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Articles on Melbourne Festival 2014

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Goebbels has a deft hand at creating moments that surprise, turning the surreal and the macabre into exquisite moments of beauty. Photo: Wonge Bergmann, Melbourne Festival

Striking, original theatre: Heiner Goebbels at the Melbourne Festival

When the mountain changed its clothing, the Heiner Goebbels-directed show currently on at the Melbourne Festival, is an evasive piece of theatre, but it is through its elusive and mysterious qualities…
The Chicago photographer Vivian Maier is the subject of a documentary and an exhibition at this year’s Melbourne Festival. Melbourne Festival

Desiring the author: Finding Vivian Maier at the Melbourne Festival

The Melbourne Festival is running two events dedicated to the recently-discovered American street photographer Vivian Maier. One is the exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Crossing Paths…
Since I Suppose, currently playing at the Melbourne Festival, is participatory theatre at its best. Credit: Paul Moir. Melbourne Festival

Power, prayer and pleasure: Since I Suppose at the Melbourne Festival

As the contemporary debate about surveillance and data-retention rages, it seems there’s little room left for mystery. Since I Suppose, an interactive and immersive artwork at the Melbourne Festival, by…
In Opus, circus and chamber music collide in an astounding fashion. Melbourne Festival

Orchestrating wonder: Opus at the Melbourne Festival

Rambunctious, athletic circus with elegant, controlled chamber music. Do opposites collide? Not in Opus, an intriguing collaboration between the chamber music Debussy String Quartet from Lyon, France and…
Despite the horrific content of this history – Big hART’s triumph is that this is not a story about victims. Melbourne Festival

Big hART’s Hipbone Sticking Out: truthful and ambitious theatre

Hipbone Sticking Out, the Big hART production now playing at the Melbourne Festival, begins in September 1983. We meet 16-year-old John Pat slowly dying, lying alone in a police cell in Roebourne. We find…
How does a woman make art history, asks !Women Art Revolution, an American documentary that screened at the Melbourne Festival. Melbourne Festival

Just name three female artists: !Women Art Revolution on screen

The central premise of American director Lynn Hershman Leeson’s film !Women Art Revolution (2010), which screened at the Melbourne Festival over the weekend, is summarised near its conclusion: “When artists…
The Ninja Circus from Mutitjulu shows the benefits social circus can deliver. Ninja Circus

Circus training instead of school sports? Now there’s an idea

What if social policy-makers knew how beneficial circuses were to the community? This was the provocation pitched to circus producers, trainers, performers and academics who met in the Melba Spiegeltent…
Brokentalkers Have I No Mouth directly tells a story of family grief and loss. Photo: Jeremy Abrahams. Melbourne International Arts Festival

Authentic theatre: Have I No Mouth at the Melbourne Festival

Have I No Mouth, an Irish play showing at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, opens with a short video: a pint of Guinness on a tour of Dublin, Ireland. It isn’t a glossy, tourist itinerary we see…
Marzo: a tale of renewal and love. Photo: Wolfgang Silveri. Melbourne International Arts Festival

Fantastical sparks: Marzo at the Melbourne Festival

The audience is given few clues before entering the world of Marzo, a dance work currently playing at this year’s Melbourne Festival. We know nothing about the time, the place, or the characters. The stage…
Dancers find their ‘their sultry siren selves’ in Spanish Dance, choreographed by Trisha Brown in 1973. Melbourne Festival

A radical legacy: Trisha Brown’s postmodern dance

A retrospective of the work of American choreographer Trisha Brown (1936-) will be presented at the Melbourne Festival this month. In the performance Early Works, we will have a chance to revisit this…
Chunky Move brings order to the mess of human experience. Photo: Sarah Walker. Melbourne International Arts Festival

The Complexity of Belonging at the Melbourne Festival – reviewed

I’ve often lamented that choosing to study the most complex organisms on Earth was the dumbest idea I’ve ever had; so I am always amazed at how artists represent the mess that is the human experience…
A renewal of the circus arts has been underway since the 1970s. Cirkopolis/Melbourne Festival

The big top’s evolution: Cirkopolis by Cirque Eloize

Elegance, elite athleticism, light-handed humour and a gentle narrative about the value of individuality are the principal elements of Cirkopolis, which opens this week at the Melbourne International Arts…

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