Review: Fire - A Retrospective

Published in the Sun Herald

Fire: A Retrospective
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Until 29 September
Tickets $55-65
Bookings (02) 9250 7777
Critic’s Rating 7/10


This retrospective of Bangarra Dance Theatre’s 20-year-history feels as much like a family celebration as it does a reflection on one of this country’s finest contemporary arts groups.

Just like Bangarra's humble beginnings, this production opens with a cocoon, suspended in the air, from which a solitary dancer emerges head first and drops to the floor.

With Stephen Page as choreographer and Frances Ring and Bernadette Walong-Sene as co-choreographers, the three have brought together a showcase of the company’s prolific work over the decades.

What is most moving about their work is the way it blends the traditional and sacred so tightly with contemporary styles and themes.

Whether it’s the beautiful Blankets from Rations (2002), Ochres (1995) or the traditional Torres Strait dances towards the end of the showcase, Bangarra has a timeless quality that is made evident by the continuing power of their works.

There are also moments of great sadness as the company pays tribute to Page’s brother Russell who passed away in 2002 with an earth dance.

There are some problems when the multimedia elements of sound and visuals dominate the work on the stage, but with costumes by Jennifer Irwin, set design by Peter England and a brilliant sound design by David Page and Steve Francis, the production maintains its energy and honours the work of this most important Australian dance company.

Vale Victorian College of the Arts

Victorian College of the Arts (VCA)
One of Australia's premier arts training grounds of the late 20th century

Born 1972 - Died 2009


A coincidence of time and place, and sheer hard work, enabled the Victorian College of the Arts (or VCA as she was known to her close friends and acquaintances), who has died aged only 37, to become one of the 20th century's premier arts training grounds in Australia.

Gillian Armstrong, Bill Henson, Sibylla Budd, Isabel Lucas, Vince Colosimo, Hannie Rayson, Adam Elliott, Nicole Youl, Phillip Adams, John Butler, Robert Luketic and Sarah Watt are just some of the alumni who had the fortune of her fine and cutting edge teaching practices.



The VCA's premature death, just yesterday, was after an assault many have called one of the most violent in the nation's history. Despite an enormous amount of witnesses coming forward, Victorian Police and the AFP say that the assailants are still on the loose. There was a spotting as recently as this morning of one of the alleged perpetrators in Canberra seen in a white car not far from Parliament House.

The VCA was at the height of her star studded career in what was a relatively short rise to fame, glory and respect amongst her peers.

Producing some of the best artists, directors, actors and film makers this country has seen, VCA was renown around the world for her vibrancy, originality and professionalism as a laboratory of investigation for the arts.

Although she had a rough first few years, her luck came when she amalgamated in 1978 with the VCA Technical School and welcomed musicians and dancers into the fold of artists. The result would make her the jewel in the crown of arts training grounds and set her on a path of collaboration and investigation that would be the envy of every state around the country.

Sadly, VCA was diagnosed with a massive brain tumour in April this year after Dr Sharman Pretty of Melbourne University prescribed incorrect medicines for what she believed was a simple cold. Police are investigating whether Pretty should face manslaughter charges.

VCA was taken to the Royal Canberra Hospital for further tests and treatment but she died on arrival.

The arts community was in mourning and shock with the news today, as it was revealed that VCAs death was the same as that suffered by her cousin Theatre Nepean just two years ago.

Some within the community are calling for a Royal Commission into how these deaths could have been avoided and whether there is any evidence of malpractice from within either the State Government of Victoria or the Federal Government.

VCA was born to Polish immigrant parents in Paris, France but moved as a toddler to Melbourne, Victoria, which gave her a lifelong love of the arts - most particularly theatre and music. When she was 12 the family moved to Perth, Western Australia where they gave birth to another child, WAAPA, but VCA stayed with close relatives in Melbourne.

At the age of 17 she was already deemed the top of her class in all forms in artistic expression and her reputation was quickly consolidated.

VCA is survived by an elder sibling NIDA, a younger sister WAAPA and twin brother AIS. VCA will be laid to rest next to her beloved cousin Theatre Nepean at a ceremony on Thursday.


Further information on VCA's death can be found HERE and HERE.

Review: we unfold

we unfold
Sydney Dance Company, Sydney Theatre
Until 11 April
Tickets $20-$60
Bookings (02) 9250 1999
Critic’s Rating 6/10


The opening to Sydney Dance Company’s new production is like the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey with everything from a solar eclipse, star flights and beings entering a confusing new world.

Even the music by Italian composer Ezio Bosso has that classical grandeur designed to shock the senses with great waves of orchestration that even cause speakers in the new Sydney Theatre venue to reverberate. (Stanley Kubrick would have been proud.)

So it’s with a bang that Sydney Dance Company starts its journey under the newly appointed artistic director Rafael Bonachela. It’s a fresh beginning for the company and gives audiences some idea of the type of dance and movement we can expect.

Divided into four sections, with a mix of large ensemble pieces flowing into gentler solos and duos, we unfold takes us through chapters themed with the elements of earth, wind, fire and water. They are almost four separate dance pieces, each accompanied by an enormous backdrop of mesmerising video footage.

Bonachela’s choreography is swift as he fills the stage with dancers dressed in flesh-toned body stockings criss-crossing the space vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

The ensemble flows between rapid and sharp movements, then just as quickly disappears, leaving principle dancers Amy Hollingsworth, Juliette Barton, Richard Cilli, Adam Blanch and Paul Zivkovich who take turns to fill the space with intricate and highly energetic performances under the excellent shifting light designed by Hugh Taranto.

It’s the over zealous music (which verges on the histrionic) that doesn’t sit well with the performance for its 60 minute length - most particularly the deep base and erratic violin towards the end.

In much the same way, the absolutely beautiful, slow moving video projections of a dancer floating through space with water and fire conflict with the physical presence of the dancers on stage. It’s certainly cinematic but doesn’t do justice to this newly formed ensemble of veteran and newly recruited dancers.

But Bonachela has certainly made a mark with his debut piece as director of the company and gives hints at what should be a great three year collaboration with this deserving group of performers.

Who's Who in Creative Sydney?

For your interest...

Creative Sydney is a new festival of ideas that gives creative people the platform to discuss how we can make Sydney the best place in the world to create new film, art, design, music, technology, events and more.

It is part of Vivid Sydney, a unique new public festival featuring Luminous music festival at Sydney Opera House, Smart Light Sydney and Fire Water. Vivid Sydney is one of five anchor events in the first ever NSW Master Events Calendar created by Events NSW on behalf of the NSW Government.

And there will be a festival celebrating the wealth and diversity of the city’s creative talents from May 27- June 13.

As part of that Creative Sydney will be recognising the outstanding talent we have in Sydney; artists, performers and producers, and the people working behind the scenes to build the culture of our city.

They’re applauding the work of 100 Creative Catalysts, individuals who have developed original projects, products or services within their creative field, and who inspire and support other creative people.

And they want your input. Who inspires you? Creative Sydney is open to suggestions as they compile the Creative Catalysts list. They could be friends or peers, people you admire or icons you want to emulate.

Post your nominations on Facebook by April 3.

Register for the newsletter for updates and full launch details at http://creativesydney.com.au/

Follow on Twitter: http://twitter.com/creativesydney


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For the purposes of Creative Sydney the creative industries include: advertising, architecture, visual art, computer software & web development, design (interior, graphic, object), fashion, photography, film, video, animation, performing arts, music, literature and publishing, radio and television, crafts and video games.

Interview with Daniel Brine - new Artistic Director of Performance Space

It's a journalist's worst nightmare. After organising a time, date and venue, reading background information, preparing questions and conducting an interview with a subject, you suddenly lose the recording due to some technological malfunction or misadventure.

The fact that I had flown all the way from Sydney to London to catch Daniel Brine, the newly appointed Artistic Director of Performance Space before his arrival in Australia made it that little bit more painful. The fact that I lost the recording on my MP3 player on the last leg of my journey after twenty-one days of keeping it safe made it just pure frustration.

Kindly, Daniel afforded me some extra time while he was in Sydney for a quick catch up during a handover week with the outgoing AD Fiona Winning who has left after nine years.

The changing of the guard at Performance Space and Brine's appointment to the role of Artistic Director is one of the biggest changes to occur in the contemporary arts scene internationally this year as he fills what he describes as 'Fiona's very, very large shoes'.

It's extraordinary that not one major newspaper in this country has reported on the change. But we've seen this laziness before and know that they are able to editorialise similar appointments. Performance Space is no small-to-medium organisation out the back of hickville. It is, quite simply, a company that is at the forefront of contemporary art experimentation and presentation with an international reputation in excellence. And not a single column inch was spared by any news outlet.

My first meeting with Brine found us at the headquarters of the Live Arts Development Agency UK where he is finishing up his role as Associate Director. Based in a converted old girls school, the headquarters couldn't be more English with a beautiful old lawn courtyard with a walled garden nestled behind one of those typical London squares with a canopy of leaves. It's quite an oasis in the Shoreditch area of London just ten minutes walk from the hustle and bustle of the Liverpool Street financial district.

The day I arrive the stock markets worldwide had lurched downwards, Halifax Bank of Scotland had collapsed and suits were loitering in office buildings reconsidering their career choices. Maybe it is a good time for Brine to get out of the UK.

An Australian, Brine has been based in the UK for over eleven years after working for Live Arts, the Arts Council England and the NOW Festival. His biography reads like a degustation menu of contemporary performance, curating Live Culture at the Tate Modern, You Are Here for the Liverpool Biennial, Performing Rights for Performance Studies International Tanzquartier and China Live at the Chinese Arts Centre. He has even worked with Forced Entertainment, La Ribot, Blast Theory and Janine Antoni.

A quiet and considered man, Brine has acquired that slight English accent despite his heritage. "My move back to Australia is not about returning home, it is about going to work at Performance Space," he explains.

The industries in Australia and the UK could not be more different. In a forward to one of the many books that Brine gives me he co-writes with Lois Keidan (of Live Arts as well) and David Micklem from the UK Arts Council;

"Over the last decade or so there has been a growing sense that artistic directors and programmers across the UK are expressing greater interest in work that pushes at the edges of our expectations of what theatre could be. Some venues are actively programming experimental works. Others are expressing a keenness to explorethe opportunities for taking their audiences on new journeys. Whilst it is acknowledged that this work is challenging, sometimes difficult, often compelling and engaging, it is also work that can attract new audiences, offer new experiences, and add bold new strands to a venue's programme. Whether it is the National Theatre collaborating with Shunt, Duckie's events at the Barbican, Noble & Silver at Soho Theatre, or Gob Squad working on the main stage of Nottingham Playhouse it is increasingly evident that theatres in the UK are excited about a new set of relationships with experimental artists and companies."

Maybe that is where he sees the future role of the company he is about to take over. His respect for Performance Space is immediately obvious. "The role of the company internationally places it as one of the top three organisations presenting inter-disciplinary practices. It's part of the international infrastructure of contemporary performance," he says.

What's most interesting about Brine's experience is his role in developing unique and tangible avenues for artists and the arts industry to have a dialogue. Whether it be through publications, conferences, events or library resources, it is clear that his greatest strength is the way he inspires conversations.

If he brings his experiences in creating dialogue to Australia's shores it will be a much needed element to an extremely fragmented and fractured industry. Do we have a situation where it is increasingly evident that theatres in Australia are excited about a new set of relationships with experimental artists and companies?

As he takes me on a tour of the agency's premises he explains that the three pillars of Live Arts work is based around offering resources, professional development services and projects. "As you can see, we are not a performance space and we do not present works. Live Arts is more a resource, an organisation that brings together artists and venues to expand the cultural sector," he says.

He escorts me to an astonishing library where from floor to ceiling, tapes, DVDs and books document years of performance and contemporary arts writing. It's the sort of place you could spend months in, pulling out one DVD and then another until your eye catches something else you have always wanted to watch.

"Working at Performance Space gives me a chance to build more resources and focus on professional development through consultation and strategic thinking. It will also allow me to bring together art form practices particularly in film and dance," he says emphasising that until he takes up his position and has time to listen to the staff at Performance Space, speak with artists and the industry, the future direction of the company could involve anything.

The role of Performance Space after their move two years ago from their home of twenty years on Cleveland Street in Redfern to Carriageworks is one of the greatest challenges Brine will face. Winning oversaw the transition but it is now Brine's role to consolidate. Performance Space no longer enjoy the privilege of being a stand alone performance and artist space, now sharing the converted train yards with a family of other similar minded arts organisations under the umbrella of the financially restricted Carriageworks management.

Seeing him a month later in the cavernous Carriageworks building and a world away from the well manicured lawns of the old girls school he is realistic about the challenges facing him.

"It's clear there is a challenge of making big things and there are big issues in the industry that need to be addressed," he says.

But it's not just the issues facing the fragmented industry, it is also the mere size of the Carriageworks space. "A lot of people told me that Carriageworks was big, but I had no idea it was this big," he says. "It is an enormous space to fill."

But you can see the excitement in his face ... and the adrenalin. Asking him about our conversation four weeks earlier in London and how he feels now that he is in Sydney he is comforted with the fact that the organisation feels 'familiar' to him.

Hopefully, before long, all of us engaged with the arts will also become familiar with Daniel Brine and the future path he will carve in inspiring creative dialogue between all the spheres of performance in the country. An enormous space to fill indeed.

Review: Underground

Underground by Dancenorth

Presented by Performance Space

Carriageworks

Oh, the youth! Six agile and supple bodies emerge from busted up vending machines on a set that could be on any train station in the world. Each of them adorned in a costume that leaps out as a caricature almost as quickly as the dancers move - the foreign tourist, the white-collar worker, the uni student, the waitress, the junky, the hot girl.

Like a film in fast forward the dancers rush around the space, slowing down, taking positions, sitting, standing and repeating movements unique to each character. With a soundtrack straight out of a film clip the performers quickly establish the space and their relationship to it. 

Their interaction, however, is accidental. They are just commuters waiting for a train - six individuals brought together only through necessity amid a bare but familiar urban landscape.

The piece is broken up into two distinct pieces that centre entirely on the spatial surroundings provided through the set. In the first half the dancers move between the barriers of the vending machines and the train line and in the second, the space gradually opens up and a more expansive set of sequences take over.

It is, however, the first half that captures the imagination as you study and gasp at movement that appears simply effortless. The twists in the air, the floor work and the ensemble pieces set around, over and under the train station benches is riveting. On its own, it would work just as well as a dance production.

The second half is thematically more risk-taking but maintains a cheek and humour that is laced through the show from the moment it opens. The music becomes louder and more indulgent and the performers start to explore a dream world where the individual becomes part of a collective. 

Utilising a space over twice the size of the framed train station set the dancers once again glow, displaying their agility and youthful ability with all the front of brand new sports car. The show however starts to get histrionic once the music blares up and the more serious subject matter is tackled. 

It is probably just a case of dancing and touring experience, but it surely won't be long before the wonderful natural skills of these dancers firm up and in time such choreographic moments will be more convincingly executed.

Underground is on until Saturday. 

$30/$25/$20 + BF (Student Rush Wed & Thur $15)
www.performancespace.com.au

DIRECTOR Gavin Webber CHOREOGRAPHY Gavin Webber & the dancers ORIGINAL LIGHTING DESIGN Jo Currey ADDITIONAL LIGHTING AND TOUR DESIGN Bluebottle- Benjamin Cisterne SOUND DESIGN Luke Smiles COSTUME AND SCENIC CONSTRUCTION Sarah Jobling PERFORMERS Alice Hinde, Charmene Yap, Hsin Ju Chiu, Joshua Thomson, Kate Harman, Kyle Page

Bonachela in talks with SDC

Sources have revealed to Sydney Arts Journo that the Sydney Dance Company is in discussions with visiting choreographer Rafael Bonachela to take over as Artistic Director.

The position has not been filled since the death of Tanya Liedtke a year ago.

Bonachela has been here in recent weeks creating the dance company's latest show, 360 degrees which premiers next week at CarriageWorks.

It will be a coup if they secure him as AD, as the Spaniard is seen by many as one of the most exciting things happening in dance at the moment.

The blurb on the SDC website explains more;

"Born in Barcelona, Award winning London-based choreographer, Rafael Bonachela as been described by the Sunday Times Magazine as "the next big thing" and by ID magazine as among "the hottest of international talent." Rafael Bonachela describes himself as a movement junkie and the exploration and experimentation of pure movement is his motivation.

"He has an impeccable pedigree, having been a stand-out dancer at Rambert Dance Company, where he went on to choreograph as many as 7 new works. Rafael Bonachela emerged as a choreographer committed to innovation. He is now director of his own Bonachela Dance Company.

"Rafael moves seamlessly between the mainstream and the avant garde. Recent commissions include works for George Piper Dances, Dies de Dansa Festival Barcelona, Candoco, Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, David Hughes Dance Company for the Edinburgh Festival, Dance Works Rotterdam, English Chamber Orchestra and Kylie Minogue's award- winning Fever Tour and the 2005 Showgirl Tour."

Watch this space.

Arts funding sticks to status quo

As first published in Crikey.

For the arts, this year’s budget is less about a "Creative Australia" and more like steady-as-she-goes, as Arts Minister Peter Garrett follows on closely from predecessor George Brandis. However, it's what happens over the coming years that could be of most concern to the arts community.

So far, very little has changed from the previous financial year, with the previous government delivering one of the largest injections of federal money to the arts just twelve months ago. Garrett has pretty much maintained the funding for the coming twelve months, adding a few small flourishes of his own that give a little push to arts institutions to foster new talent and new creativity.

The biggest change we will see this year is the creation of Screen Australia, a Howard Government initiative to merge the Australian Film Commission, Film Finance Corporation and Film Australia into one national peak body. It has been kept by Garrett and provided with $103 million for the coming financial year.

A closer look at the finances reveals that this is a funding cut to the film industry when you look at the overall provision of the three organisations from previous years. But a Garrett spokesman has told Crikey that the new 40% producer rebate for qualifying production expenditure will hopefully make more of the film industry "rely less on direct funding".

ArtStart, the controversial programme that will provide artists with improved access to social security has been ignored this year but Crikey has been told that it's "still an election commitment and has not dropped off the radar".

Regional Australia has also been left off the map after a continuing request for $24 million in touring and presentation funding was ignored. The Arts Minister has tried to offset that cut with the creation of a $10 million Creative Communities initiative that takes the arts to outer metropolitan and regional areas.

As well, the Australia Council for the Arts, already hit with an "efficiency dividend" of 2% earlier this year, gets a slight increase in total government funding to $173.2 million. This will no doubt please the major performing arts companies, the small to medium performing arts sector and the visual arts and crafts industry, who profited most from Howard’s previous budget.

But after the slight increase this year, future budget estimates show that Federal Government funding plateaus despite inflation rising by 4%. As well as these increasing costs and the efficiency dividend, the Australia Council will also have to find $6.6 million to fund Garrett’s Young and Emerging Artists program, which aims to increase the exposure of performing arts companies to schools and young people.

Kathy Keele, Australia Council CEO has guaranteed that grants to artists, despite the rising costs, will not be affected. “We are putting in place measures to maintain our funding for artists and arts organisations by streamlining the organisation and making $2 million in administrative savings,” she said.

Another organisation hit by the efficiency dividend has been the National Library of Australia which sees funding drop $600,000 to around $57.6 million for the coming financial year. Already running off the smell of an oily rag, the cut to the NLA has angered many, not only within literary circles but also those who understand the importance of storing digital information – a costly and complicated exercise that will keep the nation's public records for years to come.

One of the positives from this year’s budget is the creation of a resale royalty rights scheme for visual artists that will cost $1.5 million over the next three years. The funding will assist in creating an independent collecting body that will ensure that artists continue to get paid for works when on-sold to other buyers.

“This scheme will bring Australia into line with similar resale royalty arrangements operating in the United Kingdom and Europe and will embody the recognition that visual artists’ rights extend beyond the first sale of an artwork,” Mr Garrett said in a statement on Budget night.

The creation of a new National Film and Sound Archive as an independent statutory authority is another big step and will receive an allocation of $105.2 million over four years.

“As well as continuing its important activities in relation to the national audiovisual collection, the government believes it is important that the National Film and Sound Archive has a strong role in public outreach,” Mr Garrett said.

It’s a solid first budget for Mr Garrett, setting him only slightly apart from his predecessor. He is slowly showing his stripes in favouring additional funding for young and emerging artists. It’s a small step, but it could be the tip of an iceberg as he slowly forces the institutions that previously found favour with the Howard Government to increase their involvement with young people and start investing in the future creativity of the country.

Review: Back from Front

Dean Walsh’s Back from Front
Performance Space


While absorbing the many beautiful moments in Dean Walsh’s new choreographic work, Back from Front, I was constantly reminded of one of the most beautiful art deco buildings in Sydney – the Hyde Park War Memorial.

Back from Front is Walsh’s self described ‘reflection on the cycles of violence’. But this dance piece is more specifically an intimate and close look at how the theatre of war impacts the soldiers and the people around them.

In the same way, a visit to the War Memorial has the same affect. Walking up the main stairs adjacent to the pool of remembrance, your head is immediately made to bow as you look down into a pit where a statue portrays a generic dead soldier bent backwards as some type of sacrificial lamb.

If you enter the War Memorial from underneath you can see the statue from ground level and look up to see three female figures holding the body aloft. His wife, his mother and a nurse.

Walsh, too, makes his reflection universal by not concentrating on one particular conflict but rather throws forward a collection of images that are from any war - the First World War, Second World, Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam or even the Gulf.

Using five dancers throughout the show, Walsh constructs domestic scenes and throws them against the violent reality of mass war. The opening alone is an amazing moment when you see a house-wife sitting at a kitchen table. Suddenly a soldier emerges from a wall that has camouflaged him and he enters the space as some type of ghost.

The scenes flow on from this beautiful beginning that take you to other domestic scenes, parents reacting to news of the death of their son, hospital scenes, love scenes and scenes of man-to-man conflict.

What is most impressive about Walsh’s production is the state-of-the-art multimedia element. There are times when the images are over-the-top and detract from the stagecraft. Most of the time, however, it fills the space without being over-bearing and even shrinks down to add slight and elegant elements to some beautiful dance sequences.

It is these sequences when Walsh is at his best, but unfortunately he is let down by male dancers who don’t have the presence they need to dominate the space as images of the military. On the other hand, the performances by the female dancers are strong, intricate and moving, most particularly from Marnie Palomares – one of the finest new dance talents I have seen recently.

But don’t expect this production to hit you from all sides with special effects. It is just like the War Memorial in that you should sit back, consider it and let it immerse you. Back from Front, like the architecture is a beautiful and confronting reflection.


Until 10 May
$20-30
Carriageworks
http://www.performancespace.com.au/
Ticketmaster 1300 723 038

Allocation Exhausted

UPDATE: For the latest in Sydney Festival news please CLICK HERE for my live blog.


Just hours after launching the Sydney Festival 2008 programme, the headline act Bjork has already sold out. Is this a sign of things to come for the ever popular Sydney Festival?

This, Fergus Linehan's third year at the helm, looks to be the most successful festival programme yet and is an exhilarating foray into a musical wonderland and a spectacle of dance.

Breaking with the tradition of exclusivity, Linehan has dispensed with the conga-lines of security buffoons and invited the entire city to the opening night festivities. There'll be no door list for this event.

Kids will be invited into the central plaza of Martin Place for festivities as they write down their 'hopes and dreams for Sydney in the year ahead'. These hopes and dreams will then be broadcast on massive projections throughout the night, reminding us all of our inner innocence, our inner faith. The Place will then transform into a massive outdoor dance venue to the beat of DJ's and local and international musical acts.

The evening will crack along as Brian Wilson and Paul Kelly stage a huge free concert in the Domain. This will be coupled by live bands pumping out salsa, tango, jive under the trees in Hyde Park. Macquarie Street will upstage St Mary's cathedral as three couples from a Sunday Telegraph competition will walk up a red carpet aisle with 20,000 onlookers.

Now, that's an opening night. "Welcome, welcome, welcome."

The programme for this year's festival is really a salute to two distinct areas, Australian Dance and Indigenous Arts which are both represented proudly and with attitude.

For the last couple of years there have been grumble-grumblings from the local community about the lack of Australian content. This year makes amends and Linehan has programmed a thorough series of events that appropriately showcase what many consider to be the real export of Australia's performing arts.

At the apex of the dance programme is the About an Hour series, which returns once again to the Sydney Opera House. It will include the new work from Chunky Move, a contemporary story from Stephen Page, Lucy Guerin's Aether, Kate Champion's The Age I'm In, Shaun Parker's This Show Is About People and the last choreographic work from Tanja Liedtke Construct.

Coupled with three works from Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato and the Compania Nacional De Danza who last came to the Sydney Festival in 2001, this should be a treat of a festival for those who like a bit of toe-tapping.

On the Indigenous front, Linehan has brought together a beautiful programme that cuts across the artistic boundaries of classic Australian musical ballads, urban rock, physical theatre and South Australian story-telling.

For many the Kev Carmody retrospective concert at the State Theatre will be an event not to be missed. Especially when you have a line-up of singers such as Paul Kelly, Dan Kelly, Tex Perkins, Clare Bowditch, The Drones, Missy Higgins, Steve Kilbey and Sara Storer all singing the classic anthems from Carmody's prolific and beautiful career.

The Black Arm Band will also burst out onto the Indigenous stage, but this time at the Opera House with a concert that will feature the stunning vocals of Ursula Yovich (I saw her pick up the microphone late into the night at a party a few months ago, and I implore you to believe the hype... she is awesome), Archie Roach, Bart Willoughby, Emma Donovan, Ruby Hunter, Dan Sultan and again Kev Carmody.

In association with Company B, the festival will also be presenting BIG hART's Ngapartji Ngapartji which when translated from the local South Australian dialect means "I give you something, you give me something." Central to what is billed as a beautiful theatrical journey is the belief that this country must do more to protect and promote local indigenous languages. So watch as the theatrical journey then becomes one of shared cultures and a beautiful candle for honest reconciliation.

The central focus of this year's festival is well and truly music. You are already too late for Bjork, but don't despair because there is also Beach Boy musical visionary Brian Wilson, Sufjan Stevens, Fourplay, Martin Craft, Mice Parade, Joanna Newsom performing with the Sydney Symphony, The Triffids, slam poetry and afro-pop acts from South Africa, the Finnish Iiro Rantala Trio, Pink Martini, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Meow Meow, and my pick of the musical genre - accordion-playing revolutionary Kimmo Pohjonen.

Then of course the is the usual crazy fiesta at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum and the Beck's Festival Bar with acts such as De La Soul, Mudhoney, Amp Fiddler and Spank Rock.

Hyde Park will also be transformed into a Festival Garden with Sydney Arts Journo's favourite summer watering hole the Famous Spiegeltent making a welcome return bringing acts like La Clique with it. Next door in the garden will be the Cirque Ici Tent where Johann Le Guillerm will perform mad circus performance nightly with two electro-acoustic live musicians.

For the theatre set, this is not really the festival for you. Previous years have delivered a feast of the text based magic, but apparently Linehan couldn't find appropriate acts for this years festival. Despite this, there are two shows coming from the National Theatre of Scotland - Black Watch, which tells the story of Scotland's iconic 300-year old Black Watch Regiment and how it has a head on collision with the new 'war on terror'.

The NTS will also present at CarriageWorks, Aalst, a show developed with the Belgian theatre company Victoria. Based on a true story, it is a domestic theatrical journey which follows the trial and conviction of a husband and wife who murder their infant daughter and young son.

My favourite theatrical rebels and theatre-event convention breakers, Urban Theatre Projects present another show this year The Last Highway. Performed in a service station in Bankstown the show will centre itself on the characters that come in and out of the station - sex workers, taxi drivers, shift workers and no doubt your token hoon in his pumped up noise machine.

The stunning and magical James Thieree, nephew of Charlie Chaplin, also makes a very exciting return for the third year in a row with Au Revoi Parapluie. If his previous two shows are any guide, this will be a theatrical delight.

The rest of the festival is made up of all the usual free outdoor events, domain concerts and quirky events made to get everyone in Sydney at least touched by this beautiful event. The pick of them for me is Haircuts by children, where local ten year olds will offer free haircuts at salons in Parramatta and Darlinghurst. The bill says 'after a team of children participate in a series of training workshops with local professional stylists, everyone is invited to get a free haircut.

But, if I was you, I'd get in early. This festival is going to capture a city and send ripples of creativity into a state of mass fiesta... and without a doubt the ticketek website will be in a constant state of 'Allocation Exhausted'.


Sydney Arts Journo Festival Picks

Theatre
Black Watch - National theatre of Scotland
James Thieree - Au Revoir Parapluie
National Theatre of Scotland - Aalst
Ngapartji Ngapartji at Belvoir St
Urban Theatre Projects - The Last Highway

Dance and Performance
Nacho Duato and the Compania Nacional De Danza
Lucy Guerin - Aether
Cirque Ici
La Clique at the Famous Spiegeltent
Tanja Liedtke - Construct

Music
Sufjan Stevens
House of the Holy Afro - Third World Bunfight
Pink Martini
Chromeo
Kimmo Pohjonen

A show about people

As published in Arts Hub.
Friday, 5 October, 2007


Shaun Parker is the consummate collaborator. Despite being only a short time out from premiering his new work This Show Is About People at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, he is still writing the piece.

“What’s really good about doing interviews like this is that I can talk it out, and the things that will come up I will take back to the rehearsal,” he says as I sit down with him at a café in Sydney just before his departure.

This Show Is About People has been three years in the making so it’s no wonder that the Robert Helpmann Scholar has got used to constantly revising the piece and reacting to feedback from peers.

“When I came back to Australia from Europe, I had this piece in my head where I wanted to just do a show that was about people. A piece that looked at the human condition and the duality of life – light and dark, violence and peace, man and woman, freedom and confinement.”

For the Australian choreographer who has also worked as a singer, dancer and physical theatre performer for the last fifteen years, arriving at such a work has been a lifelong journey.

As a young boy, Parker was unable to speak until he was six years old due to a long series of speech impediments. “But strangely enough,” he says, “I could sing. My mother said she would walk in and find me singing all the songs on Playschool! I could sing the words of the songs, but I could not speak them.”

For Parker, this lifelong connection to song represents a starting point for his collaboration in creating This Show Is About People. “I wanted to create a soundtrack to people’s lives”, he says.

“You see, there is just so many dehumanised dance pieces and an overuse of multimedia”, he adds. “I want to start a rebellion by just using people and telling simple stories using performers who simply use their bodies.”

This Show Is About People, which will premiere at the Melbourne International Arts Festival and then tour north to the Sydney Festival in January is a close collaboration between Parker and musical directors Mara and Llew Kiek. Using five dancers and five singer/musicians, the creative team frame the action of the piece in a waiting room with the score intertwining the lives of the performers.

“When my mother was diagnosed with secondary cancer, just before I commenced the first stage development of this work, she was thrown into a period of grief and questioning,” he explains.

“I remember sitting with my mother in the waiting room of the Oncologist’s surgery, and when I looked around at the other families and patients who were also waiting, they too had their own questions – each as specific and potent as the next.”

This close-to-home experience directly impacted Parker’s initial creative processes so that by the time the origins of the piece where discovered the setting was drawing itself to the idea of a waiting room.

Asking Parker whether he had the opportunity to see Swiss director Cristoph Marthaler’s latest work Seemanslieder at the Sydney Festival earlier this year, a piece which is also set in a waiting room and where characters communicate in song, he shakes his head. “I am kicking myself that I never got to see that. So many people have told me how wonderful it was!”

I can indeed see similarities between the two creative’s. Parker, like Marthaler uses music as a core part of creating his vision for the piece. But even though the concepts of these two works are similar, Parker centres his process around the performer as dancer. As well as this, his choice of music, Bulgarian mountain music along with counter-tenor Early music, is far removed from the sea-shanty and 60’s pop music of Seemanslieder.

“The Bulgarian singing invokes for us a sense of community and belonging,” he explains. “One song, Neven Tsafti sung by Silvia Entcheva and Mara Kiek speaks of the Wild Marigold that is growing between the paving stones. It is a healing flower. It is waiting, ready to be found, but there is no-one there to pick it. Many of the Bulgarian songs speak of small tales of everyday life, yet their underlying meaning speaks many words.”

“The Early music is mostly a selection of medieval songs by counter-tenor Tobias Cole and musicians Nick Wales and Llew Kiek. This time it is the men who drive the medieval music, which for me, provides an essential link to religion, to a belief system,” he says. “The importance of the men leading this music, sits satisfyingly in opposition to the women’s Bulgarian vocal songs.”

This blending of dance, movement and music has been something that Parker has been refining as a creative process since his days studying at the Victorian College of the Arts over fifteen years ago.

“I began my work with live singing in response to my childhood experience. I related to its form. However, as well as closing my eyes and listening to music, I was sure I could fuse it with the body, where they would co-exist within the same theatrical space. This led to my first dance work in 1992, at the VCA, where Duane Morrison and I created an original score for voice and piano. Then in 1996 whilst dancing with Australian Dance Theatre, I created Worldes Blis, in which I collaborated with an Early music ensemble and sang as a counter-tenor.”

Even Meryl Tankard used Parker’s amazing gift for music and utilised it as part of her creations INUK and Seulle.

This time, however, Parker is at the helm of his first full length work, and he clearly wants to bring all of his experiences together and strip them right back to the very basics. “I want audiences to feel something. To think something. That’s all I want.”

I imagine that little boy standing in front of the television at home, unable to express his thoughts, but able to sing from the heart. I imagine that that is what his piece will be like… a song from the heart.



Credits
Director and Choreographer Shaun Parker
Musical Directors Mara Kiek & Llew Kiek
Set and Costume Designer Robert Cousins
Sound Designer Peter Kennard

Collaborative Performers:
Anton, Matt Cornell, Marnie Palomares, Guy Ryan
Collaborative Musicians
Jarnie Birmingham, Tobias Cole, Sylvia Entcheva, Llew Kiek, Mara Kiek

My Island Home

My Island Home is a snapshot of modern Australian cultural excellence - a celebration of a confident nation rejoicing and showcasing the wealth of talented performers that call the earth’s largest island “home”.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House for the APEC Australia 2007 Gala Cultural Performance. Sydney is a truly global city with two defining icons – the world heritage listed Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Tonight’s performance provides a snapshot of modern Australia and features over 200 young performers and famous artists showcasing the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts.

The Asia-Pacific is a region that has emerged as the fastest growing and most dynamic in the world, and tonight’s performance embodies this spirit. It spans a diversity of genres, including classical and indigenous music, modern dance and musical theatre, and traditional ballet and opera.

‘My Island Home’ takes us all on a journey through a diverse programme sharing Australia’s cultural heritage with our friends from around the Asia-Pacific region.

The Hon John Howard MP
Prime Minister of Australia

So, what did our international guests enjoy last night during the APEC Australia 2007 Gala Cultural Programme?

The evening got off to a bang with conductor Andrew Greene leading the Australian Opera & Ballet Orchestra in the main title theme from the film The Man From Snowy River.

Yes, that's right - The Man From Snowy River. Isn't it astonishing that we had to travel back to 1982 to find a film worthy of playing the main theme from.

To give you some perspective, the equivalent would be the US getting the New York Symphony Orchestra to play Gandhi or ET to display their cultural might in 2007. But wait - it does get better.

This was soon followed by, as promised, You're the Voice (1986) performed by soloist Robert Adam and an array of kids from Gondwana Voices and the Sydney Childrens Choir. The John Farnham retrospective was swiftly followed up by the 'Somewhere Medley'.

What, may you ask, is the 'Somewhere Medley'?

Well, let me tell you...

Picture, if you will, six singers (Sophie Carter, Amelia Cormack, Ben Lewis, Alexander Lewis, James Millar and Christina O'Neill) centre stage in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.

The lights come up on young Sophie, Amelia, Ben, Alex, James and Christina who earnestly look into the crowd. Picture if you will, the world leaders - Vladimir Putin, George Bush, Hu Jintao, Shinzo Abe, Gloria Arroyo looking back. The sextet then slowly start singing Somewhere Out There:

Somewhere out there, Beneath the pale blue night, Someone's thinking of me, And loving me tonight. Somewhere out there, Someone's saying a prayer, Then we'll find one another, In that big somewhere out there.

After polite applause they then get a little more serious and tackle that ever-faithful anthem of earnestness Over the Rainbow:

Somewhere over the rainbow, Way up high, There's a land that I heard of, Once in a lullaby.

The song trails off as the performers transport the world leaders to Oz... yes that's right Toto, to Oz!

The audience by this point must be wishing that if they click their heels they are transported somewhere... please god... anywhere!

Which makes the power of the next song so relevant and cruelly ironic - none other than Somewhere from West Side Story:

There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us, Peace and quiet and open air, Wait for us, Somewhere.

Let me take a short interval here by saying that this programme would have to be one of the most embarrasing elements of the entire APEC Forum. It could beat the Chaser team making their way past two security posts or even George W Bush calling APEC - OPEC and Australia - Austria or it could even beat the non-existent aspirational and non-binding climate change targets set by the forum...

To think that the staff and advisers from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet would serve this up can only be described as nothing short of bad taste that is utterly blind to the actual cultural activities in this country.

The programme was appalling. The Somewhere Medley for goodness sake! What on earth is a Somewhere Medley?

Let me be very clear about this. This programme of events must have been altered, changed and re-jigged until the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet had officially approved it and I don't think that any blame could possibly be passed onto the exceptional artists involved.

And the world leaders and delegates and international media are told by the Prime Minister that this event is 'showcasing the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts'. You may as well have given the politicians and world leaders a lagerphone and a gum leaf. Here you go Skip!

The arts industry should be furious at the department for allowing this type of event to even make it onto paper. If I was an original composer I would be most particularly concerned at the complete lack of original Australian composition used in the gala. The amount of American and European content in this production is stupefying. And this is the ASIA-PACIFIC Economic Forum. You could be forgiven for thinking behind those security fences that cultural diversity in Australia is something you only find in restaurants.

There should be complaints made by the arts industry and multicultural bodies to express worry into how our culture is portrayed by this government on an international level.

With the activities of the Australia International Cultural Council now provided with $20.4 million of funds over four years through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I hope to god that events like last night are not the norm in how we present the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts.

Let me concede at this point that it is oh-so-thankful that Artistic Director Stuart Maunder put in a bit of Bangarra Dance, Taikoz, Australian Ballet and Opera Australia to soften the blows - otherwise the entire affair could have gone down in history as the worst concert ever staged in the Sydney Opera House.

There's a time for us, Some day a time for us, Time together, With time to spare, Time to look, Time to care, Someday, Somewhere.

We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving, Somewhere, There's a place for us, A time and place for us.

Hold my hand, And we're halfway there, Hold my hand, And I'll take you there, Somehow, Someday, Somewhere...

By god, we better find a way. Somehow. Someday. Somewhere. Go on, readers, hold my hand.


As published on Crikey.com

What?! Another forum...

Yes ladies and gentlemen - when one isn't sure how to do something, having a forum on it seems to be de rigeur in Sydney at the moment.

And I hereby announce another forum - yes another one - but this time with the Shadow Arts Minister, Mr Peter Garrett.

Here is the article I wrote in Arts Hub today:

Shadow Arts Minister Peter Garrett's nationwide artist forums will make their way to Sydney after a successful session in Melbourne last Sunday, where over 200 practitioners and stakeholders gathered.

"There was an excellent turn out of local artists and the discussion was lively and passionate, just as you would expect," said Mr Garrett.

"A number of key points were made by artists and we'll certainly be looking to incorporate that feedback into our policy deliberations over the coming months."

In what has been deemed by many as the first serious engagement by a Federal minister with artists from the ground-level, the forums hope to give artists and arts advocates the opportunity to voice their concerns and hopes for the future of Australia’s cultural life.

The forum in Sydney follows a successful City Talk hosted by Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore that looked at the creative future vision for the city. That event attracted over 1000 people.

Garrett said the forums were an important component of the Australian Labor Party’s programme of connecting with artists and involving practitioners in determining arts policy.

After previous ALP policies, particularly Creative Nation which received criticism from both within and outside the artistic communities, it will be vital that these forums inform the Shadow Arts Minister of the changes required to further advance the artistic industries.

"As the Shadow Arts Minister it's vital to hear what artists working in our community have to say on the issues that affect them," explained Garrett. "'Your Shout' is a chance for those artists to have their opinions heard and considered."


** This forum has been postponed until further notice**