The sharp observation extends to the gym-bright but cleverly flexible fluorescent lighting (Neil Simpson), evocatively ringside sound (Bob Scott), and host of behaviours, exercises and rituals enacted by the performers (Mohammed Ahmad, Billy McPherson, Katia Molino, Justin Rosniak and John Shrimpton). The wrapping of wrists is hypnotic. In place of the usual dramatic climaxes, you want to clap feats of core strength and skipping. These actors may not have memorised lines, but they've been doing some hardcore practice. Often Billy Dib and his team seem to make boxing bear the weight of dreams and ideals bigger than it could possibly contain. Their stories of struggle, migration, self-improvement and community admiration come together to produce insight into the motivations of people who pursue something that most of us don't understand, and in some cases, can't abide. I'm Your Man acknowledges that real-life violence and the competitive violence of sport are not wholly disentwined; it just won't let the violence be the whole story. After earning their trust over many months, Oades clearly had her subjects open up to her, and she's honoured that trust by using their words with warmth, empathy and unflinching honesty.
When a film leaves you standing outside the cinema afterwards gasping for air, you know it has made a deep impact. The discomfort which Pedro Almodovar's latest film, The Skin I Live In, has imparted upon me is one I will be feeling for some time. The story follows the rather sinister Dr Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), an eminent plastic surgeon who has been developing an artificial skin in his own laboratory for the last 12 years — a skin which is sensitive to touch and yet resistant to external damage and which could have saved his wife, who was horribly burned in a car accident 12 years earlier. In his idyllic mansion near Toledo in Spain, Ledgard has been experimenting on his own human guinea pig, the enigmatic and elusive Vera (Elena Anaya). With the collusion of Marilia (Marisa Paredes), who has looked after Ledgard since he was a child, Vera is kept prisoner in an upstairs bedroom, wearing nothing but a flesh-coloured body suit to protect her new skin. As the movie jumps back and forth through time, the story begins to unfold. There is stunning mise en scene and camerawork, paying homage to cinema of the '40s and '50s, particularly to masters of the film noir genre such as Hitchcock, and a masterfully evocative music score. These provide the audience with various signs, clues and premonitions, gradually revealing the true nature of Dr Ledgard's most unethical experiment and the motives behind it. Questions of perception and external impressions are central to the film's theme. If you change someone on the outside by giving them a new skin, or a new body even, what happens to their identity underneath? As we come to realise that Vera ressembles Ledgard's dead wife, Gal, we wonder, could this be her? Or is it someone who Dr Ledgard has refashioned to look like her? Almodovar has always been one to question identity, but this time round he has gone much further. Moreover, with the generous dose of humour usually found in his work distinctly lacking here, this is possibly the darkest film he has ever made. The Skin I Live In feels much more a psychological thriller and marks a different direction for the director, yet his spirit still pervades. Almodovar has a talent for revealing humanity at its rawest and most preposterous in a way which, far from alienating the audience, usually tells us a great deal about ourselves, albeit it on a subconscious level. In this sense, it is still the same Almodovar at work here, but his investigations into the human condition have delved much deeper to produce a film that will get right under your skin. https://youtube.com/watch?v=EolQSTTTpI4
Get up close and personal in Rushcutters Bay with some theatre stripped down to the basics. Six solo performances, written and directed by both established and up and coming Sydney artists, will be taking place each night at the BARE BOARDS BRAVE HEART festival at subtlenuance. The pieces use themes as diverse as Justin Bieber and eroticism, Celtic lore, sexuality, human courtship rituals and expressing our feelings through art, as they tackle the human condition and a variety of other social conundrums. Each piece will offer a unique perspective or line of investigation through which to explore personal expression and the meaning of things in general. subtlenuance was founded by Danieli Georgi and Paul Gilchrist in 2008, both of whom are writers and directors in their own right, and have received praise for much of their work in and around Sydney. Sharing a love of unconventional theatre, and indeed for unconventional performance spaces, the pair previously founded Thrown Together Theatre, experimenting with pop-up theatre in non-traditional venues and unusual locations. Their latest offering promises to be innovative, challenging and inspiring.
If I am honest, the title of the latest offering in the Late Night Library series, taking place at Surry Hills library every Thursday evening, did make me titter a little: Jodie Foster's Beaver. It is, in fact, the name of the latest monologue by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, part of his ongoing project: The Jodie Foster Archive. The prolific Sydney-based artist, curator and writer has been collecting clippings, photos and bios of the star since he was a kid. More recently the collection has evolved to include his own self-penned “Jodie Performances” which parody some of her most famous movie scenes, in an attempt to subvert her into the gay icon he wishes she always had been. No doubt some lively discussion will ensue about this most topical of subjects (gay rights). With cheese, wine and scintillating conversation all on offer, it feels like so many taboos are being broken: eating, drinking and talking in the library after dark! So head along if you fancy some risqué adults only entertainment, or even if you just want to browse the selves and borrow a book. The library itself will be open until midnight. Entry is free, but if you want to take part in the event, booking ahead is essential: 02 8374 6230
Harper Lee wrote one novel. But the novel was To Kill a Mockingbird, and it was enough. Terrence Malick has likewise only directed five films. Pictures that build slowly, like a symphony of long, slow notes. And it's enough. The Palm d'Or winning Tree of Life centres around a father (Brad Pitt), a mother (Jessica Chastain) and their son Jack (Harry McCracken as a boy, Sean Penn as an adult). All of the other characters, the flow of life and nature, and the film's full narrative build around the empty void that the death of Jack's young brother leaves in their family, in his life and in the soul of their mother. Though the film exists in the shadow of a death, its preoccupation is life and how to live it. Jack grows up to be like his dad: a man neither he, nor his father, want to be. Around this, his mother's grief for his brother propels the action. In her imagination she rebuilds the world from nothing, from the big bang to the birth of her son, as though she is searching in the imagination of God, or perhaps only in the world, for some beginning, some end to the reason for his death. Her grief is as big, as cold, as vast, as fiery and pure as these things. It touches everything. Through her, the film constantly talks to God or to nature — it has no preference — and to the totality of the universe, with galaxies endlessly swirling and rock aflame, it poses the question: "What are we to you?" The star of Terrence Malik's film remains the sensual. Everything is touchable. Hands drift through fields of high grasses, hands cup a newborn baby's foot, hands touch rough lawns and sheets, throw stones, throw footballs, hover in prayer over empty dinner plates. This is a great strength of the film, but if Tree of Life has a flaw, it's also this. Despite sharing his characters' dream worlds, grief and inner life, the story in this film is clearly Malik's most of all.
We like to pretend in Australia that it's not actually cold in winter. My knees would appeal to the contrary. But you do have to go a fairly long way from Sydney to see snow and find enough ice that you might be able to skate on. Or perhaps, because of the hard work of some fairly cool dudes, you don't. Once again the Winter Alpine Festival is coming to Sydney. If you feel like ice-skating outside St Mary's Cathedral, or nibbling on a winter delicacy from the Alpine food stalls with fare from all over the world, then jump on board. Highlights of the festival include ice skating at Bondi beach, the Winter Festival Bar where you can hear either traditional Bavarian beats or a collection of European DJs and performances from some of Australia's finest ice-skaters. Really the attraction to this festival is the ability to pretend, just for one night (or as many as you choose to go), that you're living in Europe in winter. And when the chai lattes are free and the bar can be wandered into as you please, who could say no to a snow experience on these cold Sydney winter nights? Check the website for dates for the Sydney and Bondi festivals. Note: the festival will be located in Bondi from June 30 - July 14, then outside St Mary's Cathedral from July 28 - August 14.
Lenin wrote secret letters with milk when he was in prison in Siberia. Not many people experiment with such strange pigments, and even less out of need than curiosity. For some artists held in Australian detention centres, working on the Refugee Art Project, paint and other art supplies became hard to get a hold of, so they made art with what they had at hand. Which led victoriana-like, delicate watercolour drawings done with instant coffee, among other ingenious ideas. These and other results of the Project will be on display at the Mori Gallery as part of Refugee Week, featuring work by artists originally from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Iraq and further afield. Detention centres are essentially prisons. Artworks at the Mori exhibition are by people stuck there, children and adults; a few released into the community, but most of them still behind bars. They get money from sales, but it doesn't do much to get them out of such places and into a life. Nonetheless, bearing witness to them is of no small importance. And once you're there, maybe you can think of something more useful to do. Image by All Fadhel.
There's an old Chinese saying: 'Good things come in pairs'. With the exception of tinnitus and earwax, this is largely true. Just think of shoes, poached eggs at a cafe, Wayne's World, toasted crumpets, the seventh Harry Potter film, the original and the remix of the Bedroom Intruder video — and Gotye concerts at August's Graphic Festival. Gotye (aka Wouter De Backer or Wally) has just announced a second show to follow his sold-out one on August 20, which as far as good things go, ranks pretty highly. Wally is a jack-of-all-trades and a master of, well, all — whether it's singing, songwriting, producing, being a one-man band or traversing an array of sonic landscapes. Gotye: An Animated Album Preview promises to be no less varied or enterprising. For the first performance of his third album, Making Mirrors, he'll be joined on stage by a 10-piece mini orchestra and will set the score to original visuals by some of Australia's top animators, including Rubber House, Lucinda Schreiber, Mechanical Apple and pictureDRIFT. The only problem with Gotye's previous videos is that they're as short as they are catchy, so news of a second chance at witnessing this hour-plus audiovisual extravaganza makes us more excited than a nice pair of cosy socks. Get in quick though — tickets are sure to be even hotter than the second Franco brother. Okay, we'll stop now... https://youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY
The Verge Festival has everything. Experimental Cinema, claims of the Best Comedy Ever, great sunset film screenings and croquet. With origins as a festival of experimental art, the Verge has grown into a University-wide arts festival with events ranging from pure weird to straight up drama — but all of them with something that takes their efforts away from the everyday. Opening night is packed with music and art by its hosts, the charity-supporting Major Raiser, who'll be dedicating the night's efforts to youth mental health — a subject close to their heart. Closing night promises a laser maze on the dance floor, while the middle of the fest sports Pride Week Party and night markets. During the rest of the festival, the Uni's flashy promenade, Eastern Avenue, will be taken over by giant shipping containers as part of Uncontainable, as artists decorate the containers' outsides, and fill the insides with pre-made exhibtions. Some occasional Impro playmaking is promised, while Underbelly artists Fetish Frequency offer a DIY audio story to drag you around the Sydney University campus. There will be nights of nice words at Outspoken, and the Story Club's return from the Comedy Festival, starring Playschool veteran Benita Collings. SUDS is getting into the festival spirit by staging the bloody Titus Andronicus, as well in-situ drama like Animals at the University's tiny Roundhouse and and some Strindberg in the tennis courts.
Concrete Playground is proud to present Trilogy as part of this year's Sydney Underground Film Festival. One way to respond to an entertainment phenomenon like Star Wars is to go for the throat, three times. Trilogy, a film by the interdisciplinary artist Kostas Seremetis, takes all the operatic action, humanoid life-forms, intergalactic futurism and helicoid rivalry of the Force, collaging and cutting the images to produce a cinematic experience of excess and spectacle. The actual facts of the film are as follows: arranged as a salad of sight and sound, Seremetis has siphoned the images from the Star Wars trilogy, displacing the action across three screens. Look to the left and you'll see a scene from first Star Wars, look to the middle and you'll find Empire Strikes Back and, glance to the right, sure enough, Return of the Jedi. This remodelled vision of the franchise asks us to question our normal visual experience with the moving image, offering a spliced and fractured account of this epic legacy that perches half-way between abstraction and pop. https://youtube.com/watch?v=1t3gM4PC-RA
The Sydney Latin American Film Festival (SLAFF) is a film festival with a conscience. Since 2006 the good people behind this non-profit film festival have been pouring their proceeds into various community support programs in Latin America including the Argentine Institute for Sustainable Construction (IARCOS) and Misión México, a refuge for Mexican children run by Queensland couple, Pamela & Alan Skuse. September and October, the SLAFF is presenting a series of film and cultural events under the banner of Latin American Cinema & Song. September, Cine en Construcción will bring five films from the San Sebastian International Film Festival to Sydney with screenings at the Spanish Cervantes Institute in Chippendale. The pick of the festival though sounds like it might be Cine 428 - a night on the green of the Addison Road Community Centre - all themed to whisk you away to the gaucho cowboys and romantic terrain of Argentina. With a screening of the coming-of-age film, The Last Summer of La Boyita (looks like Deenie meets Shane on the set of The Motorcycle Diaries - yes, that's a blanket covering those stereotypes), music by DJ Spex, fiesta-style party lights, hay bales and meats for sale in the form of asado (traditional Argentinian BBQ) - tell me, is there much more you could ask for? Oh, and it's only eight bucks. Please, travel never smelt so sweet.
Cabinets of curiousity, like wunderkammers, lumped together from different places with little in the way of unifying features, apart from that fact that the curator of the box thought they went quite well together. They were part of what Rapture of Death author Prue Gibson calls "that style of 19th Century inquiry." That same style has mixed with local chatter at the Sydney chapter of big-in-Japan lecture series Pecha Kucha. Essentially talks about whatever, by whoever, they feed the same pressing spirit of Inquiry that Gibson loves. The Carriageworks itself is really a big wunderkammer, its projects connected by their curation into the same steel box and a now-familiar spirit of inquiry into drama, dance and TV cooking. It's also the venue for Sydney Pecha Kucha's first event of 2011. Gibson herself will be talking there, along with other speakers like Monster-Childrener Joseph Allen Shea, jewellry-crocheter Erin Field and photographer Billy Maynard. Each presentation is 6 minutes and 40 seconds long, so there's room for a wide line-up. Twelve presenters are booked in all, giving you lots of amassed variety to fire up your own sense of curiosity.
Watching filmmaker Tom Kuntz's work you get the unsettling feeling he has somehow tapped into our collective subconscious and is hanging out our dirty washing for all to see. In his advertising work, such as for Skittles, he employs seemingly unrelated objects or concepts to symbolise our hidden desires, the elusive want, which can in fact be directed towards whatever product is being advertised. This relationship between the 'signifier' (i.e. whatever appears in the film) and the 'signified' (the desired object) was examined in great detail by the famous French psychoanalyst Lacan. His theories would provide some good background reading for this event. Produced in collaboration with maverick music deconstructoralists the Lucky Dragons, the untested installation, which will run for two weeks as part of VIVID Sydney, will be an experiment in image and sound. The objects portrayed will be insects, represented by images of large, unearthly looking insects and with sounds made by either rudimentary musical instruments, or by body parts. It will most likely make no sense, and perfect sense, at the same time. Tom Kuntz has made music videos for bands such as the Avalanches, Electric Six, MGMT and LCD Soundsystem. His advertising work has included ads Skittles and Old Spice, and he's also made several very intriguing short films. His installation will be running for the duration of the festival from 11am daily.
When British indie band Bloc Party blew up and flew up the charts with their first album Silent Alarm, lead singer Kele Okereke kept a cool head. He continued his degree in English literature and didn't tell his parents yet that he was musically inclined. Their first single, 'Banquet', got such worldwide airplay that Kele had to bite the bullet and admit to being the rock star he was. Following three critical and commercially successful albums, the band went on a hiatus. 2010 was a big year for Kele as a person and as an artist: coming out as gay and releasing his first solo album, The Boxer. The album and its accompanying singles 'Tenderonie' and 'Everything You Wanted' showed a different side to Okereke. Whereas Bloc Party's music was thumping, dark and personal, The Boxer seemed to express a more lively, dance-driven yet sardonic sound. His live shows are packed with energy and sweat as he transports you through his solo and band catalogue. Supported by Melbourne pop outfit Strange Talk, this will prove to be an unmissable show. https://youtube.com/watch?v=bdQioZHYpvQ
I'm sure the rise of garage rock in the 1970s ran correspondingly with the rise in guitar sales worldwide. Music was easy again – all you needed were some instruments, some friends and a garage. You could be famous, you just needed a little bit of effort and a little bit of luck. It faded though and music became a business again. In 2000, however, Swedish band The Hives led another revival of sorts. Music was back and music was fun, and it still is. The Hives are continuing to strip rock back to basics, delivering powerful performances wherever they go. With frontman Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, a force of nature on stage, the band is turbo-charged, full of showmanship and always, always well-dressed. Supported by The Grates on their Splendour in the Grass sideshow tour, do not miss The Hives because you'll miss what music can and should be. https://youtube.com/watch?v=1M02bAWDFkI
In the mood for a little cross-consuming over a glass of champagne? Australia's first interactive online market place, The Young Republic, is launching itself into the world of the real with all the lights, glamour and speciality objects it can muster. Taking over the Aurora Bar with their very own night market, The Young Republic will be showcasing a range of pieces from designers such as Fiel Sol, Toby E, TopazTurtle, KnitKnit, Dubbleyou and ATAT. Also on offer will be a 'fashion installation' (yep, these exist) featuring Casper & Pearl,Sovii, Das Monk, KID., Ames and Evyie. To attend simply RSVP to: rsvp@youngrepublic.com.au
Depending on your tastes, the horror subgenre of torture porn (Saw, Hostel and Wolf Creek are three well-known examples) sits somewhere between the poles of either a gratuitous abomination or an artistic lens into humanity's darker proclivities. While we live in a world filled with humans inventing new ways of inflicting terrible physical and emotional pain upon one another, there is always the question of whether such things need to be recreated in fiction. One straightforward answer is: well, if it's part of the human condition, then it's suitable for art. Enter The Woman, the latest indie horror creation from American director Lucky McKee, based on the novel by Jack Ketchum. The premise is simple enough: pillar-of-the-community Chris Cleek (Deadwood's Sean Bridgers) and his nuclear family become the guardians of a wild woman (Pollyanna McIntosh) that Chris captured out in the woods one day, and he is adamant that the woman must be civilised for the good of the town. The Cleeks are no Henry Higgins, however, and the film quickly reveals the disturbing home truths hidden behind their docile demeanours. The Woman is definitely a card-carrying member of the torture porn subgenre, and anyone who is not a fan of graphic violence and complete disregard for human decency should stay away from this film. Having said that, The Woman is also playing into dangerous territory because of its key subject matter: the imprisonment and abuse of women. When The Woman screened at the Sundance Festival earlier this year, one audience member hurled insults at the film's creators until security hauled him out, and whether or not you think the film is misogynistic, its male leads certainly are. Gore and controversy aside, The Woman does make for an interesting lesson in non-conventional horror film-making. The cheap shock scares used in mainstream horror films are non-existent, and instead McKee uses grinding sound design (similar to that of Gaspar Noe's Irreversible), acid-trip cross-fading and spinning cameras (again, Irreversible) to activate a different sense of terror within his audience. Does it work? Not always, sadly, and all three of these techniques overstay their welcome by the end of the film. Another good choice is that all of the performances are understated, with some characters (rightly) coming across as almost shell-shocked, while Bridgers' relaxed attitude to brutality registers as real-world chilling. But it doesn't always work, and The Woman is marred by some shocking performances, such as a do-gooder high school teacher (Carlee Baker), who never seems to care about what she's saying. The often clunky dialogue also doesn't help the actors. Overall, this film is going to turn most people off. However, if you do like your horror served extra rare, The Woman is definitely worth hunting down. https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3lUAZLB4JY Image by Chelsea Boothe
Founded after the a purchase of an old church organ, Fitz and the Tantrums harken back while embracing the new. Lead singer Michael Fitzpatrick started work on his solo side project alone, crafting soul songs in the mould of standards. Quickly realising his dreams were bigger than just one man meant slowly incorporating a composer, then another singer, then a 7-piece brass outfit. Although he describes the output as soul music, the music also draws on more modern genres including indie rock and pop. Of the first EP, Songs for a Breakup Volume 1, Fitzpatrick says it was a conscious effort to make something new, "I did want to try and make a big sounding record without guitars." Their live shows are an embrace of different live atmopsheres, making gigs a unique mix of big bands and rock concerts. Make sure you don't miss this sterling example of California firepower. https://youtube.com/watch?v=bb6cBKE3WzQ
Every Saturday morning at 10, FBi show All the Best tells a collection of real and fictional Sydney stories. Its weekly themes run from 'ritual', to 'silence', to an exploration of Sydney's compass points north, south, east and west. After a successful late night live recording at Surry Hills Library, it's getting ready for another go. A live version of the show with a Power Trip theme will join faces to its words at the Sydney Writers' Festival this Thursday evening. As part of its lust for power, the show will combine documentary short stories with readings from Festival authors along a similarly forceful vein. Journalist Wendy Bacon will help document her turbulent days editing Tharunka, alongside pieces on modern-day magic and the cost of war. Peppered among them, Mandy Sayer will read from her fiery World War II novel Love in the Year of Lunacy, sharing a stage with show regular Vanessa Berry and fellow Festival guests, investigative reporter Anna Krien and Iranian/Australian writer Sara Haghdoosti. Singer songwriter Fergus Brown will make live music, and push into the action with occasional live score. Image by Wendy Bacon, from an original 70s edition of Tharunka . Click through for full image. Warning: contains one extremely rude word.
My first thought here is, why not erotic fan ghost stories? Why not put Albert Einstein in the middle of a sweaty flesh muffin with Grace Kelly and Biggie Smalls? I want to hear stories told about Cleopatra taking it mummy style (that means being wrapped up and covered in salt for thousands of years, FYI) at the hands of Burke, while Wills is getting nailed by Martin Luther. And what about the basement? JUST DON'T GO INTO THE BASEMENT! But for the time being, you will all have to be satisfied with these two events existing as separate sessions of some of the funniest and scariest spoken fiction in town. Hosted by the Imperial Panda and Sydney Writers' Festival, Erotic Fan Fiction and Ghost Stories gathers up a clutch of Sydney's best writers and performers to deliver the seedy antics of celebrities, or the ghoulish moans of sinister spooks. Or both, dammit. Come hear Charlie Garber, Virginia Gay, Ewen Leslie and Eddie Sharpe spin sauce through the fictive legs of the famous, then chill out before Nick Coyle, Claudia O'Doherty and others stab you in the heart with a cold blade of fear. No money back for dying of either lust or fright — both of these events are free. Image by James Brown
John Kaldor: what a dude. He's been comissioning art since the 1950s and is a patron, collector and general all-round play-maker for the contemporary arts in Australia as well as serving on boards and councils for major international art organisations. He's discovered things and endowed them and is so beloved by the arts community that when he spoke at a graduation ceremony at the National Art School last year the Cell Block Theatre overflowed with people who crowded around doorways trying to hear him. Being such a dude, he's now not only gifted the Art Gallery of New South Wales his personal collection, but has donated enough to fund (with additional money from the Belgiorno-Nettis family, who are also no slouches in the arts department) a new gallery floor. When the John Kaldor Family Galleries, as they're to be known, open on April 21st, AGNSW will double the space it has for exhibiting contemporary art. Selections from The Kaldor Family Collection will occupy the space exclusively until March 2012, and will always be represented in the gallery. To celebrate this major historical OMG, the 21st and 22nd have been designated an Open Weekend with performances, talks, film screenings and the chance to paint on the walls of the new space. I don't know if I'm allowed to say 'Holy shit wow!' on here, but if so: "Holy shit wow!"
Too expensive? Too long? Seats too far away? Regardless of your reason for not going to the (capital O) Opera, there has been a noticeable drop-off in opera attendances in recent years. It is no surprise then to see young opera companies emerging to reclaim an art that has often been considered to be the epitome of live performance. One of the more dedicated companies is the humbly named Sydney Chamber Opera, who are bringing their production of The Cunning Little Vixen to CarriageWorks at the end of this month. Chamber operas are one of the perfect tools for reinvigorating interest in the art form. Intimate and petite, they are able to offer very affordable tickets and therefore have the financial freedom to take more risks in their material. Sydney Chamber Opera are embracing this completely, and are following up their first production (Notes from Underground by Jack Symonds and Pierce Wilcox, after Fyodor Dostoyevsky) with a tale of woodland animals tackling love, heartbreak and the enduring cycle of life and death. Directed by Kate Gaul (of Siren Theatre) and conducted by Jack Symonds, this version of The Cunning Little Vixen promises to be as sleek as a wild fox. Julie Goodwin, previously seen in national tours of Phantom of the Opera and West Side Story, helms a cast of beautiful ferals amidst a stylish, clear-cut world where the rhythms and melodies of life flow relentlessly on.
If your daily commute involves ferrying across Sydney Harbour, you may need to find an alternative way home tonight. Thick smoke from NSW's ongoing bushfires has led to the cancellation of all State Government-operated ferry services. That includes ferries running between Circular Quay and Manly, Parramatta, Double Bay, Mosman, Taronga, Neutral Bay and Watsons Bay. The Manly Fast Ferry has also stopped, but some other private services still seem to be running ferries. Yep, the smoke's that bad. https://twitter.com/FerriesInfo/status/1204205372841615361 Replacement buses have been organised for the F1 Manly service only and will continue to run between Manly Wharf and Circular Quay for the foreseeable future. The other routes won't be receiving replacement buses, so Transport for NSW is telling commuters to delay their journeys. There's no word on when the ferries will resume just yet — but it's safe to assume that you should plan an alternative route home. The Bureau of Meteorology predicts that the smoke cover will linger until a southerly comes through, around 5pm. This is what it looks like on the harbour: https://twitter.com/UrbanFerryist/status/1204195795848687616 Today's thick smoke follows weeks of poor air quality, with a severe fire danger level (and total fire bans) declared across the Greater Sydney, Central Ranges, Illawarra, Greater Hunter and Southern Ranges areas for today. As of midday, the NSW Rural Fire Service was continuing to battle 85 fires across the state, 42 of which are uncontained. And the smoke isn't just causing issues on the water — it's wreaking havoc across the city. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Fire and Rescue NSW have responded to multiple alarm call-outs triggered by the smoke — including the paper's own offices — and Transport for NSW is also warning commuters that alarms may be activated in train stations. During periods of reduced air quality, NSW Health suggests that everyone cuts back on strenuous outdoor activities, as well as going outside in general — if you can. Those with chronic respiratory or heart conditions are especially advised to avoid all outdoor physical activity and stay indoors where possible. It's also recommended that you carry your inhaler, follow your Asthma Action Plan, and keep your other medication with you for all breathing-related conditions. If you start experiencing symptoms, even if you're otherwise fit and healthy, seek medical advice. For those staying indoors, NSW Health also suggests turning your air conditioner on — if you have one — and using it on recirculate mode to keep the particles from outside out. With Sydney firmly in the grip of warm end-of-year weather, and temperatures expected to reach 37 in the city today, residents are also advised to be wary of the heat, as well as its combination with the hazy air. Drinking plenty of fluids, taking cool showers to keep your temperature down, soaking your feet in water and draping a wet cloth around your neck are also recommended. For the latest updates on traffic and public transport delays, head to Live Traffic NSW and Transport for NSW's official Ferries Twitter account. Image: Tim Snape.
