It is hard to watch Life in Movement without wanting it to tell a different story. A documentary, it is the tale of German-born choreographer Tanja Liedtke and her journey towards scoring the amazing prestige of artistic directorship at the Sydney Dance Company at the age of 29. Directors Bryan Mason and Sophie Hyde construct this part of her story with a combination of private footage — the scratch recordings made by Liedtke in bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms and the corners of dance studios — and recordings of her two feature-length productions. The sheer talent and energy of Liedtke is undoubtable from this footage. Her precision of movement, her sense of humour and her surreal imagination are clear markers of a talent that deserved the accolades she collected, and it is here that Life In Movement is likely to break many a viewer's heart. For Liedtke was killed by a garbage truck one night in 2007, a tragedy that impacted on not only her immediate family but also the dance community at large. This event is at the epicentre of the second part of Life in Movement — what came after, when her collaborators, all set to work for the next few years as part of her company in Sydney, were suddenly orphaned. Told through interviews, candid videos and performance recordings, this aspect of the documentary you cannot help but think of as being an Australian equivalent to Wim Wenders' Pina. There is certainly a link between the two films in that they are tributes, except that the story of Liedtke, her family and her collaborators clearly is a cord cut short. Where Pina's Tanztheater Wuppertal company are hagiographic, the voices of Paul White, Kristina Chan, Solon Ulbrich and others describe a companion and colleague who was utterly human and may still be dancing in the next room. Given this, Life In Movement often takes on a subtly spiritual mood. Footage of Liedtke performing sequences from her shows is edited into sequences from posthumous performances, which Mason and Hyde use to illustrate just how much of Liedtke remains in her work and her collaborators. So too is Liedtke's partner, Ulbrich, contrasted with her presence — we are shown his efforts to remount Twelfth Story and Construct as tribute to her memory, but it is clear that in spite of his energy and passion, there is something irrevocably absent from these rehearsals. As a tribute and a biography of the late Tanja Liedtke, Life in Movement is an honouring and heartbreaking piece of cinema. Yet it is also a fascinating and important insight that is often forgotten when discussing the production of art — there are human beings behind those moving bodies, with all manner of emotions, personalities and ambitions. No great work springs forth from a vacuum, and even if it does not provoke a stirring of loss, Life in Movement will certainly reveal the warmth of this neglected side to Australian dance. Screening at Hoyts Cinema Paris and Dendy Opera Quays. https://youtube.com/watch?v=M0tBys_8vlI
This event is over. For the April 2014 round of World Movies Secret Cinema, go here. World Movies will bring Secret Cinema to Sydney next month, transforming a mystery downtown building into a lavish cinema just for the night. The film to be screened, similarly, will be revealed on the night of the event. The only disclosed details on the film describe it as award-winning and oh-so-scandalously rebellious — so much so that some countries have banned it. Intrigued yet? Us too. Secret Cinema aims to present cinema as an active experience rather than a passive diversion, immersing the audience through elaborate venue theming. London's huge-scale version has become iconic, re-creating LA's Chinatown in 2019 for Bladerunner and a 1950s Algerian casbah for The Battle of Algiers. For World Movies' Secret Cinema, the first attempt at a similar project in Sydney, the exact inner-city location will be revealed to attendees via text message on the day of the event. Guests will be greeted with a drink upon arrival, and enjoy themed food throughout the evening — all included in the original ticket price. After the film, stick around for the afterparty and live DJ. Tickets go on sale April 18. Check out World Movies' Facebook page for more details.
Cool World is the second 2012 exhibition offering from new space on the block, Alaska Projects. It's a group show curated by Sydney-based artist, Mitch Cairns and basically as Mitch says, "We are aiming for a handsome painting show." Being wary of the artist-as-curator tag Mitch has attempted to keep the recipe simple by inviting nine painters that he would love to see in a show together. From that each artist has been asked to submit a work that they themselves love. Surely nothing could go wrong? And yet Mitch warns, "it just might not be that interesting to other people. It is really about my taste." The truth is though kids, Mitch Cairns has taste. He thinks about art, about painting, about artists, and about painters like it is his world. And it is. It is his cool world. So I beg of you, if you care to be educated about how good artists work and the trap doors they prop open, pop down to Alaska Projects for the opening this Tuesday 31 January. Of the ten artists showing nine regularly exhibit their work in Sydney yet interestingly Mitch stumbled across the only outsider, Mike Schreiber (an American artist) on the internet. Intrigued by Mike’s work Mitch sent him an email and a mutual love-in ensued. So I say, support love. It might be just about all we need.
Sydney might have forgotten to bring summer this year, but hearing the beautiful psychedelic pop of San Francisco’s Girls is a pretty much guaranteed way to make you forget you’re not lazing around on a sun-soaked beach somewhere in California. After a solid debut album and follow-up EP, Girls’ latest album Father, Son, Holy Ghost has proven that these two are capable of delivering tunes fuelled by far more than just heartache and various kinds of drugs. Moving seamlessly between catchy pop and smooth psychedelia, Father, Son, Holy Ghost is like a mixtape of retro awesome spanning from ‘60s soul to spiritualising gospel. Though thanks to singer and songwriter Christopher Owens’ haunting vocals and Chet “JR” White’s rich production, all tracks are set firmly in the present. Girls have a 40-minute set at Laneway on Sunday, but if they’re planning on playing the almost-epic length 'Forgiveness' or 'Vomit' — and hopefully they’re planning on playing both — then that’s only, like, six tunes. If you want more (you do) don’t miss out on their side show this Thursday.
Catcall is the moniker of Sydney’s Catherine Kelleher, who makes dreamy pop songs fused with electro and R&B. Her singles 'Swimming Pool' and 'Satellites' are so pretty to listen to that you wouldn’t think she made a name for herself by screaming her lungs out in punk band Kiosk before going solo in 2008, but that’s just one of the reasons Catcall is one awesome lady. Now she’s amassed an impressive lineup of local musos for her new band, including Al Grigg from Red Riders/Palms, Andrew Elston (aka Toni-Toni Lee), Simon Parker from Lost Valentinos and Bec from The Fabergettes. With their help she’s written a debut record titled The Warmest Place, due out in Australia on May 4th, and to get us even more excited about it she’s playing her very first headline show. There will be new stuff, older stuff, and grimy stuff from surf rockers Atom Bombs, and something fast and loud from Sydney’s most endearing punk band Bloods. It shouldn’t be long before Catcall is projected into indie stardom in a burst of pretty dreamlike colours, so come along and check out her live show while it’s still possible to do so for less than $20.
Gallery controversy usually involves debate over the price of a painting, or whether various products of the body count as art. The Art Gallery of NSW has done its best to keep complaint from the crowd with its celebrity talks, but has tended to do it one speaker at a time. Wednesday, it plans to push your orthodoxies aside with a challenging quartet of young speakers who want to give you their ideas. Four Interesting Young Polemics brings them to the gallery's stage, each with a point to push in a brief Pecha Kucha-length harangue or artistic philippic. It's hard to bring you to a new mental place in the space of just over six minutes, but these speakers will try. Taking the mic to move your mind will be comedian and sometime FBi radio-er Genevieve Fricker, artist, Chaser cartoonist and Chalk Horse co-founder Oliver Watts, the Marcel Duchamp-loving Jaime Tsai and Senthorun Raj, who plans to bring Picasso and politics back together. They may be four short slices of thought, but they're plenty enough to convince you to get in there and bend an ear.
While ACP’s newest exhibitions are totally unrelated — one is filled with captured moments of live performance art; the other, terrific moments in Sydney’s ever-changing landscape — curators have yet again delivered a pair of thought provoking collections for its current six week showcase. The first, by Sydney photographer Heidrun Löhr and titled Parallax: The Performance Paradigm in Photography, encompasses a series of prints that beg viewers to look even closer at the beauty of performance. While an image of waif-like ballerinas twinkling about a stage mightn't seem like anything special at first glance, upon closer inspection, Löhr's lens has snapped a 2D moment where a dancer's outstretched arms appear to be clasping the full body of another dancer. Due to the fast-paced nature of dance and the frozen image's inability to document it, Löhr delivers a clever, albeit distorted reality. As we hand our imaginations over to the artist, she unveils the magic of her own. The other, Unveiled: the Sydney project by Sascha Weidner, invites viewers to interact with photography one step further. Clearly besotted with the art of old school photo processing, Weidner has created a series of prints presented in darkroom-style development trays. While each image depicts a fascinating scene out of Sydney’s great outdoors, from the city to rural landscapes, what really impresses is Weidner’s will to bring viewers right into his work. You can pick each of the prints up, you can examine them all you like; the experience is yours for the taking. Through his celebration of the traditional art, the German-based photographer educates, like all good exhibitions should. Image: Heidrun Löhr
The Magnum Photos co-operative's original members photographed everything. The Spanish civil war, Ernest Hemingway, Sartre and Ghandi. An agency with an eye for everyday people, and a knack for images à la sauvette, these "toreadors with little Leicas" are slow and selective with their membership. Only one Australian photographer, Trent Parke, is currently on Magnum's books and the Stills Gallery is running images from Parke's book Minutes to Midnight during Art Month, alongside a show of filmic contact sheets (also supporting a book) with Magnum images of Thatcher, the Beatles, Marlene Dietrich and others. A highlight of this photographic visitation will be a floor talk from FotoFreo-loving Magnum rep Fiona Rogers, whose words will no doubt throw the images into clearer relief. Rogers' talk takes place Wednesday 14 March at Stills Gallery, 6pm. (Image © Magnum LON7485 & LON107693. DAVID HURN - G.B. ENGLAND. LONDON.) For more info on Art Month 2012, check out our Ten Best Things to See and at Art Month 2012.
Love is strange. What moves one person to singing questionable verse leaves another unmoved with a dry taste on the lip. While the most beautiful people are usually whoever you love, the person sending out the affection can be equally astonishing to watch as love transforms them inside and out. Taking this approach to matters of the heart, artist Joanne Saad has collected everyday people from across western Sydney, across languages and across culture. Caught on camera they sing into a microphone about love, explaining themselves in her new show, I Want to Know What Love Is. No stranger to finding moving stories in the world of the everyday, Saad has explained the cramped history of newly-arrived migrant families living in the garages of fifties Wollongong and the same city's love affair with the car. Joanne's subjects have an energy inside, which she finds hidden and makes visible. Love from the old, the young, the stylish and from beautiful dorks: if this appeals as a subject of artistic survey, take a train down to the Powerhouse (next to Casula Station) and firm up your ideas of amore. I Want to Know What Love Is launches at 7pm on March 29. RSVP for the launch to 9824 1121 or email reception@casulapowerhouse.com Image by Bonnie Eliot.
According to the laws of physics, time travel is an impossible travesty of causality and physics. Well, probably. But according to the Compound — a normally forbidding-looking arts workshop strung between Serial Space and the White Rabbit — time machines are not only possible, they’ve got one upstairs. They’re showing it for one night only during Chippendale’s Art Month party in the form of Cassandra Scott-Finn’s sculpture Infinity. Her literature describes the Infinity sculpture as Tardis-shaped, though only one actually had the transparent prism vibe in the late–80s bits we don’t talk about any more. Better than its art-department predecessor, Scott-Finn’s sculpture follows through with such things’ deeper ambitions by disappearing into its surroundings. Evidence of its existence remaining in the warped, angular distortions you can see through it. If you’re planning to knock around Chippendale, lurching between the Compound’s bigger brethren and a quick nip at Fredas or the Rabbit, there’s a tube of art — prepared earlier — that might warrant a moment of your time.
Mr Pugh reads The Lives of Great Poisoners while glaring over the dinner table at Mrs Pugh. Upright schoolteacher Gossamer Beynon longs to fall into the swarthy arms of barman Sinbad Sailors. Music-obsessed Organ Morgan sees Bach lounging around the churchyard. Polly Garter thinks only of her dear departed Willy Wee while entertaining a parade of lovers who earn her the reprobation of the town. These are just some of the vividly named 60-plus characters you join for a day in the fishing village of Llareggub, which if you read it backwards, will tell you something about the plot. Not a lot happens in the course of one day, but you start it in these characters' dreams, and that means something when you see their trifling tragedies and victories by nightfall. This is Under Milk Wood by poet Dylan Thomas (of Do not go gentle into that good night fame). It's great poetry without the magniloquence, perfect for the salt-of-the-earth Welsh town its evoking, full of rugged language (stamping out in a "heavy beef-red huff") and intuitive neologisms that never quite took off (night is "neddying among the snuggeries of babies"). Originally written for radio and first performed in 1954, it is a 'play for voices', completely without heed for the technicalities of staging. Such plays are sometimes fun for the director but not for the audience, making a bumpy, obtuse ride. Fortunately, Under Milk Wood is fun for both. Director Kip Williams, the plucky young assistant director who stepped up to the plate when slated director Andrew Upton was called away on other business, has given it an amazingly magical staging that uses few accoutrements to create a lot of impact. As we careen from scene to scene, home to home, indistinct dreamspace to indistinct dreamspace, furniture and props roll in and out of view like waves. Their inbuilt tricks and trapdoors create beauty, surprise, and sight gags in spades. Similarly chameleon-like are the cast, a roll call of Australian talent spanning generations. It's woven together by Jack Thompson and Sandy Gore's narration, while Paula Arundell, Helen Thomson, Bruce Spence, Drew Forsythe, Cameron Goodall, Drew Livingston, Alan John and two alternating boys, Ky Baldwin and Alex Chorley, conjure full scenes in seconds. They all play outside gender and age; the kid makes a sweet 85-year-old woman. However, for all that, Under Milk Wood doesn't quite feel alive. It's hard to make it anything but a bit twee and old-timey, a nice treat for the set who yearn to be transported to a quaint Welsh past and the days when Jack Thompson was Cleo centrefold material. "He can read me a bedtime story anytime, if you know what I mean," is what I imagine your mother will say to you after you take her on this little lark.
Recycling, learning to mend and the meticulous saving of energy. Wartime rationing seems a long time ago, but the strictures of home front life feel pretty familiar in a world pondering the financial crisis, global warming and the fashionableness of yarn bombing. Sydney's World War II home front was a world with fewer men, women getting a taste of independence, a glut of fit GIs and fear of invasion. The Museum of Sydney is bringing back these memories, good and bad, as it plays host to an exhibition about life in Sydney under the shadow of war, Home Front. Taking in the period from Prime Minister Robert Menzies' 1939 announcement to the surrender of Japan in 1945, the show will feature photos from the Sydney of the period and parts from the midget submarines that attacked Sydney harbour in 1942. The Historic Houses Trust will also be running Sunday film screenings and its popular yearly take over of Elizabeth Bay House. This year's party will be a GI Ball — a somewhat more expensive evening's analog to Jurassic Lounge. If you'd like to see how Sydney skulked and buzzed as it collided with life during wartime, the Museum of Sydney has something to show you. Image: Troops of the 6th Division wave goodbye, Sydney 1940 (c) Australian War Memorial
Every now and then a movie comes out that proves surprisingly different from what its name or trailer led us to believe. Three Kings, from 1999, for example, looked like a B-grade action movie but actually turned out to be one of the more poignant anti-war movies of the past few decades. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, too, was a beautiful love story that most people assumed was simply another martial arts film. The Raid, by director Gareth Evans, is not one of those movies. It looks like an action movie, it sounds like an action movie, and holy crap does it deliver as an action movie. The title alone tells you absolutely everything you need to know about the plot: this is a film about a raid. It's a raid on a building. People are raided. Under no circumstances should you trick yourself into thinking it's actually referring to a spiritual or metaphoric raid by a disabled orphan upon a grumpy old man's heart (though somebody write that down). Instead, The Raid is a simple but fantastic movie for people with simple and fantastically violent tastes. The film takes place entirely within the confines of a dilapidated high-rise building in Jakarta's slums. An elite team of police officers are sent in after a crime boss living on the tower's top floor, but when their plans fall apart, they soon find themselves isolated, trapped inside and battling dozens of enraged henchmen. From that moment forth the action is utterly relentless, both narratively and physically, with violence at times so extreme the stuntmen probably asked for stuntmen. The dialogue is also pretty thin, even for an action movie, and it's a fair bet that of the 90 or so pages in The Raid's screenplay, 89 of them just said, "Aaaaaaaaargh!!!" Even so, Evans has put together a truly heart-pumping grindhouse feature here that will appeal to fans of action movies ranging from Die Hard to Ong Bak. The direction is slick and self-assured, the choreography simply mind-blowing and the action quite literally nonstop. Yippee ki-yay, mothers... https://youtube.com/watch?v=7KJ0N7ik3yI
All charged up and nowhere to go? Satisfy your craving for old-school experimentations and film this week as Magnificent Revolution transforms Taylor Square into a pedal-powered outdoor cinema. Cycle in Cinema will use eight bikes, brought by you and your 16 legs to generate all the electricity needed to power the projector and sound system. During the films you’ll be invited to jump on a bike and power the performance. No pedaling, no films! Use your pedal power Friday night to see films curated by Queer Screen to celebrate the 2012 Sydney Mardi Gras Festival. Plug in your wheels Saturday night to see films by contemporary Australian and British artists in Burn Baby Burn, a program curated by Katrina Schwarz, or see how everyday people are addressing climate change in small but dynamic ways in Sunday night's program. Pedal in and power up from 7.30pm.
Pole dancing, contortions, roaming dwarfs, live music and Green Fairy Absinthe cocktails served by muscled up topless waiters — the opening night of Sydney artist BrightSide’s debut solo exhibition doesn’t use the word “Extravaganza” lightly. Though anyone showing up after the launch night shenanigans will still find their senses adequately engulfed. BrightSide, aka Katie Bright, presents her perennial love for fancy dress in a series of images loosely based on characters from both cartoons and from her imagination that she identifies with. Cartoon villains and fairytale heroines come to life with a Lichtenstein vibrancy, fused with elements of sleaze and corporate logos. Purposefully pigeonholing her identity by using these characters to act as reflections of herself and observations of her desires, BrightSide asserts that fairytales have skewed the vision of romance. Welcome to the BrightSide Extravaganza features these engrossing images screenprinted onto mirrors, lighting installations and live performance. Whether you want to find your own pathway to self-discovery or just see a giant picture of Cruella De Vil careening down a highway with crazed eyes and gritted teeth, Welcome to the BrightSide Extravaganza is sure to leave an impression.
'Male sex addiction' sounds almost tautological. If you're a man, research indicates you already turn your thoughts to sexual intercourse around 13 times a day (or 4,745 times a year). If you're a teenager, that number is so much larger NASA hasn't even invented it yet. But of course the key word is 'addiction'. However often men think about sex, few have the time, ability or — in this case — compulsion to continuously act upon it, and those that do find tend to find themselves trapped in a debilitating, self-destructive spiral. Shame, directed by Steve McQueen (Hunger) and co-authored by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady), gives us an insight into that cold and lonely world. Michael Fassbender stars as Brandon, an affluent New York City suit (we never find out his actual job) epitomising success and self-assurance to the outside world. He's handsome, confident and irresistible to women — capable of enticing complete strangers into romantic trysts with little more than lingering stares on a crowded subway carriage. Yet there's nothing even remotely romantic about Brandon's encounters. The motivation isn't companionship; it's sex, and when strangers aren't accommodating, prostitutes and masturbation take their place. Allusions to American Psycho's Patrick Bateman are not unwarranted, particularly given the ordered and sterile apartments in which they both reside. Like Bateman, Brandon effectively ghosts his way through a thin and trifling existence, oscillating between observing those around him with marked curiosity and quiet indifference. His condition precipitates detachment: a joyless obsession rendering him an outsider within an exclusive elite. But while Bateman's hunger for sex and violence was propelled by the need to fill a void, Brandon's hunger is the void. His addiction consumes him, along with his time and money, and it's only the unexpected arrival of his impulsive sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), that seems capable of interrupting his paralysing routine. Given its subject matter and tenor Shame would seem a curious film to describe as 'beautiful', yet there's simply no avoiding it. Between the performances, the cinematography and even the tragic plot, McQueen has crafted something sublime here. Both Fassbender and Mulligan are mesmerising as the troubled siblings condemned to lives of disappointment for reasons the film only ever hints at, and the supporting cast (led by James Badge Dale) shines around them. Shame deals with sex addiction without ever becoming a movie about sex addiction, and what we're left with is an intimate and uncompromising character study that lingers long beyond the credits. https://youtube.com/watch?v=62nelnMXW3M
The annual festival Tiny Stadiums commissions emerging artists to transform the public spaces of Erskineville with their creative works (2011's was a blast). This year's festival again hopes to shake up the way that residents interact with the space around them, with a focus on place, site and access. Join festival curators Groundwork and the 2012 festival artists for a one-evening discussion at Newtown Library. Tiny Stadiums in Conversation will explore the importance of this socially engaged and site-specific art genre. Once you are prepped and knowledgeable on the subject, be sure to check out the public art sites when they are installed in June. Tiny Stadiums in Conversation is free, but you will still need to reserve a spot.
Finding a female language has been one of the great challenges of our time, one to which women writers, artists and not least filmmakers have risen with great gusto over the last century. But the fight for women's equality is not over, and the film industry is a very demonstrative battleground. Doubt it? Consider these Oscar-timed stats: Just 14 percent of Academy Awards Best Picture nominees in the last four years have been by female directors, and 77 percent of Academy voters are men. Four women have been nominated for Best Director ever. We're so used to male-centred tales, even our favourite films can fail the Bechdel Test without us noticing. In this cinema landscape, the return of the WOW (World of Women's Cinema) Film Festival for its 18th year is most welcome. The festival will be showcasing the best in women's creativity with short films from Australia and overseas, covering fiction, documentary, animation and experimental pieces. Of the 39 films featuring, there are 13 world premieres, 10 Australian premieres and 5 Sydney premieres, with events at Dendy Opera Quays, Parliament House Theatre, Surry Hills Library and UTS. International Women's Day will be celebrated on March 8 with the WOW Awards Night at the Dendy Opera Quays, commencing with drinks at 6pm. It's presented by Women in Film and Television NSW (WIFT NSW), which is committed to improving the status of women, both on and off the screen, by supporting and advancing women working in the film, television and related screen industries. To see more fabulous works by women, check out the Seen and Heard film festival. https://youtube.com/watch?v=NyJTY68asL0
Remember cassette tapes? Well Ariel Pink does, because since he began writing music at age ten he’s recorded over 500 songs on hundreds of them. They featured drum sounds created with his mouth and armpits, and a few of them were sold at Aron’s Records before Melrose Avenue went all hip, and in his spare time Pink focused on his semi-abstract grotesque surrealist drawings. That was before Pink was "discovered" by Animal Collective and got majorly famous, but even his first studio album sounds like it was discovered on Venice Beach inside an abandoned tape player jammed up with bits of sand. Gritty, ghostly and nostalgic, Before Today just has the added bonus of bizarre instrumentals thanks to the rest of the guys who form Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. On Friday they’ll be joined by fellow Los Angeles bedroom producer Geneva Jacuzzi, known for her crazy performances and lyrics about things like blood being thrown on to fire. If you thought witnessing an armpit drum would be rather impressive, this is one live show you won’t want to miss.
Part of Bondi’s resurgent dining and bar scene, The Bucket List are seafood specialists, offering the likes of lobster spaghetti, mussels and the ubiquitous fish and chips opposite the famous beach. Their weekend-long seafood fest offers the opportunity to attend a seafood masterclass (a bargain at $30 which includes a glass of wine and food) or you can simply wander through the stalls and feast on a range of seafood for as little as $10 a plate. Check out the rest of our top ten picks of Good Food Month here.
A Sydney lad and a Brisbane gent meet in a Berlin bar, email plotting begins and a master plan is born: a double A-side cassingle and an east coast tour featuring two of Australia’s finest singer/songwriters. Richard Cuthbert and Edward Guglielmino have paired up in the name of music and nostalgia. Don't worry, you're not the only one who is puzzled by the release format. A cassette? Fortunately, there will be a download code included with the purchase for those who are not harbouring a working boom box or similar on which to play it. The rationale behind the dated release format harks back to the birth of the artists’ love of music, and the anticipation that mounts when waiting to hear your favourite song. They hope to recreate that feeling for their fans, and to offer a time capsule of a keepsake featuring songs you should be excited about.
Summer days are back, and along for the ride is the free-of-charge open-air cinema at the Beresford Hotel. After last year's festival went down like a frosty on Friday arvo, it's once again time to while away the longer days and warmer nights with weekly cinematic classics in the great outdoors. Well, the courtyard at the pub, at least. Running on Monday nights from the October long weekend through to April, the weekly movies are divvied up by genre, like Soundtrack Season in December (think Jaws and West Side Story) and Love & Cheese in February (Notting Hill and Dirty Dancing, of course). The whole shebang is rounded out with Action in April, featuring everyone's favourite cop classic, The Departed. With the cheap as chips vino and $15 lasagna from the in-house trattoria thrown in for good measure, summer is really set to heat up in Surry Hills. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SGWvwjZ0eDc
Founded in 1998, the National Young Writers' Festival is this year celebrating its sweet sixteenth. Of course this doesn't mean they'll be spending the whole festival talking about blogs and feelings while chugging cheap champagne. Although, come to think of it, there is this panel on blogging and this thing all about feelings. And okay, sure, this fake formal is bound to have some Passion Pop on hand. But contrary to the testimony of anyone who's actually met a 16-year-old, being around for that long does give you a bit of wisdom. NYWF consistently delivers an appealing free program and offers amazing insight, advice and assistance to young creatives from all over the country. Like migration, hundreds of wide-eyed literary types descend on Newcastle for it each year — Moleskines in hand. From October 3-6, this year's festival will host 75 free events featuring over 100 young artists including the likes of Tom Ballard, Lorelei Vashti, Benjamin Law and Anna Krien. Three days with the best and most relatable voices in Australian writing will be well worth the trip. Check out our full festival guide here.
Everyday Fantasia is a fundraiser for medical charity Young Centenary Foundation with the secondary aim of breaking down barriers between artists and art buyers. The show is hosted by Redfern new kid 107 Projects and curated by emerging curator Hollie Black. Fundraising aside, its aims are to get its long list of street artists (including local luminaries like Deb and Beastman) into the gallery and give nascent art buyers their first taste of purchasing power. Even if the $50+ prices are a little rich for your blood, there’s still plenty of party on the night to go with the art, including Beach Burrito catering, drinks, and music by Ash & Andy from Strobe Records.
As soon as last year's Indonesian action thriller The Raid: Redemption hit cinemas, you knew Hollywood would be scrambling to develop a remake. By contrast, when 1995's Judge Dredd hit cinemas, you simply couldn't imagine a time when anyone would ever deem it worthy of a second chance. Tinsel Town's hard to read that way. Some might call the phenomenon 'predictable unpredictability', but an easier term would just be 'Dredd 3D' — where novel idea meets stale disaster in a surprisingly successful union. The film's central character, Dredd (Karl Urban), hails from John Wagner's dark and dystopic graphic novel in which the police have become judge, jury, and executioner all in one. Dredd and his fellow ‘judges’ are the sole symbols of authority in a gritty metropolis beset by gangs and drug syndicates, coldly enforcing the law and upholding ‘justice’ with near-fascist ruthlessness. When he and his rookie partner (Olivia Thirlby) find themselves trapped in a high-rise apartment block controlled by drug czar 'Ma-Ma' (Lena Headey), their only option is to wage war on the gang, one floor at a time, until help can break through. Helloooooooooo Raid: Redemption. Plot, however, is not their only similarity; the bloodshed in Dredd 3D is both frequent and highly graphic, often delivered with such rich slow motion it plays like the most violent Schweppes commercial ever made. Coupled with the 3D, Dredd serves up a relentless visual feast of shiny gold bullets that tear through enemies' flesh and send specks of blood and bone gently tumbling towards your eyes like James Cameron butterflies from Avatar. It’s also probably the highest body count for a movie not featuring an atomic bomb, at least since Commando, yet it’s precisely that stylised and completely-over-the-top violence that elevates Dredd 3D above the run-of-the-mill. Action movies are rarely about plot or dialogue, so it’s in the manner and aesthetic of the carnage where they can best define themselves, and in that respect, Dredd 3D delivers. It's certainly not for the squeamish, but the stunning visuals, inventive action, and warped sense of humour make this one of the better heart-pumpers of 2012.
The 1989 film The 'Burbs (starring Tom Hanks) is an underrated comedy about a suburban vigilante squad protecting their leafy suburb from creepy neighbours. Attack the Block (2011) is an overrated sci-fi flick about a bunch of London thugs protecting their housing estate from super-creepy aliens. Put them together and you get The Watch: a 'rated' comedy about a suburban vigilante squad protecting their leafy suburb from super-creepy aliens. It’s not quite as funny as the former, or as creative as the latter, but still has enough tricks up its sleeve to avert the instant fail. Directed by SNL's Akiva Schaffer and co-written by Seth Rogen and Adam Goldberg, The Watch boasts an enviable team of comedy heavyweights on both sides of the camera, with Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade, and Vince Vaughn in the lead roles. Of those, Hill is the standout as the mentally unstable, police academy dropout Franklin, while the others rarely push beyond the tried and tested: Stiller is amiable and uptight, Ayoade is polite and awkward, and Vaughn is the chirpy man's man. The plot is similarly familiar, borrowing more than it invents, but at least it does so in a way that keeps the pace steady and the laughs frequent. For a cast of this calibre, the jokes do linger too long in the gutter, but The Watch never takes itself too seriously and as a result, earns itself enough leeway as a silly yet entertaining diversion.
Inside the Sydney Fringe Festival is another mini festival, the Festival of Weird Spaces. Things kick off on September 12 with the Artcore Guerilla Artfair at the Imperial Hotel (5-10pm and free entry). It'll be an art-fair of local, emerging artists in the basement, complete with an oh so secret feature band and lucky door prizes (for those of you who love a good freebie). On September 14 (also part of all things strange), will be some venues that you all know and love like The Duke, The Water Horse, RaBar, The Warren View and The Sly Fox, which will be subjected to what they’re calling 'Decoration Wars.' Hopefully nothing like The Block, you’ll need to grab a map and a voting card before taking a turn of these bars. Yes - kinda like a pub crawl and art class combined. There’s also a Pop up Festival on Saturday – and don’t we all just love a pop-up? Held at Camperdown Park will be The Collective Project Unit & Friends – Ska Band, whose influences include 1960s Jamaican party music and Skatalites. Other tunes include the barbershop style four-part harmonies of Tuxedo Vocal Harmony Quartet and Nathanial Pyewacket, an experiemental cross-platform performer (who builds his own electronic and electro-acoustic instruments). Apparently there’s more to be announced, but they can say that there will be a balloon artist there. Balloon dog anyone?
If you figured cemeteries were nothing more than gloomy resting lots, think again. For some of Sydney’s finest design folk, one cemetery in particular serves as an unlikely breeding ground for cutting-edge sculpture, and for the fourth year running they’re out to prove that our cherished deceased still manage to inspire. Launched in 2009, Hidden: A Rockwood Sculpture Walk is basically a stroll through grave sites that have been dressed up with thought-provoking sculpture. Staged inside the grounds of Rockwood Cemetery, the biggest resting ground in the Southern Hemisphere, everything from cement tombstones to bushy scrubland is temporarily transformed into remarkable, and sometimes even vividly colourful, artworks. In an attempt to highlight the site’s rich history, which runs all the way back to the 1800s, the walk includes things like gelato-toned birds perched high in tree branches (that can’t help draw attention to the estate's impressive greenery) and lacquered pieces of furniture, like chests of drawers and side tables, placed beside graves, luring the curious to spots that may normally be overlooked. A tombstone in the shape of a cross has been given a crocheted onesie further along the trail. Artists were asked to consider themes of loss, love, death and memory and the results are captivating. To ensure nobody gets lost, organisers have even knocked up an iPhone app to help steer visitors in the right direction throughout the grounds. But, whatever you do, take your time with this one — it’s not every day you find this type of living beauty in the home of the departed. Details on how to get to Rookwood by public transport are on the Hidden Visitor's Guide. The exhibition is open sunrise to sunset.
For those outside of international dance and art circles, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's name was all but unknown until last year, when Beyonce Knowles was accused of significantly copying the Belgian choreographer's work without permission. Thankfully, Sydney will have the opportunity to see De Keersmaeker's art under more joyful circumstances this September, courtesy of Carriageworks and the 18th Biennale of Sydney. The first piece is the Australian premiere of En Atendant, which is choreography of both movement and sound inspired by the 14th century ars subtilior method of composition. A quick cheat-sheet glance on the internet brings up images of convoluted manuscripts, where bars of red and black music notation curl into one another to form playful images, which perhaps leaves a subtle clue as to where De Keersmaeker will lead her audience. A few nights later is the second Australian premiere, this time of Cesena. Continuing the theme of bending music and movement, Cesena form fucks with 19 performers, so that dancers sing and singers dance. De Keersmaeker's company, Rosas, combines its dancers with the graindelavoix ensemble of Bjorn Schmelzer, an ethnomusicologist specialising in ancient forms of music. This collaboration promises to push both groups to the limits of their extraordinary skills. While both pieces are complete experiences in their own right, it is highly recommended that audiences treat En Atendant and Cesena as a diptych. En Atendant plays on September 11 and 12 and Cesena on September 14 and 15 at CarriageWorks. Check out our other picks for the best things to see and do at the Biennale. https://youtube.com/watch?v=17dSh-vCpJ0
A car-free George Street. It's a dream many Sydneysiders hold, and one that will come true on October 20, if only for a night. The Art & About closing night party is replacing George Street's usual gridlock of petrol-fuelled monsters with food trucks, dining tables, DJs, outdoor art installations and big screens. It's a celebration to mark the closing of a festival that pulls art out of galleries and into unusual places in the city. And it's a Moveable Feast, not just of tasty international street food, but of art, live music, documentaries, shorts and feature films. Delicious. The next step? Booting cars out of George Street for good. Have a look at the Art & About opening night, night noodle markets, the full exhibition program, and Concrete Playground's top picks of the bunch.
Forget the deluge of shmick festivals and late-night events with their familiar PR sheen. The Sydney Underground Film Festival is an honest-to-God fringe festivity — an intelligently curated counterculture weekend of weird, wack and unearthed cinephilia. The SUFF team pitches itself as "the purveyors of provocation, dissent, and civil disobedience". And rightly so. They've pulled off some crazy-as-hell nights in the past, and this year's program looks just as great. Festival opening night is always excellent — not just great new films but a big party with delicious food and drinks. Francophenia (Or: Don't Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is) is a hybrid doco/fiction which chronicles James Franco's work in General Hospital and the absurdity of celebrity culture. For politics junkies, there's Wikileaks: Secrets and Lies by UK director Patrick Forbes. And Mr Doodleburger, the murderous, redubbed alter-ego of Home and Away's Alf Stewart, will be unveiling his latest Summer Bay slaughter and doing a live Q&A. Warning: things are going get kooky.
Summer appears to finally be on its way (albeit a bit too slowly for most of our likings) and that means it's time to start thinking about which music festivals you want to head to in your best summery threads. Homebake is one such offering. This year the organisers have decided to go with a not-so-cheery doomsday theme and, breaking with tradition, have roped in a big-name overseas headliner for the festival's first global edition. Thrown in with acts including Kimbra, Jinga Safari, DZ Deathrays, Hilltop Hoods, Husky and Angus and Julia Stone (playing separately), the headliner this year is iconic American disco-pop outfit Blondie. At the time of writing, more acts are still to be announced. Not content with focusing just on tunes, Homebake also has a comedy stage (presented by the Sydney Comedy Festival), Cinema Pavilion (curated and produced by Kieran Darcy-Smith), and plenty of artiness thrown into the mix. Update: The full line up has since been announced, including Tame Impala, Tim Minchin, sonicanimation, Sticky Fingers and more. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WGU_4-5RaxU
Booze and fashion go together better than booze and art, so it's fitting that this year's sartorially themed History Week is kicking off with a round of talks at Sydney's best small bars. Squeeze into Grasshopper on the 22nd to unravel the innately intertwined realms of fashion, consumption and nationalism with 'Cold War Couture?: The Alternative Consumer Culture of American Vogue, 1945–1960' (or, as it could have been titled, 'How French Couture was Watered Down to Accommodate the Stingy Shopping Habits of American Women'). Closer to home, Since I Left You will partake in a little visual rummaging through the belongings carried from Britain to Australia by early settlers, drawing on pictorial and material sources to draw (well-founded) conclusions on the history of family life. And, of course, there's no way the unsurpassably dubbed Shirt Bar could avoid participation, so head to Sussex Lane on the 11th to unpick the threads of late-colonial larrikins over a single malt whisky.
As co-author Kate Mulvany explains in the program, Belvoir Downstairs' new Medea is all about playing. The action of Euripides' ancient version of Medea takes place offstage while two young boys — the playful, sulky, and serious Leon (Joseph Kelly) and the exuberant, sad, and dreamy Jasper (Rory Potter) — stay locked in their room, play around, and wonder what's going on between their parents outside, parsing overheard arguments as their mother, Medea (Blazey Best), comes in, talks cryptically, and leaves. Euripides' version of the story (spoiler ahead) has a distraught Medea kill her children after husband Jason (of the Golden Fleece) leaves her for another woman and tells her he's taking the kids. Anne-Louise Sarks was struck by the killing of four-year-old Darcey Freeman by her own father during a custody battle, and also by the effect on Freeman's older brother. This became linked to the ancient story of Medea, and Sarks found a willing collaborator in Kate Mulvany. (And, later, in ATYP.) The boys are joyfully clumsy. They have no compunction in looking silly as they muck about in their room. While the boys play, the production itself is rife with dramatic foreshadowing of death and tilts to its classical origins. The wrenching ending of Euripides' version is thought to have been a surprise for his audience, a final twist on the scale of Game of Thrones' first season, for an audience expecting a very different ending. Sarks and Mulvany’s version leaves this surprise as writ in the program, and next to the theatre door. But never in the words of the actors. In fact, even with all its foreshadowing, this production has a distinct lack of foreboding. The surprise instead is a rending final speech from Medea, leaving us in no doubt about her feelings toward her children. This speech is powerful. Despite a strong and funny performance from both boys, it stays with you afterwards as the emotional core of the play. The boys give us a second-hand account of the ups and downs of their parents’ marriage, but these final words give the play the equally strong adult grief that had been needed from its opening moments. Sarks and Mulvany's play owes a lot to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (including its clever word games). And, like that play, it's intellectually engaging, funny, slow-paced, and stuffed with all the drawbacks and benefits you get from having the major plot points take place offstage. This Medea is three plays in one. Multiple versions of reality coexist, like a twice-told myth or a child puzzling out the world in guesses. Two boys’ play reflects an adult world. A very modern custody battle goes wrong. A murderous classical story gets told. The boys — acted with flair, humour, and patience by Kelly and Potter — play with each other, play animal word games, and play war games over the production's on-stage hour. It should be a harsh story to work through, but the meat of this production is, indeed, the play. Instead of giving us Euripides' catharsis of horror and revenge, the play gives the boys one more final hour of powerful play — a long hour full of joy, puzzlement, escapades, and love. Photo by Heidrun Lohr.
Freshly squeezed is how I like my juice — pithy, colourful and frothy on top. It’s a good start to the morning. But how do you get the creative juices flowing? Sydney-based hybrid art collective stagejuice are onto it. Launched in 2010, freshly squeezed brings together some of Sydney’s most exciting emerging artists to mix, whip, taste and test new ideas, interdisciplinary art forms and collaborations in workshops with peers and mentors. Over a dozen artists are involved in freshly squeezed 2012, culminating in stimulating performances of experimental and raw ideas and pithy new work for all to see. 'Island' is this year’s springboard to stimulate inspiring, collaborative work and new thinking. The theme is responded to in any form, literally (or not) by artists including multiple-choice- theatre- making Carolyn Eccles, dancer Raghav Handa and web zombie Lara Lightfoot. Can’t wait for your fix? Check out some of the smoking new works on the freshly squeezed artists' blog. Freshly squeezed performances are on at 7pm on both days and also at 2pm on Saturday October 20. Tickets can be bought at the door or reserved via admin@stagejuice.com.au
Last year, Queen Street Studios helped launch Peep Show AR. It was an augmented reality tour of the 2010 postcode's art and history you could follow on your phone around the Sydney streets. In 2012, as part of Art and About, Show and Tell Open House is returning to the same fertile ground, this time inviting you to meet and explore the tenants clustered around the Oxford Street Cultural and Creative Spaces, including notables such as He Made, She Made, the Oxford Street Design Store and the (further off) Writers Room. All of the venues involved will be open to visitors from 11-2 (in the case of venues like Object and the Surry Hills Library, a little more open that usual), inviting you to stop in, knit, learn, chat or enjoy. Most of the venues involved are pretty friendly places, but its rare that many of them throw open their doors to the public at large. Who knows, what you hear about life as a Sydney creative worker, upcoming shows or live artists might keep you coming back on quieter days. Image by RachelH_.
The dreamy indie pop duo from Baltimore will bring the sounds of their latest album Bloom to our fair country come January. Yep, we're going to be inundated with a lot of awesome tunes this summer, so it might be time to have a word to your credit card now. Alex Scally (guitar, bass, keyboards, backing vocals) and Victoria Legrand (lead vocals, keyboards) have been recording and performing their beautiful, heady, emotive tunes since 2004 now, so if you haven't seen them live yet, here's your chance. They're heading here for Falls Festival, but will afterwards stop over in Sydney for a show at the Enmore Theatre. Beach House are known for their rather inventive videos (think exploding eggs and parallel universes in Lazuli and whatever you'd like to believe is going on in Lover of Mine's backyard fight party), and they also put on on one hell of a live show to complement those powerful waves of organ, guitar, percussion and voice. Until then we suggest enjoying their latest album with a few cold ones and, if you can facilitate it, a comfy backyard hammock. https://youtube.com/watch?v=FuvWc3ToDHg
The Words, a story within a story within a story, hinges on a moment in time that changes the lives of its protagonists and connects them across time. The three stories that comprise the film are as follows: Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid), a well-known author, reads from his new book, The Words, to an admiring New York audience. The book is about a young aspiring writer, Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper), who, not for lack of talent, struggles to make it in the literary world — that is, until he finds a manuscript in an old briefcase bought for him in Paris by his new wife, Dora (Zoe Saldana). Back in New York after their honeymoon, Jansen makes the discovery and retypes the manuscript in one feverish night, not with the intention to steal it but because he wants to feel what it is like to write something so brilliant, something he, in reality, couldn't write. But the temptation overwhelms him after Dora reads the retyped manuscript and tells him how proud she is. The story is about a young American man (Ben Barnes) who settles in Paris after having met the love of his life there during the war. After experiencing tragedy, he too writes feverishly over a few days, completing a book about his life — about love, escape, and devastating loss. Much like how Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, lost a manuscript of his on a train, the young man's wife loses his. And so he and Rory are tethered. Rory's life spirals out of control after he meets 'The Old Man', about whom I will reveal little here, and the pleasures of fame and fortune are drowned by the consequences of stealing another man's words. The Words is an interesting, if flawed, meditation on truth and fiction and a lushly shot film. https://youtube.com/watch?v=gjmrDDD9o_k
In Flight of the Conchords he got famous for being one of the most shithouse managers in existence, but in real life Rhys Darby has proved he can put together a pretty choice show at a pretty impressive venue. Darby's next conquest will be the Sydney Opera House. As part of Just for Laughs 2012, he'll be taking it over with the Australian debut of Rhys Darby and Friends, which boasts a mean-as lineup of other funny guys equally unfazed about whether they're being laughed with or laughed at or whether there's really any difference between the two. They include the Pot Noodle guy, Brendhan Lovegrove, Ben Hurley and Chris Brain, and also present on the night will be Lucy Lawless-approved lady wisecracker Urzila Carlson. Since appearing in Flight of the Conchords, Rhys Darby has starred in a multitude of indie and blockbuster films, including Yes Man (2008), The Boat That Rocked (2009) and Love Birds (2011), and with Kiwi Gala he's now snapped up a Fred Dagg award for Best NZ Show at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. Tickets for it are selling heaps fast, so don't be a munter and get yours now.
Given their unique digs in an old Petersham news agency, it's no surprise that Newsagency Gallery continues to dish up left-of-centre works like the eclectic mayhem of Chas Glover's oil paintings and the multifarious street art of Indonesia's Survive Garage community. In August, the artist-run initiative is set to carry on in the same vein, inviting us to look through the lens at the lives of the photographers that we trust to bring us the news. Opening on August 9, the free exhibition is a chance to satisfy the media-mad voyeur in all of us, peering through the proverbial looking glass at the real lives of our news photographers when the agenda ain’t the news. Curated by photojournalism guru James Cottam, No News Is Good News collects the personal work of news photographers including Peter Solness, Sean Davey, Quentin Jones and Jon Reid, revealing what's behind the broadsheet. Newsagency Gallery is open Saturday and Sunday.
A good record store is an amazing thing. In a world where we can connect with whatever sub-sub-sub-culture we identify with after just a few clicks, where so much music is available to you every minute of every day, who do you trust to tell you who is worthy of your limited time? You need the people at your local record store — both the staff and the customers. Nowhere else gives you a safe space to indulge yourself; nowhere else can a chance comment lead you down a rabbit hole of discovery; nowhere else knows what you want before you even know you want it. Repressed Records is one such place. A Newtown institution, they remain a bulwark against the creeping gentrification and frozen yoghurting of King Street. And through their tradition of in-store performances, Repressed has helped a number of great local bands take their first steps. There are fewer and fewer places like Repressed around these days, so we have to make sure we look after them, and even if the bands playing at their birthday party were rubbish I'd be telling you to get down there. But, of course, the lineup is killer, packed full of Repressed favourites and local legends like the Bed Wettin' Bad Boys and Woollen Kits. If you like your guitars scrappy, your singers raw and your nose bloodied, I don't know why you would want to be anywhere else this Saturday. Their 10th birthday last year sold out well in advance, so make sure you get in quick.
Brand X is the studio formerly known as Queen Street Studio. This is the same studio that’s been running creative spaces for emerging Sydney performers and artists, letting them get together and practise their craft at an emerging price. Under the Queen Street name, they’ve been behind rehearsal spaces Heffron Hall and the Marrickville Palace, as well as the Underbelly-loving, now former Fraser Studios. A new space is coming along with the change of moniker, with the new space Brand X will be officially launched on Friday. And you’re invited. Occupying this newest city art space will be a selection of Sydney artists, and the plan is to rotate them in and out on six-month shifts over the next three years. Among the first detachment of creative space makers will be taxidermist Eloise Kirk, kinetic sculptor Johannes Mulijana and doodle-crocheter [NSFW wool] to the Sydney Lord Mayor, Kirsten Fredericks.
Carriageworks is pretty quiet on a Saturday afternoon post-Eveleigh Markets. But that's probably the best way to experience Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John Lennon), a video installation by Berlin-based artist Candice Breitz, which is tucked away in Anna Schwartz Gallery at the far end of the building. The installation features 25 John Lennon fans selected by Breitz to record their own version of Lennon's first solo album, Plastic Ono Band, and they all play simultaneously on individual screens. Standing right in the middle of the dark room, listening their voices echoing around the giant empty space is pretty surreal. It definitely adds to the experience. It might seem weird for a 'portrait' of John Lennon to not have any actual images of him, but in Working Class Hero, the focus is on the fan — their relationship with the music and the way it means something different to each of them. It brings to mind that quote from Almost Famous, about how being a fan means "to truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts". You can see it in their facial expressions, the emotion in their voices, the way they perk up or the way they start bopping away when one particular song comes on. Working Class Hero is the fourth part of a series of similar 'portraits' by Breitz — Legend, King and Queen, which were about Bob Marley, Michael Jackson and Madonna respectively — all available on her website. They're not essential viewing, but you do get a better sense of what Breitz is trying to capture. And the contrasts between the different groups of fans. For instance, there's a lot more dancing in the Michael Jackson and Madonna ones, while John Lennon and Bob Marley fans prefer to sing with a bit of swaying and head bopping here and there. Even if you're not a hardcore John Lennon fan, the experience of being a fan, and having that one album that you'll always know inside out, is something everyone can relate to.
If you've got an inquisitive mind and a sweet tooth, you're going to want to pay a visit to Eat the Collection, a one-night-only event at the Powerhouse Museum that will involve playing with the latest 3D printing technology — to print in chocolate. A part of Vivid Ideas 2013, Eat the Collection "explores the interaction of design, food and technology", with 10 of Sydney's most creative minds to lead proceedings. There'll be artists, graphic and industrial designers, sculptors and architects, including design studios Kink and Supermanoeuvre and LAVA founder Chris Bosse. They'll search the museum's online collection for an object to inspire their own drawing, which then gets printed out in 3D. Chocolate 3D. People are invited to come along and eat the 3D creations, as well as hear the stories behind them — their creative processes, what objects were used as inspiration, as well as learn a little bit more about the technology behind 3D printing. There's also going to be games, DJs, a silent disco and food and drink in the unlikely event that you get sick of all the chocolate.
Ever looked at the guy holding the 'slow/stop' sign on a construction site and wondered if he was internally grappling with philosophical questions as he flips the sign? Probably not, but you will after seeing this play. A Sign of The Times is a NIDA Independent and The Follies production written and directed by Stephen Helper and starring Scott Irwin, the play's central and only character. 'Man' is a former uni lecturer who, after it all gets too much at work and home, decides to give it all up and become the slow/stop man at construction sites. The audience is invited inside Man's head as he spends his days internally pondering life's big questions, using his knowledge of Shakespeare, Einstein, ancient Greek drama, T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost. According to Helper, the play was inspired by a chance encounter at some road works with a "friendly, energised" workman who left a lasting impression on him. But despite the heavy intellectual content, Helper says audiences can expect the play to be "very,very funny."
Feeling a bit over the regular Sydney party scene? Sometimes wish you could just be swept up and taken away to a dance floor where they play rock 'n' roll instead of dubstep and the boys wear starched-collared shirts instead of flannel? In the spring fling to end all flings, FBi Social will, on September 13, host Spring Prom, a night that's all about dancing in the spring. Set to have you jivin’ the night away are special guests The Fabergettes, a Sydney-based duet who describe their style as a doo-wop-garage-pop and sing about hairspray. On the night they will launch their Big Bruiser EP, which is packed with their vintage twang. Also on the setlist is Tim Commandeur's solo project, Alaskan Knight, and La Tarantella, who have dubbed themselves a modern dance band for people who hate dance music. Okin Osan will bring her '50s rock ‘n’ roll cum '80s American punk vibe. FBi Social have built a reputation for showcasing the best in local music, and prom night is no different. With FBi DJs also on the menu, this is a night not to be missed. So bring out your bobby-sox and corsage — nobody wants to be the wallflower at this party.
There was a row of empty chairs at the matinee performance of The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe I attended. Right in the front row, they seemed to stand in for the thousands, millions of people who have turned away, intentionally or unintentionally, from the stories told in the play. In a powerful two-hour exploration of violence, war, survival and hope in Africa and Australia, the silence, the emptiness of those chairs seemed to cut viscerally. The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe is not like any other play you'll see on a main stage (though it should be.) It's not even very like the other verbatim/community collaboration projects you might have seen recently. It's a bit rougher around the edges, a bit less slick. It doesn't fit so easily into Belvoir's tiny Downstairs space — though it would easily fill a village square. It's a little more naive, and that is absolutely intended to be a compliment. Director Ros Horin is less concerned with exploring theatrical strategies than she is in getting stories heard in the clearest, most fulfilling way, for both the teller and the told. To this end, she uses four African women, all migrants to Australia and attendees of a cultural group organised by one of the performers (Rosemary Kariuki-Fyfe), three actors, a singer and two dancers to explore what brought these women to Australia, what they left behind and how important it is for them to be heard. It is not possible to render in words the absolute horror and degradation these women have experienced, nor can I do justice to the transformative experience of sharing a tiny room, actual air-space and ability to touch flesh with a woman who has not only survived, for example, being a child soldier and sexual assault victim in Sierra Leone, migrated half way across the world, started a family, returned to Sierra Leone retrieve her daughter and bring her to Australia, but is capable of standing in front of a group of one hundred new strangers every night to relieve the experience. There are no flashing lights, no amazing transformations, no clever tricks. Just the truth. Which is absolutely galling. Horin and team navigate this obviously sensitive territory with beautiful sensitivity, laying clear for the audience when an actor is standing in for one of the women, replaying for us rehearsal discussions about boundaries, and perhaps most importantly injecting a healthy dose of humour and joie de vivre into the proceedings, which provides a surely necessary note of hope. You see, the important thing is that these women got out. They got here. And they thrived. And they obviously believe passionately in their right to be heard. Up until relatively recently, sexual abuse of women was not recognised as a war crime. Of the thousands of men who perpetuated sexual, physical and psychological violence against women as members of armies or rebel groups, only the most minute handful have ever been prosecuted. Rape is such a common occurrence that African women are told there is no point complaining about it, to get over it, move on. The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe enact the deeply radical decision to ignore that advice. The Belvoir season is, according to the website, completely sold out — but that's what they said about my matinee. As we hurtle towards an election which has been pockmarked with shallow, personality-based sniping, factual evasions and a race to the subterranean on refugee policy on behalf of both major parties, it'd be well worth your while to spend a few hours camping out at Belvoir in the hope of scoring a ticket to something that might remind you what a real problem looks like. And that Australia — as a nation, and as individuals of conscience — has a role to play in fixing it. Don't let there be an empty seat in the house: these ladies, and the thousands they represent, deserve your witness.
Despite prominently featuring his name in the title, Renaissance to Goya is mostly etchings and sketches from predecessors and contemporaries of Francisco de Goya, with Goya's own art confined to the final of the show's four rooms. Three quarters of the show is a pretty technical collection of nice art pieces occupied mainly with saints, angels and genitals. Hendrick Goltzius' the Circumcision of Christ (the minute blade and divine member dead centre) and Francisco Rizi's The Virgin appearing to Saint Simon de Rojas stand out particularly in the latter category. José de Ribera's Christ beaten by a tormentor shows a hazy, red chalk drawing image that feels like reportage from an Occupy police beating. Much of the best stuff is saved for the final room. Most is by Goya himself, but Luis Parent y Alcazar's A Masked Ball is chock full of tiny faces at the titular ball, each alive with excitement as your eye climbs the private boxes amongst the candelabras. Fernando Brambila and Juan Gálvez's Ruins of the church of the General Hospital is a beautiful, shocking image, with arches broken halfway through their curve and beams askew, like poorly made barricades. It's like looking at a photo of ruined Europe from after the Second World War. It hangs next to Goya's images of war and a tired Duke of Wellington. Goya's own figures are messy, delicate and expressive. For so many of his lighter subjects, these keen faces create comedy, pathos or pride. In his darker images, though, these feelings coalesce into sombre moments, like Edward Gorey sketches or an Art Spiegelman comic. The timing on the page, between Goya's images and titles, wouldn't feel out of place among the cartoons curated at the New Yorker by Spiegelman's wife Françoise Mouly. (Both of the latter are due here in October for GRAPHIC.) The sleep of reason produces monsters, in the series Los caprichos, is almost reason enough by itself to visit the exhibition. A man asleep at his desk is stalked by looming owls, bats and big cats. Scared, off balance and shivering, he huddles across the left of the etching while the monsters gather around. Equally strong is his Disasters of War series, a posthumously published reaction to war, famine and an opressive regime. It's harsh, sarcastic and horrifying. What bravery! shows sacklike, dead men surrounding a cannon as a woman lights its fuse, alone. A heroic feat! With dead men shows two men hanging from a tree. They are in five parts. One of them is whole. These Goya are stunning. But, while there are good things on show here, you want to be aware going in exactly how much on offer is Goya and how much renaissance. Images: Francisco Goya Y Lucientes, For being of Jewish ancestry and Francisco de Zurbarán, Head of a monk © The Trustees of the British Museum
The Dumbo Feather Conversation Series is back in 2013 with entrepreneur and social innovator Chid Liberty, CEO of Africa's first Fair Trade Certified apparel factory, Liberty and Justice, which creates economic opportunities for displaced African women. "We keep talking about poor people as if they don't make rational decisions," says Chid. "But they make much better, much more rational decisions than most wealthy people. All we're going to do is move the needle a little bit at a time every day." p> The Dumbo Feather Conversations series is a live version of Dumbo Feather magazine, which features inspiring conversations with "people worth knowing, across enterprise, education, science, sport, politics, fashion and the arts". You can start chewing over the issues of the night by having a read of Chid's Dumbo Feather interview here.
It’s always a huge year at Head On Photo Festival, and this year is no exception. Too big to fit in a single month, Head On sprawls over May and June, watching both the Sydney Writers Festival and the Sydney Film Festival open and close in its wake. This year’s selection of photography spends a lot of time overseas, with Calle Habana’s black and white Cuba, Ambition, Resignation, Alienation’s stolen light from '80s China, White Shadows’ window on life as an albino in Tanzania (also explored in the Human Rights Arts and Film Fest this year) and Yakuza’s journey into the Japanese underworld. There’s also Paul Blackmore’s stills from Beruit, and Stills Gallery’s photography from the late war correspondent Tim Hetherington. Closer to home, George Voulgaropoulos makes takes some stunning refugee portraits in Auburn, Fiona Wolf checks out the Parkes Elvis Festival, Jagath Dheerasekara checks out the Campbelltown fringe and indigenous retrospective from Barbara McGrady. There’s also a few words from Magnum photographers at the State Library and the Powerhouse. And these are just a toe in the water out of a flood of inbound photo shows coming our way all around town, including Andrew Quilty, the hidden Emma Hack, a look at the Ghanian way of death and many, many more. Image: Tim Hetherington, Kim, Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, Afghanistan © Tim Hetherington, courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York. Part of Stills Gallery's Head On Show.
