backthe totally huge new music festival
“A great festival is one that exposes participants and audience to new directions and ideas and the 2011 Totally Huge New Music Festival promises to do just that with an impressive program of Australian and international work.” (Tura website) The program will include concerts, installations, surround sound presentations, live broadcasts, workshops artist talks and more. Special guest for this year’s festival is New York composer and turntablist Marina Rosenfeld renowned for her ongoing performance, Sheer Frost Orchestra: a graphically noted score performed by 17 females using nail polish bottles to activate electric guitars. Rosenfeld will also be the keynote speaker of the Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference focused around the theme of Immanence. Other artists in town for the festival include from Australia, Speak Percussion, Decibel Ensemble, Etica Ensemble, Pollen Trio, Sonia Leber/ David Chesworth, Philip Samartzis, Anthony Pateras and Ross Bolleter along with guests Mark Gasser (UK) and from Japan FourColor, minamo and moskitoo. Various venues across Perth, September 15-25. www.tura.com.au/totally-huge-music-festival/events
atyp, sweet bird andsoforth
The Australian Theatre for Young People will present the world premiere of German playwright Laura Naumann’s play Sweet Bird andsoforth. Translated by Benjamin Winspear (RT62), and directed by Laura Scrivano, the play begins at a farewell party on the edge of town; but while the group is trapped in an isolated suburban wasteland, their Gen Y dreams transcend location. Billed as an “original, unexpected and blackly comic story of a group of friends caught between adolescence and adulthood,” the play won Naumann the Munich Prize for Young German-Language Drama (press release). Australian Theatre for Young People, Sydney, Sweet Bird andsoforth, Aug 18-Sept 10; www.atyp.com.au
land, sea and sky, goma
It might be one box on the Census (coming soon, August 9) but Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are very different from each other, to the point where the latter is sometimes called “Australia’s other Indigenous culture” (press release). Over the next four months, Queensland’s major arts organisations at the Cultural Centre, South Bank in Brisbane, are joining forces to present The Torres Strait Islands: A Celebration, showcasing the diversity and vibrancy of historical and contemporary arts and culture of Torres Strait Islander Australians. The program encompasses an exhibition, Awakening: Stories from the Torres Strait at the Queensland Museum, Strait Home at the State Library and Land, Sea and Sky: Contemporary Art of the Torres Strait Islands, at the Gallery of Modern Art. The last is the largest and possibly most significant exhibition to date of contemporary art by Torres Strait Islander artists anywhere in the world and it includes dance objects, prints, film, video, textiles, ceramics and installations drawn from the Queensland Art Gallery’s extensive collection of works by Torres Strait Islander artists as well as key loans and commissioned works. Artists include Dennis Nona and Destiny Deacon. Land, Sea and Sky: Contemporary Art of the Torres Strait Islands, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; http://qag.qld.gov.au
under the radar, brisbane festival
Returning to the Brisbane Festival is Under the Radar providing a platform for artists to “frolic with risk and experiment with artforms” (website). There are over 30 events including A Three Hotel City, a collaboration between poet Marissa Allen and RealTime writer Joel Stern exploring contemporary society in decline while Motherboard Productions re-imagine Jean Cocteau’s classic La Voix Humaine through text, dance and multimedia. Rebecca Cunningham (co-director of the Exist-ence festival, see RT101, p42) will be collecting one million samples of DNA in her durational performance One and Israel’s Tami Dance Company will remount their acclaimed PeepDance with six Australian dancers performing unique pieces to the same music inside seven peep cells. There’s also a strong music program including House Proud, an immersive percussion performance exploring the sounds of a home by composer Anna van Veldhuisen and designer Ben Landau; Macrophonics combining sound, video and movement through sensor-based gestural controllers, featuring Julian Knowles, Donna Hewitt, Wade Marynowsky and Tim Bruniges, with choreography by Avril Huddy, and two experimental sound nights curated by Dan Lewis & Andrew Tuttle. Under the Radar, Brisbane Festival, Sept 3-24; www.brisbanefestival.com.au/
play, short play publications
An enterprising new venture from Short Play Publications in Melbourne is Play, a stylish volume of Australian contemporary video art comprising both video collection and accompanying booklet. Curator/producer Rachel Feery and Editor Mark Hewitt have assembled 14 video works from artists who are bound together by their exploration of “play” and playfulness; the booklet contains essays by emerging arts writers reflecting on concepts in the collection. Artists in the compilation include: Brown Council, Hit&Miss, Rachel Feery + Lisa Stewart, Timothy P Kerr, Jane Korman, Alanna + Matthew Lorenzon, Riki-Metisse Marlow, Ms & Mr, Hannah Raisin, Safari Team, Sam Smith, Lachlan Tetlow-Stuart, Michael Vale and Jemima Wyman. Short Play will release an annual DVD publication of contemporary video works. www.shortplaypublications.com.au
go graphic at the opera house
The second of Sydney Opera House’s GRAPHIC festivals will include a wide range of works by leading graphic artists, international and local, as well as featuring performances, animation and music, with many of the works world exclusives, Australian premieres and specially commissioned works. The festival’s special guest is the renowned comic artist Robert Crumb, whose epic The Book of Genesis Illustrated was published in 2009—a surprising subject for the artist and a work rendered with respectful fidelity if with his inevitable, relishable idiosyncrasies. Crumb will also DJ a session of his old 78rpm favourites. Melbourne composer Gotye will present An Animated Album Preview, featuring his songs with animations by Australian artists. Shaun Tan’s Oscar-winning The Lost Thing will be screened with the original score performed live; the 2006 anime classic Tekkon Kinkreet (directed by Michael Arias and animated by Studio 4°C) will be accompanied by live music from the UK’s PLAID (WARP) supported by FourPlay and Synergy Percussion; and there’ll be a performance and talk by Masaya Matsuura creator of Playstation game Parappa the Rapper. Something special comes in the form of works by China’s best emerging animators and there’ll be talks, masterclasses, the Best of the Independent Games Festival exhibition and a $20,000 prize for the winner of the animation competition. GRAPHIC is co-curated by Jordan Verzar and Virginia Hyam. Sadly, in news just in, Robert Crumb has cancelled his visit thanks to some nasty and censorious editorialising on the part of the Sunday Telegraph.GRAPHIC, Sydney Opera House, Aug 20-21, http://graphic.sydneyoperahouse.com
new arts fellowship: talent & courage
The Sidney Myer Creative Fellowships provide unrestricted grants to individual artists, arts workers. There are two criteria for selection of grant recipients: outstanding talent; and exceptional courage. Recipients might include painters, sculptors, curators, dancers, choreographers, playwrights, actors, dramaturges, producers, musicians, composers, conductors, multi artform practitioners, writers and thought leaders. Grants will go to those practitioners in the first five to ten years of their professional practice, or equivalent, and those who have a demonstrated capacity to develop and extend their practice. Application is through nomination and grants of $80,000 per year will be awarded for two years. The Sidney Myer Fund does not require specific outcomes from the grant. Sydney Myer Creative Fellowships, www.myerfoundation.org.au
RealTime issue #104 Aug-Sept 2011 pg. 56
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