With Hidden making a return engagement to Rookwood Cemetery, Newtown’s own St Stephens Church is also getting its turn with Sydney’s artistic community, setting up some art among its tombstones for one evening in September. Nighttime: Twilight is a group show of strange art in the beautiful surrounds of Camperdown Cemetery. A pretty stunning place at the worst of times, the churchyard’s graves are home to the alleged Miss Haversham, the victims of the Dunbar wreck and its awesome fig was a returning location for ABC TV series My Place. For Nighttime, artists like the computer-loving Zoe Meagher, Coloured Diggers author Katherine Beckett and phenomenologist Jodie McNeilly are all trying their hands at beautifying this already pretty picturesque burial ground. And, for a single night, they're letting you come have a look. Cemetery, art, performance, history, community: there doesn’t seem to be much missing from this brief interruption to eternal rest. Except you. Nighttime: Twilight is presented by Performance Space as part of the Halls for Hire series, which is taking place from August 28 to October 7. Artists have been invited to create site-specific works which are inspired by and staged in community spaces around Sydney. Also check out Brown Council's durational baking project, Mass Action: 137 Cakes in 90 Hours; the appropriately post-Olympian Opening and Closing Ceremony; the ghostly investigation of Petersham Bowling Club's Phantasma #3; the September equinox celebration Spring Cursive; and the proletarian live sewing event The Making of the Flag: Give Us Back Our Unions (held on the 'World Day for Decent Work' at the Sydney Trades Hall).
Locals may know the Petersham Bowling Club is no ordinary bowlo, but they didn't know it was this extraordinary. According to the folks behind Phantasm #3, unexplained "electronic media aberrations" have been reported from deep in its basement for many years. Now a pair of inquisitive investigators, led by new media artist Alex Davies, are conducting experiments to try to unearth the truth beneath these phenomena. Assist the dedicated researchers in their quest to solve this mystery and ensure that their endeavours are not in vain by taking part in the enquiry. Phantasm #3 is presented by Performance Space as part of the Halls for Hire series, which is taking place from August 28 to October 7. Artists have been invited to create site-specific works which are inspired by and staged in community spaces around Sydney. Also check out Brown Council's durational baking project, Mass Action: 137 Cakes in 90 Hours; the one-evening-only awakening of Newtown's St Stephen's Cemetery, Nighttime: Twilight; the appropriately post-Olympian Opening and Closing Ceremony; the September equinox celebration Spring Cursive; and the proletarian live sewing event The Making of the Flag: Give Us Back Our Unions (held on the 'World Day for Decent Work' at the Sydney Trades Hall). Phantasm #3 is open 12-6, Wednesday to Sunday.
Sarah Silverman looks like a nice, wholesome, and sincere lady — the kind you could introduce to your mum. Well, unless your mum takes well to abortion gags, poo songs, and total disregard for racial and religious sensitivities, that may not be the best idea. But if "oh no, you didn't" laughs are your mum's thing, then you won't want to miss taking her to Silverman's Sydney show. Having started out as an occasional performer in Saturday Night Live nearly 20 years ago, Silverman has climbed the ladder and worked with showbiz giants Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chapelle, Jack Black, David Duchovny, Queens of the Stone Age, and (her former partner) Jimmy Kimmel. From 2007-10 she starred in and co-created the critically acclaimed The Sarah Silverman Program. But fame has never blunted her tongue; at 41 she remains the princess of black comedy. Rest assured, it won't be an evening of simplistic obscenity — as with all the great comics, underneath the jokes lie some pointed and unsettling truths.
Saturday, September 29, sees the closure of William Street to cars and the spilling of fun and frivolity onto the tar for the annual William Street Laneway Festival. All of the shops along this strip have events, special prices, drinks, food and deals galore to lure you away from the mega-complexes and back to the simple joy of wandering and shopping in Paddington's home of unique boutiques. The prohibition on vehicles won't apply to food trucks, of course, of which Eat Art and Veggie Patch will be present. The day is a great opportunity to show your support to boutique shopping districts outside the all-powerful Westfields, all while enjoying some sun.
13 Rooms may just be the blockbuster that mainstreams performance art in Australia. Where 'performance art' is often a phrase that angers, confuses and alienates, uber-rich art philanthropist John Kaldor has opened what could be called 'Anish Kapoor: The Sequel', a show that arrests, engages, baffles and confronts and is, above all, fun. With the help of an architecture firm, 13 spaces have been built from the ground up. Inside each is a living artwork. Traditional art objects, like canvases and sculptures, are replaced by moving, performing, talking bodies. Each room is its own universe of private moments, held by the threshold of a swinging door. Approaching and opening these doors invites suspense and surprise. (And to get the horde of usually cerebral, sedate art critics at the preview I attended to play, frolic, laugh and, frankly, gambol like little lambs is an artistic achievement indeed in itself.) Some rooms are more involving than others, but this show's beserking variety is its strength. Damien Hirst's work features chatty identical twins who are more than willing to divulge the instructions they've received from the artist to inquiring audience members. Xu Zhen's room holds a floating, breathing body — I have no idea how this works, but it is more transfixing than any Hollywood trickery I've seen in a while. There's nudity, esoteric oddity and near-invisibility. There are works that only materialise when a viewer appears and is forcibly engaged. The audience member is a participant, not a witness; the room is a stage, not a gallery; and the work is not seen but experienced. The people inside the rooms are live sculptures, and the works break the sound barrier between the performer and audience by putting the viewer on stage. You will be confused. You will be weirded out. You will dislike some of the works. You will wonder why some artists enjoy making their audiences uncomfortable. But you will not be empty-eyed and slack-jawed. You will be engaged and you will be opinionated. That is what great art — yes, you cynics, even performance art — does.
This American Life no longer requires any introduction. You and your youngish, globalised, culture-hungry friends are probably all over this podcasted hour of digestible journalism and storytelling. What's slightly less well known is the producers' experiments in translating the show's trademark style to visual media, including through a Showtime TV show and stage show The Invisible Made Visible. They're playful, inventive forays for our cross-platform age. Now comes phase (approx.) four: the movie. Co-written and produced by Ira Glass, Sleepwalk with Me is the feature-length adaptation of Mike Birbiglia's very memorable extreme-sleepwalking/relationship-breakdown stand-up routine, which was included in the TAL episode 'Fear of Sleep'. He has to preface this story with an assurance that it's true, because as he goes from fighting an imaginary jackal to falling off a shelving unit he's climbed in the belief it's a winner's podium to waking up bloodied on a hotel lawn, it increasingly doesn't sound like the cute, ha-ha version of sleepwalking we know. As Mike (or 'Matt Pandamiglio' as he's known in the movie) tells it, his sleepwalking gets worse as his girlfriend of eight years, Abby (Lauren Ambrose), starts to hint at marriage, babies and other grown-up things he's not ready for. He starts using the relationship concerns he can't vocalise to her in his stand-up, getting laughs for the first time. If you've heard the comedy routine that underlies Sleepwalk with Me on TAL, you'll know its engrossing, winningly self-deprecating and very funny. But it's as if the creative team felt that to make it worthy of a feature film they had to emphasise the relationship element, and that's just not the story's strong point. The idea of the man-boy who can't commit is rather '90s, and neither the narrative nor style brings it forward two decades, to where it should be. Sleepwalk with Me is still funny, but nothing in its bones suggests the creativity, forward-thinking or immediacy that This American Life has cultivated as its brand. And that dulls the experience of watching it. Birbiglia certainly makes some adorable, true-ringing observations about life and love. Just be prepared that the laughter-to-irritation ratio may not be one you find favourable. https://youtube.com/watch?v=u9tRN7bok4o
The Pillowman by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (also the screenwriter of Seven Psychopaths and In Bruges) is a well-made play. Such plays can often be squeaky clean, with every theatrical nook and cranny exposed, each laugh well-placed and plot points expertly positioned, making for a tidy night in the theatre. But well-structured as The Pillowman is, its ambiguity and horror save it from being one of those plays. In a nondescript totalitarian regime, short story writer Katurian (Oliver Wenn) has found himself a marked man, labelled a dissident writer despite his claim that his writing is apolitical and any 'messages' are purely incidental. His accusers admit that they like executing writers, because it 'sends a message'. His macabre short stories such as The Little Jesus and The Little Apple Men seem uncannily similar to two child murders that have occurred in the town. Katurian's inspiration for his well-written horror tales is a childhood spent listening to his brother, Michal, being tortured in the room next door by his parents. His cathartic stories are all well and good until Michal feels inspired to re-enact them. It turns out these stories are not as innocent as Katurian thought. The play is a defence of artistic expression, but an absurd one. The initial evidence that his art is directly responsible for two murders seems to support the argument that violence in art is incitement. But the ensuing violence and farce turn that argument on its head as Katurian chooses his stories over his own life. Even bad cop Ariel (Jeremy Waters) decides the tales are worth saving. The play has a lot of meat to it and requires equal measures of heightened comedic and tragic energy from the cast. Waters offers an appropriately high level of energy that is not matched by other members of the cast. Wenn is at his best when reciting stories to the audience, but during the guts of the drama we're never sure how high the stakes are. He slips into noble resignation of his fate a bit too easily and the tragedy of his story doesn't find its full expression in his performance. Peter McAllum playing good cop Tupolski strikes an appropriate laconic chord but doesn't deviate from this even in the climactic moments. Overall the piece lacks rhythmic variation and the pace lags in the second half. The cast is so close to the level of raging, hysterical farce that the piece calls for. Maybe they just need a loud, hooting audience to encourage them. Get to it .
Soon the Opera House and its surrounds will erupt with Indigenous music, theatre and visual arts, when the 14th Message Sticks Festival launches. As festival director Rhoda Roberts points out, Bennelong Point is charged with its own ancient power as a historical gathering-place for Aboriginal corroboree and storytelling, and this year carries particular significance: it marks the 200th anniversary of the passing of the site's namesake, Woollarawarre Bennelong. The expanded program showcases the work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists across many disciplines. Tammy Anderson's chosen medium of expression is theatre, and her one-woman show I Don't Wanna Play House is said to mingle laughter and tears in just the right measure. Music-wise, there's plenty to get you grooving to Indigenous sounds. Dancestry melds traditional song cycles in a modern corroboree, while Late Nights at Bar Badu brings the song cycle under the stars with folk duo Microwave Jenny, Troy Bray, Hui-A, and hip hop outfit Street Warriors. ARIA winner David Bridie directs Wantok: Sing Sing, which combines the force of 20 musicians and dancers as they follow the Songlines to evoke diverse landscapes stretching from West Papua to the deserts of Australia. There are also opportunities for getting educated about the rich heritage of the land and its people. The Yolngu Experience explores the history of north-east Arnhem Land, the region which gave us the legendary Gurrumul and Yothu Yindi. For more hands-on learning, Billinudgel Weavers will teach traditional weaving techniques that hearken back thousands of years. There's also a program of talks with celebrity speakers addressing issues facing the Indigenous community. A complete list of events can be found on the Sydney Opera House website.
The discrepancy between Perfume Genius' Twitter feed and his music is incredible. As Mike Hadreas he channels his often unnerving honesty into a series of vulgar 140-character trivialities about everything from fondling the f*** out of zits to applying cheapo L'Oreal BB cream. As Perfume Genius he channels it into beautifully harrowing lamentations on serious personal traumas ranging from prostitution to drug addiction. Lyrics about traumatic past experiences aren't unique, but Hadreas' ability to convey them with warmth and lucidity is something special. His second album Put Your Back N 2 It tackles some big issues, but carrying them are tender vocals, delicate piano playing and a solid understanding of basic human fears that shape us all. And at his live show you also get a sense of the other side of Hadreas — the joker who pops his zits and rags on cheap cosmetics — making it an even more genuine look into the singular musician's mind. Read our list of the 12 best things to see at the Sydney Festival in 2013. https://youtube.com/watch?v=OOpkr8uNWpk
“You steer my life into something I can't describe,” Toro Y Moi sings on dynamite new single “So Many Details”, a burbling, sunny slice of space-age lover's rock which hints at yet another new direction for the South Carolina native. The title proves a bit of a misdirect; this is Toro Y Moi again working in impressionistic mode, favouring gauzy, dreamy mood over specifics, and ranks with past earworms like “Go With You” and “New Beat”. Initially emerging as a key figure in chillwave's Indian summer of 2010, Toro Y Moi has since proved a harder figure to pin down, his prolific output both harking back to his early bedroom pop recordings and turning to the likes of avant-pop leviathans Animal Collective for inspiration. With some promising new songs and the irresistible new single providing a fine teaser for the release of his next record, 2013's Anything in Return, his show at The Standard looks like one not to miss.
Finders keepers, losers weepers ... it’s a childhood taunt that still has the power to make me plunge towards the asphalt like a deranged Olympian diver in the hope of finding something shiny. The Finders Keepers Market held biannually at CarriageWorks is probably less likely to end in tears and an almighty knee scrape — but you will come out the other end with some sweet, shiny things. If that hasn't got you on the edge of your springboard, there’s plenty more on offer — around 60 stalls in fact — along with a bar, cafe and live music. The markets stay are open Saturday 6-10 and 10-5 on Sunday. Just remember, snooze you lose.
All The Way Through Evening is for lovers of classical music. It’s a movie for grown-ups, and between all the comic book adaptations, reality television franchises, Katy Perry “documentaries” and other laughable exercises in offensive mediocrity, it sometimes feels that they’re aren’t too many grown-up movies around. Australian filmmaker Rohan Spong’s musical documentary follows Mimi Stern-Wolfe who, since 1990, has organised concerts presenting the work of dozens of composers affected by HIV/AIDS. Her motivation is simple. “I do these concerts for years and years because I knew the people that we lost and I cared for them and I wanted to preserve the memory of their lives and their music and of their efforts and their talents.” In particular, All The Way Through Evening focuses on the work of Chris DeBlasio who died in 1993 at age 34. He was a composer “aware of the simplicity of beauty and captured it in his music”. He was also one of the first AIDS sufferers, and as his health unravelled his music grew heavier with grief. All The Way Through Evening won the Special Jury Award at the New York Downtown Film Festival last year. Even at seventy minutes, the film requires patience - it contains lengthy musical sequences and unfolds at its own meandering pace. Perhaps most interestingly, it provides a very personal snapshot of New York’s gay community in the late 1980s, described as “high art, low sex” and populated by men who would go the opera and theatre and then to public toilets and parks to pick up other men. The film also gives a sense of the early horrors of the AIDS epidemic: one poet who’s interviewed says, “I made a list of friends who died of AIDS, and I stopped at thirty-five. I know people who made lists and stopped at seventy-five, seventy-five men who died of AIDS.” All The Way Through Evening has been crafted with a great deal of affection for its subjects. It’s honest and compassionate and yet never falls over the brink into sentimentality. Spong takes an intimate, slow-burn approach to storytelling, and the photography is particularly lovely. The film is in very limited release, so grab it at the theatres while you can.
The latest release from perpetually weird yet quintessentially American rock outfit Dirty Projectors is easily their most listenable yet. But that doesn't mean the band is tending towards the mainstream as they celebrate their 10th birthday. Multi-instrumentalist and driving force David Longstreth has seen each album as a chance to take risks, and when you've built your reputation on being rather odd it's a risk to make an album heavy on catchy hooks and cohesive lyrics. It's one that pays off on Swing Lo Magellan. The album is still an intricate layer cake of highly charged hooks, tender melodies and the orchestral vocals of singer Amber Coffman. And if we're running with a cake theme you could even call it the musical Heston Blumenthal Exploding Chocolate Gateau — it's rich and probably required expensive power tools to assemble, yet still retains a surprising amount of pop and is damn easy to devour. Last time Dirty Projectors were here they played the Metro Theatre, but the Sydney Opera House's Concert Hall is far more befitting of their exquisite orchestration. See them play it as part of the Sydney Festival on 21 January. Read our list of the 12 best things to see at the Sydney Festival in 2013. https://youtube.com/watch?v=o_qFaFl7JVc
Founded in 1989, Sydney-based group Stalker have a long history of innovative, challenging physical theatre work. The latest show from this Carriageworks resident company promises immersive digital environments that react to the performers' movements. We're talking light projections on bodies in motion. If that all seems a little hard to wrap your head around, feast your ocular units on this clip, but keep in mind that was from when the show was workshopped — over a year ago! Which means it will be way more dazzling and highly developed when Encoded premieres November 28.
It’s no secret which part of the world Bethany Consentino is talking about when she sings “We were born with the sun in our teeth and in our hair” and questions how you could possibly live anywhere else. But it is testament to her charm that even those whose Instagram feeds consist almost solely of Bondi Beach are willing to listen to her latest 45-minute love letter to California without harbouring any feelings of resentment. Or maybe it’s just that it’s easy to graft pretty much any of Consentino’s sentiments on to our own. Her lyrics about boys and heartbreak and nostalgia seem appropriate whether you’re feeling a little emo or just a little bored. And even though most of the fuzzy reverberation and endearing sloppiness bleeding through Best Coast’s debut has been removed, The Only Place is still homey rather than slick. Supported by our own Pear Shape and Queensland’s Dune Rats, their Metro Theatre show will be a melting pot of blissed-out benevolent vibes.
If you're willing to leave a gig awash with the stench of beer and humanity as evidence that you've just witness one of the most tumultuous live acts touring right now, the only place you'll want to be on 22 January is Oxford Art Factory. After selling out their first show in the small space of 10 minutes grunty UK swamp rockers Foals have snuck a second Sydney show into their busy schedule. If you're skipping Big Day Out it's the last chance you'll have to see, hear and smell the marshy tracks from their 2008 debut and 2010's follow-up Total Life Forever in the glistening flesh. And with their Flood and Alan Moulder-produced new album Holy Fire on its way, future tickets will only be hotter property still. Conversely, if you have somewhere to go afterwards other than your own shower, then save your cash for more conventional mementos and take up position near the back of the room. Things are gonna get wild. Update: In support of Foals on both nights will be Brisbane disco outfit Mitzi. Their single "Who Will Love You Now" is as awesome as all their haircuts combined. https://youtube.com/watch?v=zHcOFmiswcQ
Last year the books went burlesque with saucy story-telling and thought-provoking debates. Onlookers were aghast: they're doing what? At the library? Now the Late Night Library series serves up the same dose of adults-only content but with a dash of Monty Python humour. Debuting at Newtown Library, Never Not Funny at Late Night Library promises to split your sides with the best and brightest acts of alternative and emerging comedy. Expect to giggle loudly, clap your hands, indulge in some vino, and not be told to hush — it's your local library but not as you know it. In November and December 2012, expect to see musical comedy duo Smart Casual re-creating their childhood on stage and Cameron James' Variety Nite Live.
There are a lot of similarities between Wild Nothing and fellow chillwave pioneers Toro Y Moi and Washed Out. All three are bedroom recordings by one-man bands, and all three men are from the southern U.S. Freaky! All make dreamy, lo-fi music with breathy vocals and steady beats that you can a) dance to at an underground disco, or b) listen to alone in your room while you stare at your posters of '80s indie bands. In the case of Wild Nothing's Virginia-born Jack Tatum, the posters he's staring at belong to The Cure, The Smiths and Simple Minds. Tatum puts a sunny disposition on their '80s gloom pop with chiming guitars and soothing vocals. You can chillax to his latest LP Nocturne in your room alone, or join some other shoegazers for a little boogie at Oxford Art Factory when Wild Nothing visits Australia for the first time in March. I hope he plays Chinatown. https://youtube.com/watch?v=zm636VSQXUU
Now in its fourth year, the Macedonian Film Festival continues to provide an interesting counterpart to Hollywood and sees the Balkan nation punching above its weight on the cinematic stage. The two features on offer include Punk's Not Dead, a black comedy about a group of aging rockers coming together for a reunion show. Promising to be a darkly funny, decidedly un-PC affair, it's already been praised by Variety as having "more than its fair share of cantankerous charms". There's also a VIP cocktail party to celebrate the film's Saturday night screening. Award-winning Mothers, unusually combining both feature drama and documentary in a three-part film, is the other feature screening and comes with impeccable pedigree, having previously appeared in programs at the Berlin and Toronto International Film Festivals. Director Milcho Manchevski has previously had success with this kind of format; his brilliant three-parter Before the Rain won a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Image from Mothers (Majki).
When Australian men cross-dress, it's usually very camp or very bogan. When young English boys do so, it's civilised, or so it would seem from watching Sasha Regan's production of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic The Pirates of Penzance. Regan has mentioned in her program notes that she has tried to re-create the days of single-sex high school productions, which necessitate cross-dressing to cover all roles. She's certainly managed to give the production a high school revue air, whilst elevating it to a professional, technically sound show. This is not some edgy interrogation of gender but rather a well-executed piece of good clean fun. It's respectable for musicals to entertain for entertainment's sake, and it's even better if they're done with this level of flair and aplomb. Some of the best comedy arises out of subjects taking themselves far too seriously and these corseted men are deadly sincere. The hilarity of cross-dressing wears off quickly and the story takes precedence, even if W.S. Gilbert's plot is basic. Alan Richardson as Mabel is the main reason for this. His solo, 'Stay Fred’ric, stay' verges on moving. He uses a squawky falsetto judiciously for comic effect and impressively sings the rest in a genuine soprano range up to a high D flat. As castration has long since been outlawed in his native England, his range can only be attributed to some serious dedication. One of the standout performers is Lee Greenaway playing the incidental character of Connie, a bashful, bespectacled young maiden extremely keen to be married off to one of the dashing pirates. By evoking a sublime mixture of coyness and romantic mania, Greenaway all but steals the show. Although he is doubtless an accomplished singer, every time he opens his mouth as Connie a histrionic shriek emanates that would wake the dead. He is very funny, along with other comic gems such as Joseph Houston playing the dowdy but loyal Ruth. An all-male cast of sailors and maids sounds like Sydney's idea of paradise. It's not all camp spectacle — there are also some fine moments of plain good performance — but yes, let’s face it; there are many robust young men on stage at one time. As Cate Blanchett put it on opening night, “Welcome to Sydney, boys.” Photo by Lisa Tomasetti.
"Get a little closer... Cut open my sternum and pull my little ribs around you", Megan James sings on Purity Ring's "Fineshrine", a song so immaculate and pretty it takes a few listens for the darkness of the lyrics to come into focus. The Canadian duo revel in this kind of contrast: Lush, manicured synth pop with a dark undercurrent that leaves a more unsettling afterglow. Initially formed out of Montral indie band Gobble Gobble, Purity Ring's debut full-length Shrines ranks as one of the year's best, an immersive, swirling collection with pulsing rhythms and pockets of deceptive darkness. Touring for Golden Plains festival, the pair will also bring their live show (which includes a renowned light show courtesy of the other member, Corin Riddick) to Sydney. Their first show at Oxford Art Factory is already sold out, so hurry to catch their recently announced second one.
Envision the music of Bach in dance form and what you get is probably not a 9-headed b-boy crew pulling off head spins and power moves. But that’s what Artistic Director Christoph Hagel and choreographer/mastermind Vartan Bassil have done with Red Bull Flying Bach: An explosive streetdance driven by the music of the visionary 18th century composer. The dancers are Berlin-based breakdance crew Flying Steps, formed by Bassil and Kadir “Amigo” Memis almost 10 years ago. While their moves are normally driven by urban sounds, this time head spins are inspired by piano keys and b-boy freezes by Bach’s fuges. Though that might be putting it too simply: What they’re really doing is interpreting Bach’s music rather than dancing to it. Different dancers represent different notes, and electronic beats fuse the gaps between the two disparate worlds without at all bastardising the original score. If there was any way Bach could have seen this coming 300 years ago, he'd no doubt approve.
Ever walked into the house of a real-life hoarder? As trends in fashion and interior design lean more towards the minimal, those of us who refuse to declutter our lives seem only more fascinating. Hence the appeal of A&E’s Hoarders, and also the immediate visual impact of Song Dong’s latest art installation. A transformative representation of his mother’s mourning process following the death of his father, Song Dong’s Waste Not features gathers over 10,000 everyday objects she gathered over a period of five decades. In fact it consists of the entire contents of her house. There are balls of twine, empty toothpaste tubes, stuffed animals and literally hundreds of kitchen utensils, all carefully stacked and laid out. First it’s a visual smack in the face, then it’s a ruminative journey of hardship, grief and personal resilience. Just as fashionably minimalist interiors are often telling of how much we actually have, hoarding can also be about profound loss.
Each individual member of How I Met Your Mother seems to do something cool. Jason Segel resurrected the Muppets. Neil Patrick Harris produces interactive theatre and dresses his adorable babies in adorably elaborate Halloween costumes. Alyson Hannigan was Willow freakin' Rosenberg. When you break it down, the omnipresent sitcom might be less than the sum of its parts. Josh Radnor, the personal pronoun of How I Met Your Mother, follows suit by being an indie film writer and director of some repute, having won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for 2010's happythankyoumoreplease. His newbie, Liberal Arts, is about a 35-year-old demi-achiever, Jesse (Radnor), who works a dull job as a university admissions officer and reads dead-tree books constantly, while walking even. When he visits his alma mater to honour his retiring former professor, Peter (Richard Jenkins), Jesse also starts a romance with sparky 19-year-old student Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen). Between her exuberance for new knowledge and the campus's leafy, Midwestern nourishment, he rediscovers some of the wide-eyed optimism of his own college days — and also learns why he can't have them back. Really, you can't blame anyone for falling a bit in love with Olsen. She elevates the whole movie, bringing a flood of beauty and intelligence to a character already written to be quite beautiful and quite intelligent. She's not a manic pixie dream girl, although the film pales from being made in an MPDG world. The story of 'unremarkable pre-middle-aged male seeks shaking up, via female, into remarkable life' is a little tired. Sure, seedy, equivocating men deserve our empathy, but arguably they've already had their time in the sun. We know you shouldn't sleep with the girl; we don't need to see your working out. There are other flaws in the film that follow on from all this obviousness: One character, Dean (John Magaro), a random student among thousands, appears in front of Jesse 'by coincidence' with such frequency he'd have to be a ghost stalking our protagonist (he's not), and his arc becomes too foreseeable. Perhaps Liberal Arts would have meant something more if all these other characters didn't so perfectly serve Jesse. They awaken him, confront him, absolve him, and release him. That said, arts graduates will nod in recognition of post-modern theory references, and Allison Janney fans will delight in her cameo as an ironically hard-hearted Romantics professors. There are several estimable bon mots. Liberal Arts may make a forgettable thesis, but you'd still find a couple of passages within it to highlight.
Recent years have seen the rise of musical comedies making their way back to the big screen. Enchanted, The Muppets and even the selection of High School Musical films have led music back to being a key feature in cinema. Throw Glee into the pop culture mix, and spontaneous singing in public is once again normal. In the middle of this comes Pitch Perfect. Beca (Anna Kendrick), is a college freshman and far too cool for any college society. With a not very well-written inciting incident, Beca ends up joining the Barden Bellas a capella group and finds a collection of rag tag gals to become bosom buddies with. While the sentimental scenes are corny and the plot drivers are crazy obvious, this is still a hilariously self aware, sharp and perfectly harmonised film. Rebel Wilson hits heights not seen in previous Hollywood flicks as Fat Amy, and despite Anna Kendrick's terrible posture (for acting classes on not giving a crap, just slouch), she plays college age well. And she can sing. They all can sing. America (and Tasmania, as Fat Amy claims to originate from) must train their kids in the womb to hit the high notes. With a collection of playful winks at the audience (an Australian audience particularly will get a few kicks — stay for the credits) and some good old competition movie fun, this film was a surprisingly raucous rendition. I'm getting the soundtrack. https://youtube.com/watch?v=siEHekc-1oE
It's always the quiet ones. Members of the Concrete Playground team saw this unassuming audio-theatre piece by UK artists Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells in Utrecht and reported it to be phenomenal. Here now for the Sydney Festival, The Quiet Volume has you sit side by side with a partner in the Mitchell Library, each of you with headphones on and a stack of books at your elbow. The words on the page, the voice in your ear, and occasionally the companion at your table guide you through a journey that shakes up your understanding of the act of reading. The whispered, interactive work also makes for a great excuse to visit the library, an institution so many of us still have a great love for although rarely visit. Read our list of the 12 best things to see at the Sydney Festival in 2013.
Rubber duckie you're the one; you make staring out over Darling Harbour so much fun. Childhood nostalgics will be beside themselves at the visiting art installation Rubber Duck by Florentijn Hofman, which is five storeys high. We loved it when it popped up in France's Loire River earlier this year, and we'll love it closer up when it bobs into Cockle Bay to mark the opening of the Sydney Festival in the two-hour spectacle billed The Arrival, complete with acrobats, 3000 littler ducks, and the opening of the Pyrmont Bridge. Also happening on Day One is Fun Run, a theatricalised marathon focusing on one guy on a treadmill in Hyde Park (you can even be a part of it — no running required), and the Daptone Super Soul Revue, a huge outdoor dance party in the Domain that thrills every year. It's disappointing that state funding for the ever-expanding street party Festival First Night was slashed in 2012, but Sydney Festival organisers are clearly showing off their powers of making-do with the fun, free, concentrated three acts of Day One that go from 9.30am until late into the night. Read our list of the 12 best things to see at the Sydney Festival in 2013.
Heiner Goebbels is the celebrity of the 2013 Sydney Festival, as far as the experimental performance nerds are concerned. But the director and composer's esoteric-sounding works can be relied on to hit a nerve no matter whether you've done the background reading. Eraritjaritjaka, which means "regret for lost things' in the Indigenous Australian Arunta language, features the unflinching texts of Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti, live music by Amsterdam's Mondriaan String Quartet, an actor who takes the whole audience with him when he leaves the stage, and a lesson on how to chop an onion in perfect time with the music of Ravel. The expansive multimedia performance has toured the world since 2004 and now makes its exclusive Australian appearance at the Theatre Royal. Read our list of the 12 best things to see at the Sydney Festival in 2013.
After releasing an album every year for seven years, Woods are bringing their dark, artful, occasionally mystical folk-rock-pop to Australia for the first time this month. Their latest album, Bend Beyond, maintains the spirit of spontaneity that has characterised their music from the outset, but the songwriting is more sophisticated and more deeply affecting than ever before. "As blood drips from bone, can you feel me?" questions lead vocalist Jeremy Earl on the song, "Is it Honest?" The live shows promise prolonged improvisations; eerie soundscapes, involving distortion and surreal noise experimentation; and, of course, Earl's magnetic falsetto. Since their inception, the critics have been comparing Woods to the Grateful Dead, as well as krautrock groups like Can and Neu! Appearing at Goodgod on Australia Day, Woods will be supported by Black Zeroes + Camperdown and Out. https://youtube.com/watch?v=D8SuI7BqKP0
Watch this video. A young woman is walking through a park, purposefully. Slowing down, she sees a white note tagged on a sandstone monument. She pauses to detach the card, and peers down carefully at it. Her back slumps a little, she laughs to herself. She turns around suddenly, looking for the prankster responsible for the card. She continues turning then strides toward a man sitting on a bench nearby and introduces herself as Batman. Had she picked up a different card, she might have spoken in a robot voice or started the conversation with a line from a movie. It's the old game of Truth or Dare. The new incarnation started in New York City as a way to break down the barriers between people in public places. Those opting for the 'truth' side of the card these days tweet their responses using the appropriate hashtag. Truth or Dare Sydney had its first game at Jurassic Lounge in August of 2012, and now it will return for another round at Bondi Beach over Australia Day weekend. Look out for the little white cards on streets, in cafes and shops, and along the beach. It's a great concept and an experiment in courage and goofiness. Here's hoping enough people have the guts to hug a stranger or quack loudly for 10 seconds or work the lyrics of Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' into their next conversation.
Oh, the things that creative couples can do! Jon Hamm and his partner Jennifer Westfeldt may be the latest amazingly talented pairing on the Hollywood scene, hopefully with a lot less drama than those we read about in the gossip rags. Hamm, the loveable face we've come to know from Mad Men, once again gets to show off his comedy chops in Friends with Kids, not to mention also take a producer credit on the film. But it's Westfeldt who steals the show, writing, directing, and starring in this very interesting rom-com about having children that manages to leave out the schmaltz. Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (the very funny Adam Scott) have been friends since college days and share absolutely everything with each other, except themselves. While all their friends are coupling up and deciding to have children, they are continually searching for 'the one' that they can finally settle down with and procreate. After seeing their friends' marriages deteriorate at the arrival of children, however, they decide to go for parenthood as friends so as not to kill the romance. While the path to your typical Hollywood rom-com is crazy clear with this plot description, the journey there isn't. The characters are witty, real, and very well-crafted for screen. Relationships in pain and the reality of having children and how it changes you are very clearly and thoughtfully portrayed without always going for the easy comic route. While this film may only particularly reach an audience at the time in their lives when all their friends are having children, there's enough fiery banter along the lines of a slightly more crass Chandler Bing coming from Scott and Westfeldt that most viewers will find something to laugh at. The film is not without fault; it is slightly long in places, and it's unclear why they get Chris O'Dowd to do an American accent when he quite clearly can't. But with a spectacular support cast that might as well be a reunion special for Bridesmaids, this could be the Bridget Jones's Diary meets Knocked Up of the teens. Read about the history of relationships on screen, and what they say about us.
With an extensive schedule awaiting them, Sydney four-piece The Jezabels are stopping off at Hordern Pavilion with Lights and Snakadaktal ahead of a year that sees them playing shows across Australia as well as in the UK, USA, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada and Ireland. The Jezabels play a blend of alternative rock, indie rock and discopop delivered by the feminine fury of frontwoman Hayley Mary. Described as a "cocktail of power and elegance" the band won the Australian Music Prize last year and, with their debut album, Prisoner, peaking at number two and earning gold certification, they have a bright future ahead of them. Perhaps more famous than The Jezabels in other parts of the world, Canadian electropop singer/songwriter Lights won the title of best new artist at the prestigious Juno Awards in 2009. With two top 10, gold-certified albums she's sure to be a blinding support. Last year the madly named Snakadaktal won Triple J's Unearthed High competition with their track 'Chimera' and, with their debut EP reaching number 26 in the digital ARIA chart, have more than earned their place on this tour. https://youtube.com/watch?v=IvCr1UAcPc4
Here’s the lowdown for Art & About 2012: art doesn’t belong in galleries. It belongs in our cities and streets and in our everyday lives. Streets aren’t just for street artists, but all artists. And maybe all artists could be considered ‘street artists’, not just the ones with a graffiti vibe. Ripping art out of the territorial zone of the hushed gallery - it’s an exciting concept and one that could transform our city. In September and October, it will transform our city. Art & About festival puts art in unusual spaces, marshalling artists out of the silent white cube gallery and into stairwells, intersections, billboards and building facades. The artists are photographers, installation artists, sculptors and everything in between. The locations are everywhere: Taylor Square, Green Square, Martin Place, Glebe Library, Hotel Australia and the Rocks Pop Up studios and a whole bunch more. Check out our handpicked selection of festival highlights, opening night street party, closing night moveable feast and night noodle markets, as well as the full exhibition program. Image: Paired Gold by Stephen Collier and Kim Connerton.
Hubs are in. The Festival of Sydney moved its hubs asynchronously around the fringes of Hyde Park this year and the Festivalists (Jurassic Lounge) premiered the Festival Hub undercity at the 2012 Sydney Film Festival’s Town Hall digs. Back again to anchor the energies of this year’s 2012 Sydney Fringe Festival, festival hub Five Eliza will open its dancehall ambience to any number of new and return Fringe favourites, not least of which is the brief resurrection of Newtown pop-up bar, Freaky Tiki. Aesthetic aficionados can let their appreciation loose on Sundays with one of two art markets, 2SER's afternoon of smart arts and lightning art classes. While those with more cacophanous tastes can indulge in its videogame, absinthe or musical sidelines. Sundays in September Eliza is also reviving the late, lamented Freaky Tiki bar for afternoons of art, quasi-Hawaiian aesthetic and art markets, holding you in place with the amiable threat of free coffee and wifi.
If Rainbow Chan is playing a show you know it’s going to be worth seeing. But if Rainbow Chan is playing a free show that also features a crazy mélange of sounds ranging from deep southern country to wash basin bass-heavy ragtime, it definitely falls into the category of “unmissable”. Cowboys in the Amazon is one such show, and the headline event from the Sydney Fringe’s festival hub Five Eliza. In the space of four hours six acts will take you from the Deep South of Country through the Mississippi Delta, stopping over in Tinsel Town before teleporting you to an exotic Amazonian rainforest thumping with the textural beats of our aforementioned electro goddess. Helping out with the transportation will be deep American blues country band The Boy Outside, 1950s sweethearts Lily So & Co and the clankering Rusty Spring Syncopators (with kazoo, washboard, wash basin bass and saw in tow). The best things in life aren’t always free, but when they are you should probably take advantage.
Say what you will about any hidden meaning behind the 1963 song, but Piff The Magic Dragon is more straightforward. It's a funny guy wearing a shiny dragon suit and doing amazing magic tricks with cards and fire, and there's also a tiny Chihuahua called Mr Piffles involved. If that's the sort of thing you think you could sit through for 60 minutes then don't miss Edinburgh Fringe's knockout new performance when Piff touches down for his Sydney Opera House debut. This latest instalment in the adventures of Piff apparently centre around him searching for a princess and striving to be crowned the greatest magic dragon of all time, but less important than the storyline are the stunning theatrics. Piff is the creation of John van der Put, The Magic Circle Close-up Magician of the year 2011 and an award-winning contemporary magician for the past 15 years. Impressive enough, but throw dragon costumes, fire and tiny dogs into the mix and you have a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2bCZv2ozQD8
Clever, creative, quirky, capricious and prolific are some of the words I would use to describe Rufus Wainwright, the American-Canadian Singer songwriter, who will be performing with his band at the Sydney Opera House as part of his Australian Tour. His new album, Out of the Game, which was made in collaboration with the famed producer Mark Ronson, is purported to be his most accessible work yet. Nevertheless, that unmistakeable 'Rufus' edge is still there; the delicately-crafted songs laden with rich emotion and a touch of eccentricity always palpable. The last few years have seen Rufus move away from popular music to pursue other creative endeavours, including his opera 'Prima Donna' and his Grammy-nominated rendition of Judy Garland's famous Carnegie Hall concert. I can confirm that the latter was particularly spectacular, after having been treated to an excerpt from the show (in full drag) the last time he performed in concert here in Sydney. He is great showman who paints pictures with music and words to describe the absurdity of life. https://youtube.com/watch?v=mIF6f3tFxBw
The John Fries Memorial Prize at Gaffa Gallery features 20 emerging artists competing for a $10,000 prize. It's a 'pick and mix' of young contemporary visual artists — a spot of installation here; an abstract painting, a sculpture there — and worth visiting just to see the work of Philjames, who overpaints on the kind of daggy landscapes you might find for $15 at an op shop. In …(to the tune of The Simpsons) he combines this style with installation to bind art history and contemporary pop culture in one long continuum. Bart Simpson appears to be inserted, regal and statue-like, into a traditional modernist painting. A fibreglass sculpture of Chairman Mao Zedong is cast in the shiny style of a Simpsons character, who looks onto the painting adoringly. In swapping the roles of cartoon icon (Bart Simpson) and newly merchandised historical figure, Philjames exposes the ways consumer culture creates and venerates unlikely heroes. Make sure you drop into the excellent Gaffa gallery shop while you're there. It houses the wares of local contemporary sculptors and jewellery-makers, the kind of one-off stuff you just don’t see elsewhere.
What makes a nation? What makes a national identity? What makes a national cinema? Hopefully the AICE Israeli Film Festival will answer these questions and a few more and give us a chance to learn about this country and culture, which many of us mainly know through the news. Returning for the ninth year, the festival is bigger than ever, with twice the number of films and reaching out beyond Sydney and Melbourne to take in Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth for the first time. The program will be showcasing the best in Israeli cinema over the last 12 months and a cinema industry which, whilst still somewhat in its infancy, finally has a chance to grow and compete on the world stage, thanks to substantial injection from the Israeli government. There are feature films and documentaries covering topics as diverse as family, tradition, gender identity, the Middle East conflict, and religious life, and several of the films are prize winners from prestigious festivals including Sundance, Berlin, Karlovy Vary, Jerusalem, and San Sebastian, as well as winners from the 2011 Ophirs (Israeli 'Oscars'). A highlight of the festival is the provocative and touching family drama The Other Son (Le fils de l'autre) by French director Lorraine Levy. Two young men on the cusp of manhood — one Israeli, the other Palestinian — have their worlds turned upside down when they learn that they were accidently switched at birth. In the turmoil that follows, questions of identity and nationhood are raised, opening up a veritable can of worms, which Levy handles with thoughtfulness and sensitivity. It is a sentimental tale, which questions notions of identity against the volatile backdrop of the divided lands of Israel and Palestine. The festival kicks off on August 15 at the Palace Verona with Restoration, a touching story about generational conflict and fatherhood.
He has been called "the great dissenter" by some, a "judicial activist" by others. But perhaps the most accurate description of Michael Kirby is his official moniker: "the Honourable". Since his retirement from the High Court of Australia, Kirby has been bold enough to speak out on the big issues that confront us: sexual equality, same-sex marriage, religious conflict, and international human rights. His legal career has turned on the idea that justice and judging is not a cold, mechanical affair but a matter of the heart and the mind, and that progress belongs to the bold. Kirby will be speaking about all these big ideas, "On Law, Love and Life", this month at the Opera House with his biographer, filmmaker Daryl Dellora. It's a unique chance to overhear a conversation with one of Australia's most respected and outspoken thinkers, a public figure who speaks sanely and cuts through the PR 'blah blah blah' factor that dominates most of this country's national conversation. It's also the release of his authorised biography.
On Sunday, July 29, you are invited to spoil your senses and escape into a mouth-watering world of coffee, chocolate, tea, and spice at The Rocks Aroma Festival. Split into four global regions, the Aroma Festival allows you to experience the world in a day: The Continent's Peugeot Piazza at the Overseas Passenger Terminal lets you soak up European flavours with award-winning coffee, French pastries, and premium gelato, while The Orient at Kendall Lane offers fresh dim sum, traditional Chinese candy and exotic loose-leaf tea. Enjoy Peruvian roasts, Spanish churros and Portuguese mousse in the Latin Quarter at First Fleet Park, and fill your lungs with the scent of apple tea, Turkish delight and gozleme at The Oasis in Hickson Road. With a host of acts, Asian music and dance companies, crafts, belly dancers, and more, there’s a near infinite timetable of things to experience, so loose that belt and get stuck in.
It is a dark, alternate world that Antony Hamilton and Melanie Lane manifest in their Spring Dance double-bill, Clouds Above Berlin. This pair of Australian expats have combined two pieces — Lane's solo Tilted Fawn and Hamilton's duet Black Project 1 — unifying them with a shared attention to detail and tight control of their palettes. In Tilted Fawn, Lane composes a sonic architecture using masked tape recorders, building up a score by UK electronic artist Clark. Rafael Bonachela, artistic director of the Sydney Dance Company and curator of Spring Dance 2012, calls this work intense and cerebral, so expect abstract movement poetry here. While also abstract, Black Project 1 links Hamilton's popping movements with Olaf Meyer's light projections to create a world of primitive — or, suggests Bonachela, post-apocalyptic — creatures illustrating their existence. Both pieces that compose Clouds Above Berlin are more than dance dressed with set, sound and lights; they are sculptures in time, and eager to be viewed as such. https://youtube.com/watch?v=5Z4Bd90puQE
Serial Space is not your usual deathly quiet, hermetically sealed, white cube gallery; it is somewhere new things happen, where strange and wonderful things that didn't exist before come into being. It's an art space where boundaries merge and genres are thrown into question. And in the crush for affordable studio, exhibition and performance space in Sydney, it's a place where artists are given free reign to experiment and, if need be, fail. The ability to fail and experiment is more crucial than it sounds, because it is a precursor to creative growth, and a necessary one at that. In short, it is often simply too expensive to fail in Sydney; we run the risk of pricing creativity out of the picture. Serial Space's latest project is Time Machine, a wave of performances, exhibitions and participatory nights by experimental artists who create live excursions into sound- and time-based art. It's an adventurous program across several inner city venues, and here are a few highlights: - A workshop on how to build your own solar-powered analogue synthesiser by Samuel Bryce. - The Great Man Debate: That men can't be feminists. - Six degrees of Ned Kelly, a performance lecture about the number of degrees of separation between Ned Kelly and you by Melita Rowtson. - Video Hits: three musos and three video artists rip apart and reconstruct the conventions of the music video. Includes Marcus Whale of Collarbones and Oscar Slorach-Thorn of oscar+martin. - Step Back dance party of electronic glory with Cliques (a duo featuring one half of Seekae), Tyson Koh, Four Door and Tuff Sherm. - The official Time Machine bar at Freda's Bar & Canteen (107-109 Regent St, Chippendale) with daily drinks specials.
There's something in the water over in Western Australia, with the state producing a myriad of quality bands of the psych-rock genre over the past couple of years. Hailing from Perth, Pond are the latest outfit to make waves in the Australian music landscape. The five-piece are currently touring off the back of their fourth album, Beard, Wives, Denim, and have gradually made a name for themselves nationally and internationally, playing Austin's SXSW and touring extensively around Europe. NME even named them the "hottest new band in the world". Pond began as a collaborative project between musicians from Tame Impala, The Silents, Mink Mussel Creek and more. Led by the charismatic and Jagger-esque frontman, Nick Allbrook, their live shows are notably looser and a little more inebriated than your usual psych-rock show, performing with more people on stage and with a more electrifying presence. Sydney solo artist Melodie Nelson and indie-pop outfit Day Ravies will be taking on supporting duties for the evening. https://youtube.com/watch?v=xNZA9w4gTis
Unearthed by triple j in 2011 and claiming number 57 on the Hottest 100, familial four-piece indie rock outfit The Rubens are on the up and up. Their modern soul and blues-drenched sound, typified in radio hit 'Lay It Down', has been enjoyed by the nation's ears for just over a year now. And now our eardrums can be blasted live in Sydney at the Metro Theatre. Debuting their new single 'My Gun', these boys are touring Australia, taking to the road with many more of their popular and much-loved tunes. Traversing the nation over September and October, this is your chance to experience their new and addictive songs if you haven't already — or if you can't wait to get another hit from last time's high. And make sure to check out the boys' self-titled debut album coming out September 14th. Preferably before the gig so, you know, you can sing along to all the words and stuff. https://youtube.com/watch?v=wJk-E0A6nxw
Though he cavorted with Garry Shead a little here in Sydney, star Australian artist Brett Whiteley spent most of the sixties in London. In London he found an intellectual climate that suited him, got shown in the Whitechapel Gallery, the V&A and the TATE, not to mention married Wendy. Surry Hills' Brett Whitely Studio is pulling together some of the artistic results for The London years 1960-67, including work that shows Whiteley's preoccupation with the convicted murderer John Christie. And if you like some rolling syllables with your curvy art, the Studio continues its regular program of poetry readings on the fourth Sunday every month to give this London ex-pat exhibition some added rhythm. The Brett Whiteley Studio is open Saturdays and Sundays, 10-4. Images: Brett Whiteley Small Christie painting no 2 1965, Brett Whiteley Studio © Wendy Whiteley. (left) Brett Whiteley Woman in bath 1963, reworked 1964. © Wendy Whiteley (right)
How often of late have we seen trailers for 'comedies' without a single funny clip in them? Their only virtue is in ensuring you never actually go see the final product when it comes out. But then there are those deceptive (and infuriating) films where the trailer does elicit laughter, only for you to go along to the full feature and discover you’ve already seen all the best stuff. Our first glimpse of Ted, by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, arrived back in April and felt distinctly like that latter variety. The trailer (banned in the US) was equal parts crass and dumb, but also featured one of the funniest bits of dialogue we’d seen all year (the ‘white trash names’ exchange). Pursuant to the 'formula', then, Ted seemed set to be the unfunniest disaster of 2012. Thankfully, though, the formula isn't foolproof. Ted is not just a funny film; it's side-splittingly so and manages to maintain that level throughout. Beyond the writing (which is excellent), so much of its success owes to the remarkable CGI of its lead character 'Ted' — a stuffed teddy bear miraculously brought to life by a young boy’s Christmas wish. Had audiences not been able to completely accept Ted's existence alongside his human co-stars then this movie would've crashed from the opening scene; however, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of his animators, the foul-mouthed bear (voiced by MacFarlane) is as believable as he is hilarious and steals almost every scenes he's in. Mark Wahlberg plays Ted's owner-come-best friend John, and again proves an appealing (if also surprising) comedic actor. His familiar 'just woke up and still haven't quite figured out where I am or what's going on' expression works perfectly as the immature stoner in his 30s forced to choose between his fluffy hedonistic teddy and the love of his life, Lori (Mila Kunis). Joel McHale plays a great supporting role as Kunis's sleazy boss, while Giovanni Ribisi cameos beautifully as the 'villain' hoping to buy Ted for his own son. The main 'threat', however, is simply John's reluctance to part with all 'childish things' and finally embrace adulthood. Fans of Family Guy will recognise other familiar faces and voices in supporting roles, along with MacFarlane's signature political incorrectness and constant pop-culture references (including a recurring jab at the 1980 shocker Flash Gordon). The writing occasionally dips a little too far towards the purely offensive; however, it's easily outweighed by the constant laughter and, surprisingly, several moments of genuine tenderness.
A seemingly unique event in the city of Sydney Found In Translation is a night of border poetry; poetry performed in any language at all with an accompanying translation and a question and answer section. Featuring such artists as Ariel Riveros, Anita Shirley — who will reader The Black Messengers from Cesar Vallejo’s I Am Going To Speak Of Hope — and Paul Giles, the evening encourages performers to explore different translation formats, and throw aside restriction. The question and answer section with the panel will be on translation, proximities, betrayals, joys and exasperations. An evening of bilingual poetry for the multilingual, the codeswitchers and codemixers, with space for articulating evolving and devolving hybrid forms, this will be the first of an ongoing monthly series. Image: French Dictionary by Mauro Cateb.
So. You consider yourself a culture freak. You frequent the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and every new small bar within five kilometres of the city. But have you frequented a venue or gallery that is run, not as a small business, but as a not-for-profit space by everyday artists or musicians? Alongside the behemoth that is the Biennale of Sydney runs a smaller, humbler and more intimate art event. It doesn’t attract the crowds, the funding or the press that BOS does, but SafARI is a dynamic and important contribution to Sydney’s art community. SafARI is the unofficial fringe event that parallels the Biennale, and it spotlights unrepresented and independent artists. Across a broad selection of contemporary art practice - painting, installation, video - and three venues - the Rocks Pop Up, Alaska Projects in a Kings Cross carpark, and numerous public non-gallery sites - SafARI bridges the shadowy region between the big art institutions and the grassroots of Sydney’s self-made culture. A few highlights: Dara Gill will be render his own versions of religious medieval instruments to investigate the nature of fear and anxiety. Melbourne artist Julia Holden will traverse painting and film to create hand-rendered stop-motion portraits of artists in movement. And Kurt Sorensen’s painterly approach to analogue photography explores the impact of Australian landscape, in all its post-colonial devastation and beauty, on the human psyche. This is Concrete Playground’s challenge to you this winter: check out an art gallery that is run by artists rather than art dealers. Go to a place that is purely about artists supporting artists, rather than a retail art space. Talk to the person minding the gallery. Take a tour. Go to opening night and ask the artist something about their work, anything. There’s an entire world, a community, of often-ignored art in Sydney. Be part of it.
The chance to tap into terror without actual bodily danger is what keeps us returning to horror films and roller-coasters, but neither do it as pervasively, intimately, and thoughtfully as Tamara Saulwick in Pin Drop. Primarily using sound design, the Green Room Award winner for Outstanding Production awakens a catalogue of fears learnt through interviews with subjects aged six to 92. Pin Drop is part of the Performance Space season Show On. Read about the other shows here.
