tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/perth-festival-49992/articles
Perth festival – The Conversation
2024-03-08T02:30:39Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225343
2024-03-08T02:30:39Z
2024-03-08T02:30:39Z
The magic tricks and the deep souls of theatre, dance and music at the 2024 Perth Festival
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580586/original/file-20240308-22-bs1pct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C0%2C1914%2C1279&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During last October’s launch event for the 2024 Perth Festival of the arts, the presentation offered by artistic director Iain Grandage implied that the festival would touch on various timely global political issues. </p>
<p>Across the program, which wrapped up on Sunday, I was struck by how it was often more in the act of putting on and performing the work, rather than their spoken content, that expressed political responses to our times – a few good trick-style shows aside.</p>
<h2>The magic of performance</h2>
<p>Belgian theatre collective Ontroerend Goed and performance artist Geoff Sobelle both focused on theatrical illusion. </p>
<p>Ontroerend Goed’s Are we not drawn onward to new erA was promoted as an “inventive palindromic eco-drama”, while <a href="https://list.co.uk/news/43701/geoff-sobelle-food-theatre-review-a-messy-meal-filled-with-confidence">one critic</a> reflected on how Sobelle’s Food alluded to “the consequences for the environment” of global human food consumption, but “without drawing any clear conclusions”.</p>
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<span class="caption">Ontroerend Goed focused on theatrical illusion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mirjam Devriendt/Perth Festival</span></span>
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<p>Act one of Are we not drawn reworked the idea that underpins <a href="https://theconversation.com/tenet-is-marvellous-a-staggeringly-ambitious-blend-of-popular-effects-and-complex-storytelling-144872">Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (2020)</a> to run a scene backwards before a filmed recording was then projected in reverse – in the “right” order. </p>
<p>Sobelle spent much of his show producing food out of nowhere, or disappearing remnants of a gargantuan meal down his throat, before offering a familiar narrative of colonial development. He dug toy bison out of a massive sand box, before burying them again as he unearthed farms, stations and skyscrapers. </p>
<p>Are we not drawn and Food were entrancing magic tricks, but beyond witnessing Ontroerend Goed’s performers make a mess and topple a statue, not much was learned. (The improvised removal of <a href="https://theconversation.com/edward-colston-museum-display-what-happens-next-for-the-fallen-statue-162376">Edward Colston’s statue</a> was more dynamic.)</p>
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Read more:
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<h2>A wonderfully weird opera</h2>
<p>The opera Wundig wer Wilura presented a different approach. Composed, conducted and sung in Noongar by 30 First Nations artists, the staging itself was a statement. </p>
<p>The piece charted tensions between Noongar groups from what is now York, Western Australia, and two lovers – one from each group – were forbidden to marry but eloped, starting a war. A clever man, or sorcerer, intervened, turning combatants into grass trees and the lovers into hills.</p>
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<span class="caption">Wundig wer Wilura shares characteristics with Wagner’s famous ring cycle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">West Beach Studio/Perth Festival</span></span>
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<p>Wundig wer Wilura shares characteristics with Wagner’s famous ring cycle: epic figures from a mythic era express passion and violence in the face of otherworldly forces. </p>
<p>Composed in a sweeping yet low-key orchestral mode by Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse, passages reminded me of fragments from popular sources such as The Divinyls’ Pleasure and Pain, the lightly musicalised speech patterns of 10CC’s Dreadlock Holiday, and Kate Bush’s dramatic pop-meets-classical style. </p>
<p>Ian Wilkes’ choreography had the cast in near constant motion, but none seemed overwrought. Where Wagner’s characters scream or plummet earthwards, Wundig wer Wilura’s were melancholy rather than epic.</p>
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<span class="caption">David Leha was a compellingly otherworldly presence in an otherwise sympathetically human drama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">West Beach Studio/Perth Festival</span></span>
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<p>As a settler-descent critic with a liking for Wagner and the avant garde, I found the production best at its weirdest. David Leha as the clever man was strikingly attired in a puffy costume swelling his shoulders, pointing a staff as he sang in staggered bursts. He was a compellingly otherworldly presence in an otherwise sympathetically human drama.</p>
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Read more:
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<h2>Lyricism and commentary</h2>
<p>Entrancing for different reasons was the formal exactness of Joan Jonas’ performance Mirror Piece I and II (1969-70/2024). Originally documented through still images, the choreography performed between tableaux for the Perth Festival production was essentially new.</p>
<p>Jonas’ video art often explored issues of voyeurism, surveillance and narcissism. In Mirror Piece, the audience is positioned partly as narcissistic voyeurs, invited to gaze at themselves and their peers in the mirrors while also watching staggered, linear configurations of these rectangles of glass manipulated by focused, fashionable performers.</p>
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<span class="caption">Mirror Piece is partly a study in voyeurism, surveillance and narcissism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Institute of Contemporary Art/Perth Festival</span></span>
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<p>The unadorned precision of the movements and variety of arrangements had its own lyricism, quite apart from any social commentary.</p>
<p>Wilder in structure was the politicised jazz-fusion ensemble Irreversible Entanglements. The quintet recalled Sun Ra’s free jazz fantasies, the Africanist stylings of Idris Ackamoor and the verbal potency of Gil Scott Heron. </p>
<p>Five artists performed independent jazzy scribbles and meandering blurts, before coming together for sometimes funky sections (think Herbie Hancock) or harmonious stepped chords. The performers supplemented vocals, drums, bass, saxophone and trumpet with electronics and other instruments, drifting into Jah Wobble territory.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580595/original/file-20240308-22-8hyrjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man plays a trumpet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580595/original/file-20240308-22-8hyrjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580595/original/file-20240308-22-8hyrjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580595/original/file-20240308-22-8hyrjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580595/original/file-20240308-22-8hyrjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580595/original/file-20240308-22-8hyrjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580595/original/file-20240308-22-8hyrjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580595/original/file-20240308-22-8hyrjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The politicised jazz-fusion ensemble Irreversible Entanglements performed independent jazzy scribbles and meandering blurts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Francesca/Perth Festival</span></span>
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<p>Vocalist Moor Mother urgently repeated her concise phrases, the use of voice musical and percussive more than poetic. </p>
<p>The din offered by the group was at once tense and flowing, epitomising how people of different backgrounds can produce a unified collective without surrendering their identities: <a href="https://theconversation.com/anarchy-in-the-usa-five-years-on-the-legacy-of-occupy-wall-street-and-what-it-can-teach-us-in-the-age-of-trump-68452">anarcho-syndicalism</a> as musical performance.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580596/original/file-20240308-28-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman sings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580596/original/file-20240308-28-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580596/original/file-20240308-28-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580596/original/file-20240308-28-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580596/original/file-20240308-28-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580596/original/file-20240308-28-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580596/original/file-20240308-28-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580596/original/file-20240308-28-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vocalist Moor Mother was musical and percussive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Francesca/Perth Festival</span></span>
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<p>Soul legends Cymande were another standout, with complex funky song structures, often featuring different arrangements in the same piece. </p>
<p>They powered through their best-known song Bra two-thirds in, but later brought the crowd to an exultant conclusion. A well-oiled soul machine of a three-piece brass section, drums, congas, keyboards, bass and guitar, it was fantastic performance by what is now an exemplar for orchestrated creolised soul.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580598/original/file-20240308-24-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man at a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580598/original/file-20240308-24-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580598/original/file-20240308-24-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580598/original/file-20240308-24-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580598/original/file-20240308-24-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580598/original/file-20240308-24-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580598/original/file-20240308-24-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580598/original/file-20240308-24-hd5iby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Soul legends Cymande were a standout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Francesca/Perth Festival</span></span>
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<h2>Politics and art</h2>
<p>Marrugeku’s Mutiara was the supreme example of politics melding with artistic form. </p>
<p>Marrugeku excels at taking cultural memories of oppression and turning them into conflicted yet energised choreography. </p>
<p>Mutiara is framed around the experience of First Nations, Malay and creole workers in the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/lustre-pearling-and-australia">Australian pearling industry</a> of the early 20th century. The dancers fight impulses from within, generating empowered choreographic expressions. </p>
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<span class="caption">Marrugeku extol at taking cultural memories of oppression and turning them into choreography.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton/Perth Festival</span></span>
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<p>The choreography is co-devised by performers Soultari Amin
Farid, Dalisa Pigram and Zee Zunnur, together with Ahmat Bin Fadal. It draws on Malay martial arts (<em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silat">silat</a></em>), First Nations and Malay dance and European dance theatre. Sequences are often marked by abrupt redirections of velocity. Although weaving and flowing, the movement often pauses or pops, before finding new ways out of each temporary arrest. The dancers break through barriers with almost every gesture.</p>
<p>In one eerie sequence, the dancers enter not quite staggering, with black wicker baskets over their heads, hands flailing in slow motion or pointing in awkward poses. Only later did I realise this sequence represented the dancers dreaming of being dressed in diving helmets while finding their way on the bottom of the ocean. </p>
<p>For many festival shows, just the act of putting on the show could be political, but Marrugeku focused on that most complex tool of political expression: the body.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan W. Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Across the program, I was struck by how it was often more in the act of putting on and performing the work, rather than their spoken content, that expressed political responses to our times.
Jonathan W. Marshall, Associate Professor & Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224520
2024-02-29T00:30:44Z
2024-02-29T00:30:44Z
Australian writers festivals are engulfed in controversy over the war in Gaza. How can they uphold their duty to public debate?
<p>A string of controversies are engulfing Melbourne Writers’ Festival, the Perth Festival’s Writers’ Weekend, the Sydney Opera House’s All About Women and Adelaide Writers Week. There’s a high-profile resignation, calls to cancel speakers and allegations of the spread of “historically untrue” facts and of normalising violence. </p>
<p>All, in one way or another, have been generated by divisions over the war in Gaza.</p>
<p>Writers’ festivals are in a fraught position. They navigate the frontier between social media’s echo chambers of outrage and the traditional public square’s conventions, where restraint, reason and tolerance in the face of opposing views are the basis for civilised debate.</p>
<p>How is it all playing out, and what are the consequences for the public exchange of ideas?</p>
<h2>‘Historically untrue’?</h2>
<p>At <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/gaza-conflict-engulfs-melbourne-writers-%20festival-as-leaders-quit-over-program-row-20240222-p5f757.html">Melbourne Writers Festival</a>, the deputy chair of the board, Dr Leslie Reti, has resigned over a poetry session that will involve Aboriginal and Palestinian poets reading their work.</p>
<p>The session is guest-curated by Koori-Lebanese writer Mykaela Saunders. It is based on the proposition Aboriginal and Palestinian people have a shared experience of having been colonised, becoming victims of atrocities by the colonising power. </p>
<p>Melbourne Writers Festival artistic director Michaela McGuire has confirmed the dispute is centred on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/feb/27/melbourne-writers-festival-deputy-chair-resigns-aboriginal-palestinian-solidarity-poetry-event-gaza-conflict">a line of program copy that reads</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aboriginal and Palestinian solidarity has a long history, a relationship that is more vital than ever in the movement to resist colonialism and speak out against atrocities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a historically contentious proposition. Dr Reti, a retired Jewish clinician, said he respected McGuire’s curatorial independence, but described the material in the draft program as “historically untrue and deeply offensive”.</p>
<p>Prominent Aboriginal scholar Professor Marcia Langton, of the University of Melbourne, has also rejected proposed similarity between the experience of Aboriginal and Palestinian people, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/gaza-conflict-engulfs-melbourne-writers-festival-as-leaders-quit-over-program-row-20240222-p5f757.html">saying</a>, “there is very little comparable in our respective situations, other than our humanity”.</p>
<p>Saunders was one of 132 Indigenous activists, artists and intellectuals who signed <a href="https://therednation.org/statement-of-indigenous-solidarity-with-palestine/">a petition released on October 27 last year</a> that claimed: “The past two weeks of horrific violence in Gaza resulted from 75 years of Israeli settler colonial dispossession”. </p>
<p>McGuire has defended her decision not to change the copy for Saunders’ event, titled Let it Bring Hope, saying “I completely support the right to self-determined programming”. </p>
<p>She <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/melbourne-mornings/melbourne-writers-festival-split-over-war-in-gaza/103512224">told ABC Radio on Monday</a>: “This entire event is about Aboriginal and Palestinian solidarity. It’s not for or about anyone who doesn’t subscribe to that, and so it doesn’t make any sense to not mention that in the event copy.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/gaza-conflict-engulfs-melbourne-writers-festival-as-leaders-quit-over-program-row-20240222-p5f757.html">Last year</a>, the Melbourne Writers Festival board decided “while writers should be free to express their views, the festival should not take a public position on the war”.</p>
<p>The Age <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/gaza-conflict-engulfs-melbourne-writers-%20festival-as-leaders-quit-over-program-row-20240222-p5f757.html">reported on Monday</a> that Fiona Menzies, the festival’s interim chief executive, also resigned over the festival’s program. But Alice Hill, chair of the board, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/feb/27/melbourne-writers-festival-deputy-chair-resigns-aboriginal-palestinian-solidarity-poetry-event-gaza-conflict">told the Guardian</a> that Menzies had resigned “for personal reasons, and would continue her relationship with the festival in a consultancy capacity”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-palestinian-authors-award-ceremony-has-been-cancelled-at-frankfurt-book-fair-this-sends-the-wrong-signals-at-the-wrong-time-215712">A Palestinian author's award ceremony has been cancelled at Frankfurt Book Fair. This sends the wrong signals at the wrong time</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Normalising violence?</h2>
<p>In Perth, the argument was over the inclusion of Jewish singer-songwriter Deborah Conway in the opening night of the Perth Festival’s Writers’ Weekend last week. In <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-breakfast/israel-gaza-arts-protests-deborah-conway/103231158">an interview on ABC Radio National</a>, she had questioned whether Palestinian children killed by the Israeli Defence Forces were really children. (“It depends on what you really call kids.”)</p>
<p>Conway contextualised her remarks to me this week, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was trying to tell listeners, in the cut and thrust of a live interview situation, that when Hamas put guns in the hands of their adolescent sons to point at the enemy, Hamas steals their childhood, turns them into fighters & then turns them into casualty figures. It’s unbearably cruel. I wasn’t talking about babies or little children, nor was I defining what I think to be a child, it goes without saying that the deaths of innocents are always tragic.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In an <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfUvUWq0GLIbhstqVzFMsxguiWjawr__aTI-CeKuZQoZUfJng/viewform">open letter to the festival</a>, more than 500 writers and arts workers said that by including Conway, the festival was putting safety at risk and giving a platform to someone whose comments on the radio “seek to normalise the ongoing genocide enacted by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people”.</p>
<p>This provoked a response from Dr Nick Dyrenfurth, executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre, a left-of-centre think tank, in which he said Conway’s “crime of being Jewish” was the reason <a href="https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/festival-slammed-for-promoting-%20deborah-conway-after-palestine-comments,18359">this attempt was being made to “deplatform” her</a>.</p>
<p>In Sydney, a petition protesting against the appointment of the feminist author Clementine Ford as a co-curator of the Opera House’s <a href="https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/all-about-women">All About Women</a> festival has garnered about 6,700 signatures since it was started on 6 February. Ford has programmed three events at the festival.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.australianjewishnews.com/petition-against-%20opera-house-appearance/">petition alleges</a> Ford’s public communications since the attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023 have made “a direct and harmful” contribution to the “hateful climate” that has developed in Australia since those attacks, exemplified by a <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/australian-jews-suffer-738-per-cent-spike-in-antisemitic-abuse/news-story/33ed1f60ff568d31ce399b325bbc03a2">738% increase</a> in anti-Semitic incidents, as recorded by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.</p>
<p>Ford has not called for violence against Jewish people.</p>
<p>The MP for the Sydney seat of Vaucluse in the New South Wales Parliament, Kellie Sloane, and some Jewish community leaders have raised their concerns about Ford’s curatorship, following her involvement in <a href="https://theconversation.com/doxing-or-in-the-public-interest-free-speech-cancelling-and-the-ethics-of-the-jewish-creatives-whatsapp-group-leak-223323">the alleged “doxing”</a> of about 600 Jewish writers, artists and academics. This involved the social media sharing of personal details, including names and professions, leaked from a WhatsApp group, without their consent.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/doxing-or-in-the-public-interest-free-speech-cancelling-and-the-ethics-of-the-jewish-creatives-whatsapp-group-leak-223323">Doxing or in the public interest? Free speech, 'cancelling' and the ethics of the Jewish creatives' WhatsApp group leak</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Daniel Aghion, <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/political-and-jewish-leaders-raise-clementine-ford-%20curatorship-red-flag-after-creatives-doxxing/news-story/aae6e8abdd09fb3393711c3c3c9bb544">was reported as saying</a> it was “baffling” someone who had caused this kind of harm should be appearing at one of Australia’s “most prestigious forums”.</p>
<p>Some Jewish leaders, including Anti-Defamation Commission chairman, Dr Dvir Abramovich, want Ford <a href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/jewish-leaders-have-called-for-clementine-ford-to-be-banned-%20from-adelaide-writers-week/news-story/8252b039c71c87c80afae3fe012d03f9%20So%20far,%20none%20of%20the%20protests%20have%20resulted%20in%20any%20of%20these%20people%20being%20banned.">banned from the Adelaide Festival’s Writers’ Week</a>, which starts this weekend, on 2 March.</p>
<p>Louise Adler, director of Adelaide Writers Week, <a href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/adelaide-festival/adelaide-writers-week-2024-festival-hit-with-new-backlash-as-organisers-strongly-defend-program/news-story/c56fcae109190ffa206c55119d756b59">resisted calls to remove Ford</a> from the program, saying “I chose Clementine Ford because of her writing on contemporary Australian sexual politics and about her current book about marriage, which I thought was interesting.” She called her views on “other issues” on social media “immaterial”.</p>
<p>South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas <a href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/jewish-leaders-have-called-for-clementine-ford-to-be-banned-from-adelaide-writers-week/news-story/8252b039c71c87c80afae3fe012d03f9">declined to get involved</a>, saying he would not be a “premier that engages in censorship at arts festivals”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-calls-to-cancel-two-palestinian-writers-from-adelaide-writers-week-justified-200165">Are calls to cancel two Palestinian writers from Adelaide Writers' Week justified?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Freedom of speech challenged</h2>
<p>Each of these cases presents a challenge to freedom of speech, for different reasons and in different ways.</p>
<p>Writers’ festivals are opportunities for the public to see and hear from people who are presumed to have thought deeply about complex issues, and who have written about them. They are also forums for the writers themselves to challenge and be challenged on their points of view.</p>
<p>In a world conditioned by the emotive views and intolerant habits of social media, where those who hold opposing views are often seen as irredeemable and even illegitimate, it requires a demanding intellectual effort to adjust to the world of the public square.</p>
<p>There, by convention, opposing views are tolerated, even respected, and questions are decided by reasoned argument based on evidence – rather than emotive, sometimes insulting, rhetoric.</p>
<p>The current debates around these festivals show our society is a fair way from making this adjustment.</p>
<p>In the Melbourne case, the problem arises because of a contestable claim in the draft program that “Aboriginal and Palestinian solidarity has a long history, a relationship that is more vital than ever in the movement to resist colonialism and speak out against atrocities”.</p>
<p>Whether or not there is a long history of solidarity between Aboriginal and Palestinian people – which Professor Langton, for one, rejects – might be debated. But the wording of the draft program presents the debate as already decided in the affirmative. That might represent the view of curator Mykaela Saunders and some other First Nations people, but clearly not all of them.</p>
<p>In the Perth case, Conway’s statement questioning whether the children killed by the Israel Defence Forces are really children is, for the most part, demonstrably false, as we see nightly on the television news. This does harm. A falsehood pollutes the community’s information pool. </p>
<p>In the Sydney and Adelaide cases, Ford’s participation in the Whatsapp leak is likewise harmful. The leak violated people’s privacy and put people’s safety at risk. The harm principle sets the boundary at which the individual’s right of free speech gives way to the larger public interest in harm prevention.</p>
<p>The case in principle against Ford is particularly strong because of the obvious harm caused by the public dissemination of people’s private information. The fact that she is not programmed to speak about the war in Gaza at her events – she is speaking about her anti-marriage book in both <a href="https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/all-about-women/play-the-girl">Sydney</a> and <a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/2024-writers-week/i-do-i-don-t/">Adelaide</a> – makes no difference to this point of principle. In practice, however, banning her would risk making her into a martyr. </p>
<p>None of these festivals have responded to public pressure to change their programs, speakers or even the wording of their copy. Better still, rather than banning speakers or changing programs, festivals could arrange to include challenges on these controversial actions and words. For example, someone in Ford’s position could be invited to make the case for the WhatsApp leak and be challenged on its violation of privacy principles.</p>
<p>That way, the festivals would do their job of promoting debate. A festival where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, or where the openmindedness of the organisers is in question, is just another echo chamber.</p>
<p>Against that, there is the question of public safety, which has been raised by those who wanted Conway banned in Perth and Ford in Adelaide. The exact threat to public safety is not spelt out, but the debate shows we urgently need to learn to better negotiate this frontier between social media and the world of flesh and blood.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been amended to clarify the context of Deborah Conway’s remarks during her earlier radio interview.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Writers festivals navigate the fraught frontier between social media’s echo chambers of outrage and the civilised public debate of the public square. What’s the way forward in this heated atmosphere?
Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220665
2024-02-13T00:15:02Z
2024-02-13T00:15:02Z
A theatre production … in the pool? This new play in Perth leaves the audience buoyed
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574899/original/file-20240212-18-6k7w86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C3004%2C2013&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/BSSTC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>My obsession for public pools began when I was growing up in Perth at the iconic 1960s Beatty Park. Living in Melbourne I swam in the “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/melbourne-breakfast/fitzroy-pool/11523190">aqua profonda</a>” of the Fitzroy pool, listened to the underwater music (which in the 1980s was novel) at the Prahran pool and lapped at the pool that attracts attention for being named after a drowned prime minister — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_Centre">the Harold Holt</a>. So, I was looking forward to Black Swan State Theatre Company’s new production The Pool, and it doesn’t disappoint.</p>
<p>Playwright Steve Rodgers’ love of swimming is the play’s genesis. A regular lap swimmer, Rodgers was struck by the diversity of people who gathered at pools and started to imagine their stories. What followed were interviews with workers at community pools and in aged care, teenagers, family and friends, and a play that celebrates the pool and its capacity to create community. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-timeless-appeal-of-an-ocean-pool-turns-out-its-a-good-investment-too-127912">The timeless appeal of an ocean pool – turns out it's a good investment, too</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Watching on from poolside</h2>
<p>Directed by Kate Champion, the production of this play has been cleverly conceived as a site-specific work at the Bold Park Aquatic Centre’s outdoor Olympic pool. Given Perth’s current heatwave, this venue is welcomed. But beyond this, it enables us to experience the pool’s atmosphere – the smell of chlorine, sound of water lapping at the sides – and to be part of the action. </p>
<p>Seated poolside, we observe the goings on in and around the pool just as Rodgers did. But we don’t have to imagine the stories. Equipped with headphones, we eavesdrop on conversations and are privy to the characters’ inner thoughts in carefully woven monologues, as these characters reminisce, reveal long held secrets and whisper their fears.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574900/original/file-20240212-30-yxtap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Actors in a pool" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574900/original/file-20240212-30-yxtap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574900/original/file-20240212-30-yxtap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574900/original/file-20240212-30-yxtap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574900/original/file-20240212-30-yxtap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574900/original/file-20240212-30-yxtap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574900/original/file-20240212-30-yxtap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574900/original/file-20240212-30-yxtap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Given Perth’s current heatwave, this poolside venue is welcomed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/BSSTC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Pool’s characters represent the diversity of people who gather at pools and the myriad of reasons they go. </p>
<p>Loved-up teens Safiyah (Edyll Ismail) and Ananda (Tobias Muhafidin) are escaping the censuring gaze of adults. The over-60s trio of Roy (Geoff Kelso), wife Greta (Polly Low) and her buddy Val (Julia Moody) are healing their ageing bodies and family rifts. </p>
<p>Roy and Greta’s 40-year-old daughter Joni (Emma Jackson) is facing her fears. Quinn (Anna Gray) is looking for recognition. Morgan (Carys Munks) is seeking freedom. </p>
<p>Keeping these regulars afloat are poolside staff Kirk (Joel Jackson) and Sandra (Kylie Bracknell) with their own reasons for being there. The actors, from equally diverse backgrounds and with a range of acting experience, create a convincing ensemble. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574901/original/file-20240212-17-kdfbw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Actors on the edge of a pool" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574901/original/file-20240212-17-kdfbw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574901/original/file-20240212-17-kdfbw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574901/original/file-20240212-17-kdfbw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574901/original/file-20240212-17-kdfbw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574901/original/file-20240212-17-kdfbw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574901/original/file-20240212-17-kdfbw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574901/original/file-20240212-17-kdfbw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The actors are from diverse backgrounds and with a range of acting experience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/BSSTC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Passion for the pool</h2>
<p>Conviction and authenticity are at the heart of this production. Rodgers’ passion for water and the pool washes through his play. The dialogue is carefully crafted to sound natural and not overwritten, allowing the audience to piece the stories together as we would in life. It also allows space for Champion’s expert direction. </p>
<p>In the program, Champion writes she has “always been drawn to art that recreates a sense of authenticity”. She has achieved this in The Pool with details that blur the distinction between reality and theatre. </p>
<p>As we are ushered into the space, swimmers are in the pool, prompting somebody near me to speculate on whether they were actors or actual lap swimmers. As a finale, members of the audience can choose to join the cast in an aqua aerobic session. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574906/original/file-20240212-26-go150s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A line of swimmers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574906/original/file-20240212-26-go150s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574906/original/file-20240212-26-go150s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574906/original/file-20240212-26-go150s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574906/original/file-20240212-26-go150s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574906/original/file-20240212-26-go150s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574906/original/file-20240212-26-go150s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574906/original/file-20240212-26-go150s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Pool is greatly enhanced in its subtle shifts away from realism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/BSSTC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The actors’ movement in and around the pool and their entrances and exits are carefully choreographed not only to retain focus on the main action but to replicate the rhythms and patterns of people at public pools.</p>
<p>The Pool is greatly enhanced in its subtle shifts away from realism. Champion picks up on the aesthetics of the public pool, focusing on the sensuality of its water and beauty of its objects: handrails, ramp, deckchairs and lane ropes. Actors’ interactions with these features have been shaped to highlight the grace in our everyday movements. </p>
<p>Key to this poetic strain is a chorus of swimmers who appear throughout. They are sublime, morphing from being regulars lounging, lapping, diving and performing impressive bommies to performing carefully choreographed water sequences that frame and comment on scenes. </p>
<p>Their inclusion greatly contributes to the poignancy of the play. </p>
<h2>A place of connection</h2>
<p>Crucial to all this is the audio. The use of headphones for the audience creates an intimacy with the characters. Composer and sound designer Tim Collins’ finely nuanced score supports the action without dominating, and without any hitches. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574902/original/file-20240212-26-3p863l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An aqua aerobic session." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574902/original/file-20240212-26-3p863l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574902/original/file-20240212-26-3p863l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574902/original/file-20240212-26-3p863l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574902/original/file-20240212-26-3p863l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574902/original/file-20240212-26-3p863l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574902/original/file-20240212-26-3p863l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574902/original/file-20240212-26-3p863l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As a finale, members of the audience could choose to join in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/BSSTC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.royallifesaving.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/56605/RLSSA-Social-Impacts-Report-Final-November-2021-Web-and-Print.pdf">more than 2,000</a> swimming pools open to the public in Australia. They have been sites of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/21/freedom-ride-revisiting-the-dip-in-the-pool-that-changed-a-segregated-town">protest and social change</a>. This production shows they are also a space where we can have a laugh, shed our skins and find or lose ourselves – and ultimately find connection with others. </p>
<p>At a time when we sorely need it, The Pool speaks to our humanity. The opening night audience left buoyed. </p>
<p><em>Black Swan State Theatre Company’s The Pool is on until 25 February.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/take-a-plunge-into-the-memories-of-australias-favourite-swimming-pools-128928">Take a plunge into the memories of Australia's favourite swimming pools</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Trenos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In Black Swan State Theatre Company’s new production The Pool, playwright Steve Rodgers’ love of swimming is the play’s genesis
Helen Trenos, Lecturer (Theatre & Creative Arts), Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221868
2024-02-06T04:27:58Z
2024-02-06T04:27:58Z
Yhonnie Scarce’s glass works are a glistening, poignant exploration of how nuclear testing affected First Nations people
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573368/original/file-20240205-21-p37dyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8000%2C5329&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cloud Chamber (2020). Blown glass, dimensions variable. On loan from the
TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria. © Yhonnie Scarce</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains themes and references to historical events which may be distressing.</em></p>
<p>Yhonnie Scarce, a Kokatha and Nukunu artist, has emerged in recent years as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists. Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, curates a survey of significant works by Scarce from the last few years. </p>
<p>The exhibition presents a “best-of” for a wider West Australian public who may not be familiar with the South Australian artist. At the same time, it’s an opportunity for Western Australia’s art followers to see a range of works not previously assembled in Perth. </p>
<h2>A translucent shower</h2>
<p>The exhibition is installed across two levels, conjoined through an architectural void that invites spectacle. In this void, Scarce’s glistening Thunder Raining Poison (2016-17) hangs from the ceiling by hundreds of wires.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573614/original/file-20240205-15-cpme8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573614/original/file-20240205-15-cpme8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573614/original/file-20240205-15-cpme8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573614/original/file-20240205-15-cpme8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573614/original/file-20240205-15-cpme8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573614/original/file-20240205-15-cpme8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573614/original/file-20240205-15-cpme8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573614/original/file-20240205-15-cpme8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thunder Raining Poison (2016-17). Hand-blown glass, wire, metal armature 500cm (height), dimensions otherwise variable. Collection: National Gallery of Australia. Purchased 2016. This acquisition has been supported by Susan Armitage in recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum. © Yhonnie Scarce.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scarce’s works are so steeped in the contemporary art idiom that, despite the centrality of glass throughout this exhibition, we might not at first consider her a “glass artist”. Yet in Thunder Raining Poison, and in her two other “cloud” works, Cloud Chamber (2020) and Death Zephyr (2016), the artist draws our attention to the fragility and beauty of the material. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573615/original/file-20240205-24-lnb849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573615/original/file-20240205-24-lnb849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573615/original/file-20240205-24-lnb849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573615/original/file-20240205-24-lnb849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573615/original/file-20240205-24-lnb849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573615/original/file-20240205-24-lnb849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573615/original/file-20240205-24-lnb849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573615/original/file-20240205-24-lnb849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Death Zephyr (2016) (detail). Hand-blown glass, nylon and steel, dimensions variable. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased with funds provided by the Aboriginal Art Collection Benefactors, 2017. © Yhonnie Scarce. Image © Art Gallery of New of New South Wales 14.2017.a-c.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Each of these cloud works are clusters of hanging glass yams. This potato-like tuberous root vegetable, which urban-dwelling Australians may not be familiar with, grows throughout the bush. </p>
<p>In Scarce’s aesthetic and material, yams signify death. The sensitivity of the exhibition’s themes, and perhaps the low lighting, seem to demand quiet in the space. In this silence we hear the gentle chiming of the hand blown yams, reinforcing their fragility. </p>
<p>Hanging in clusters, these clear and black glass yams evoke the dynamism of clouds collapsing into sheets of rain – black rain – falling after the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/maralinga">nuclear bomb tests</a> that were carried out on Scarce’s traditional lands in South Australia, between 1952 and 1963. Born in Woomera, Scarce is descended from the Lake Eyre Kokatha people and the Southern Flinders Ranges Nukunu people.</p>
<p>The works resonate with another Indigenous work in the gallery’s collection: Lin Onus’s installation work, <a href="https://sc.artgallery.wa.gov.au/19900236a-b-maralinga">Maralinga</a> (1990), which depicts an Aboriginal woman and children facing, in horror, a mushroom cloud signified by radioactive symbols. Yet Scarce’s material dialect is much more poetic. </p>
<h2>Nuclear colonialism</h2>
<p>Australian nuclear colonialism is a recurrent theme in the exhibition, with the upstairs gallery including three of Scarce’s Glass Bomb works from the Blue Danube series (2015).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573619/original/file-20240205-19-sbts2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573619/original/file-20240205-19-sbts2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573619/original/file-20240205-19-sbts2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573619/original/file-20240205-19-sbts2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573619/original/file-20240205-19-sbts2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573619/original/file-20240205-19-sbts2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573619/original/file-20240205-19-sbts2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573619/original/file-20240205-19-sbts2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Glass Bomb (Blue Danube) Series 1, 11, 111 (2015). Hand-blown glass, yarn 18x48x18; 25x60x25; 22x64x22cm. Purchased 2016. Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. © Yhonnie Scarce.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps the most poignant work with this theme is Fallout Babies (2016). Set in a corner space, this work is partially surrounded by a floor-to-ceiling photograph of a graveyard with the buried bodies of children from communities that were exposed to the fallout from the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/maralinga">bomb testing</a>. The bodies are metaphorically represented by bulbous glass plums, which speak of fertility and promise. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573621/original/file-20240205-27-fvw0hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573621/original/file-20240205-27-fvw0hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573621/original/file-20240205-27-fvw0hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573621/original/file-20240205-27-fvw0hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573621/original/file-20240205-27-fvw0hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573621/original/file-20240205-27-fvw0hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573621/original/file-20240205-27-fvw0hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573621/original/file-20240205-27-fvw0hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fallout Babies (2016). Blown glass, found hospital cribs, dimensions variable. Collection of the artist. Image courtesy of the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY, Melbourne. © Yhonnie Scarce. Photographer: Janelle Low.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hollowing Earth (2016-17) is made of materials quite <a href="https://www.decorativecollective.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-uranium-glass">literally infused</a> with trace amounts of uranium. It glows a luminous green under the black-lit gallery. The glass vessels in Hollowing Earth represent bush bananas, another recurrent bush food in Scarce’s aesthetic cypher. The glass surfaces of many of these voluminous glowing bodies are torn while the glass is still hot and malleable. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573623/original/file-20240205-25-7zt0p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573623/original/file-20240205-25-7zt0p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573623/original/file-20240205-25-7zt0p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573623/original/file-20240205-25-7zt0p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573623/original/file-20240205-25-7zt0p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573623/original/file-20240205-25-7zt0p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573623/original/file-20240205-25-7zt0p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573623/original/file-20240205-25-7zt0p1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hollowing Earth (2016-17) (detail). Blown and hot formed uranium glass, dimensions variable. Collection of the artist. Image courtesy of the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY, Melbourne. © Yhonnie Scarce. Photographer: Janelle Low.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-world-pushes-for-a-ban-on-nuclear-weapons-australia-votes-to-stay-on-the-wrong-side-of-history-68337">As the world pushes for a ban on nuclear weapons, Australia votes to stay on the wrong side of history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Bush bananas also appear in the work In The Dead House (2020), a work previously installed in the old mortuary in Adelaide Botanic Gardens as part the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-meeting-of-monsters-at-the-adelaide-biennial-brings-us-closer-to-our-fears-132753">2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art</a>. Laid out on a vintage mortuary trolley, fragile glass bodies are ripped wide open.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573624/original/file-20240205-27-ntl9ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573624/original/file-20240205-27-ntl9ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573624/original/file-20240205-27-ntl9ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573624/original/file-20240205-27-ntl9ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573624/original/file-20240205-27-ntl9ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573624/original/file-20240205-27-ntl9ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573624/original/file-20240205-27-ntl9ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573624/original/file-20240205-27-ntl9ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the dead house (2020). Hand-blown glass, found mortuary trolley, dimensions variable. Collection of the artist. Image courtesy of the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY, Melbourne. © Yhonnie Scarce. Photographer: Saul Steed.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The work references early 20th century Adelaide coroner, Ramsay Smith, who <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-20/tommy-walker-graverobbing-adelaide-coroner-indigenous-history/12721850">profited from exporting</a> Aboriginal remains to British museums. Smith is notorious for having decapitated the corpses – and the bush bananas echo heads and bodies that have been violently disgorged.</p>
<h2>Moments of gentle beauty</h2>
<p>Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day includes some moments of gentle beauty found in the love of family and tragic ancestry. Both Remember Royalty (2018) and Dinah (2016) belong to stories of trauma, institutionalised racism and inhumane colonial abuse. But these are also moments in this exhibition that actively seek to restore pride that was once brutally taken. </p>
<p>Dinah includes a cropped photograph of the artist’s great grandmother, Dinah Coleman, taken in the 1920s without her consent. She was at Koonibba, a Lutheran mission near Ceduna, South Australia. </p>
<p>As the wall text notes, the photo was quite possibly taken by the anthropologist <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/family-history/family-history-sources/tindale-genealogies">Norman Tindale</a>, who visited in 1924. This suggests it was an anthropological image that subjected Dinah to a dehumanising scientific gaze. Scarce’s cropped photograph of Dinah restores her dignity and humanity. </p>
<p>Similarly, Remember Royalty takes images of Scarce’s close ancestors and enlarges them on fine vintage fabrics. They look out at an audience in 2024, returning their gaze as equals. Not surprisingly, this complex and sensitively presented work was acquired by London’s Tate Modern gallery in 2022. </p>
<p>As with the other works in this exhibition, we have the opportunity to contemplate this work in its raw yet visually seductive materiality, before this and the other works are once again dispersed. </p>
<p><em>Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day is at the Art Gallery of Western Australia until May 19</em>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-sliced-open-radioactive-particles-from-soil-in-south-australia-and-found-they-may-be-leaking-plutonium-161277">We sliced open radioactive particles from soil in South Australia and found they may be leaking plutonium</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kit Messham-Muir is the Lead Chief Investigator on 'Art of Peace', a three-year ARC Linkage project in partnership with the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) and National Trust (NSW) and in collaboration with academics from University of New South Wales, University of Melbourne, University of the Arts London and California State University. Art of Peace receives a Linkage Project grant (LP210300068) from the Australian Research Council over three years (2023-2026). He is not involved in any way with the curation or exhibition of Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day at AGWA.
</span></em></p>
The sensitivity of the exhibition’s themes, coupled with low lighting, seems to demand quiet in the space. In this silence, you hear the gentle chiming of hand-blown glass.
Kit Messham-Muir, Professor in Art, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202029
2023-03-17T03:12:39Z
2023-03-17T03:12:39Z
Björk was the big-ticket name – but Perth Festival’s heart was found in Bikutsi 3000’s afrofuturist musing on African resistance
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515965/original/file-20230316-18-20pk39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C2038%2C1361&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jess Wyld/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the culturally curious, February and March in Perth can be a rich maelstrom, with Perth Fringe and Perth Festival. We have apparently the world’s “<a href="https://fringeworld.com.au/news/7-facts-about-fringe-world-that-ll-make-you-go-hmmmm/">third largest</a>” fringe festival (after Edinburgh and Adelaide), but I’m not sure why this is good. </p>
<p>Whatever the case, audiences must plan and be focused in navigating such a cornucopia of competing works in two simultaneous festivals. </p>
<p>My Perth Festival was complicated by a jaunt to Adelaide (in the middle of that city’s festival and fringe) but I was delighted to be able to follow links between works, including <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/afrofuturism">afrofuturism</a>, <a href="https://www.classical-music.com/features/articles/what-post-classical-music/">post-classical music</a> and arts offering haunting examples of <a href="https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-post-humanism/">post-humanism</a>: that which exceeds, replaces or accompanies the human. </p>
<h2>Deep listening</h2>
<p>Artistic director Iain Grandage’s previous Perth Festivals tended towards light musical programming, both in quantity and emphasis on accessibility – consider the festival obtaining the world record for <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-02/acdc-tribute-highway-to-hell-rocks-perth/12015120">biggest air guitar ensemble</a> in 2020.</p>
<p>This year, however, had many post-classical music highlights which demanded <a href="https://artreview.com/whats-the-point-of-deep-listening-pauline-oliveros/">deep listening</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Musicians on a deep blue stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Dread Of Voids was an uncompromising night of rich sonic assaults.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cam Campbell/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Anthony Pateras’ compositions piano, amplified vocals, clarinet, contrabass and flute with <a href="https://www.anthonypateras.com/bandsprojects/adreadofvoids-2021">A Dread of Voids</a> was an uncompromising night of rich sonic assaults and drone, often with cyclic developmental structures. </p>
<p>Pateras offered a masterful performance, framing the piano with electronics and off kilter pianistic effects such that, for me, it recalled to some degree his other works on prepared piano (where bolts, screws, paper and other materials render strings percussive). </p>
<p>This was followed by Cédric Tiberghien’s performance of <a href="https://matildamarseillaise.com/the-cage-project-en/">John Cage’s suite for prepared piano</a>. Matthias Schack-Arnott crafted a sounding mobile that rotated over Tiberghien. Spun by fans and motors, it gave the performance an air of the inhuman. Tambours and slates were struck above Tiberghien, adding density and counterpoint.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man at a piano." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cédric Tiberghien’s performance had an air of the inhuman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony McDonough/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Schack-Arnott also performed in his <a href="http://matthiasschackarnott.com/everywhen/">Everywhen</a>, intimately offered in the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. </p>
<p>Schack-Arnott circled within a lighter, jewel-like mobile, sometimes dragging along the ground ringing metal tubes, bells, seed-pods and more. </p>
<p>Schack-Arnott animated or removed items, before crouching ritualistically to play stones and other items, again accompanied by mechanically driven devices above.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Everywhen was intimately offered in the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The music program closed with Gradient from composer/photographer Olivia Davies, performed by Callum G’Froerer on double-bell trumpet. They offered a sort of aggressive chillout room, where G’Froerer’s looped, breathy, clattery and sometimes rhythmic sounds were accompanied by abstract distortions of images taken at the dilapidated Liberty Theatre.</p>
<h2>Deconstructing cinema and theatre</h2>
<p>Grandage has put First Nations art at the heart of his festivals, together with dance and theatre. </p>
<p>Stephanie Lake’s dance and drumming <a href="https://theconversation.com/innovative-and-thrilling-stephanie-lakes-manifesto-is-a-joy-175332">Manifesto</a> toured from the east. Sadly, it was too wide for Heath Ledger Theatre, with some spectators unable to see the drummers in the wings. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/innovative-and-thrilling-stephanie-lakes-manifesto-is-a-joy-175332">'Innovative and thrilling': Stephanie Lake's Manifesto is a joy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>I missed Australian Dance Theatre’s <a href="https://limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/tracker-australian-dance-theatre-and-ilbijerri-theatre-company/">The Tracker</a> and Maatakitj (Clint Bracknell) performing with Kronos Quartet. </p>
<p>Local versions of what Bracknell calls “Noongar-futurism” – inspired by afrofuturism and drawing on electronic dance culture – featured in 2023, with the outdoor opening event of Djoondal offering a <a href="https://www.artshub.com.au/news/reviews/review-djoondal-and-perth-moves-perth-festival-2614249/">fleet of synchronised drones</a> evoking celestial Dreamings.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Drones light up the sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Djoondal evoked celestial Dreamings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jarrad Russell/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Choreographer/director Laura Boynes’ <a href="https://limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/equations-of-a-falling-body-perth-festival/">Equations of a Falling Body</a> offered a beautiful disorder of objects, bodies and things piled and moved about stage in what has become something of a WA tradition, following Emma Fiswick’s 2021 Festival production of <a href="https://www.seesawmag.com.au/2021/03/dance-to-savour/">Slow Burn, Together</a>.</p>
<p>Aside from Equations of a Falling Body, this year’s theatre and dance highlights were tours of works from the eastern states. </p>
<p>Cyrano, from the Melbourne Theatre Company in association with Black Swan, was an enormously fun vehicle for writer/performer Virginia Gay. The other characters were thespians, so the performance was a cross between Pirandello’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Characters_in_Search_of_an_Author#">Six Characters in Search of an Author</a> and romantic melodrama, a celebratory post-COVID work, if perhaps ultimately forgettable.</p>
<p>The mobile screens above the stage for <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-production-to-satisfy-sydneys-darkest-imaginings-sydney-theatre-companys-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-185596">The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde</a>, from Sydney Theatre Company, produced not so much director Kip Williams’ professed “cine-theatre”, as a deconstructing of the inhuman cinematic machine itself. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was a deconstructing the inhuman cinematic machine itself.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Boud/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This suited Williams’ exploration of distorting mirrors and mediated character doubles, which was so polished as to be all but seamless. In this production, however, Williams lacks any improvisatory fun and sense of exploration in his use of screens. I preferred the take on screen-enhanced theatre from local company The Last Great Hunt, whose exceptional <a href="https://www.outinperth.com/review-the-last-great-hunt-bottle-brilliance-with-le-nor-the-rain/">Lé Nør [the rain]</a> in the 2019 festival pointed to the inconsistency between screen image and ludicrous on-stage setups, celebrating cine-theatrical playfulness.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-production-to-satisfy-sydneys-darkest-imaginings-sydney-theatre-companys-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-185596">A production to satisfy Sydney's darkest imaginings: Sydney Theatre Company's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A transcultural museological performance</h2>
<p>Black Futurist music was another feature of the 2023 festival. </p>
<p>Franco-Cameroonian <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gncpiNV5sIQ">Bikutsi 3000</a> presented an afrofuturist musing on African resistance to Western culture through dance-as-peaceful-combat. </p>
<p>With an African-European cast led by Blick Bassy, Bikutsi 3000 featured selections from the <a href="https://www.quaibranly.fr/en/">musée du quai Branly</a>’s film archives, framed as a faux lecture combined with projected displays of fantastist African couture. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women dancing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bikutsi 3000 presented an afrofuturist musing on African resistance to Western culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jess Wyld/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Voiceover text was paired with monumental living portraits of fictional matriarchs representing Cameroon, Namibia, Togo, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. </p>
<p>Accompanied by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOKEwtggKvw">throbbing house and hip hop</a>, it was punctuated by forceful Afro-fusion dance, mostly performed singly or in pairs, which combined regional forms of voguing, shade, hip hop, krumping and dancehall, alongside <a href="http://www.chinafrica.cn/Homepage/202108/t20210830_800256928.html">Indigenous African dance</a>. </p>
<p>Forceful energies rolled across the dancers’ chests while their limbs dropped and weaved. Legs and arms pumped or flew and circled. Bodies close to the ground flowed like liquid or shook vigorously. </p>
<p>Choreographer/dancers Nadeeya Gabrieli Kalati, Audrey Carlita, Martine Mbock and Mwendwa Marchand were exceptional, while Bassy’s inventive combination of blaring digital tones and bullhorns with African drumming and vocals recalled the best of South Africa’s electronic dance music scene.</p>
<p>As a transcultural museological performance, Bikutsi 3000 was nearly unique. Presented at the Studio Underground in the State Theatre Centre, it is unfortunate it wasn’t hosted at a museum. Presenting Bikutsi 3000 in the quai Branly was an implicit rebuke to the Anglo-European institutions still in charge of colonial heritage.</p>
<h2>The Romantic sublime</h2>
<p>The festival showstopper was Björk’s Cornucopia. Björk’s recordings are complex, multi-tracked works, and, like Bikutsi 3000, her stadium performance supplemented prerecorded material.</p>
<p>This produced hiccups, as when the on-stage use of bailers in a water tank to make music was inaudible and out of synchronisation. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When Björk’s production gelled, it was magic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Santiago Felipe/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the night I saw the performance, Björk was dressed in an unglamorous blue satin blob, which suited her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/04/bjork-cornucopia-review-an-electrifying-pop-concert-art-installation-and-opening-ceremony-rolled-into-one">retiring performance persona</a>.</p>
<p>Without a charismatic megastar around which to anchor, Cornucopia became an agglutinated, operatic audiovisual spectacle. It was Björk’s flute septet Viibra who bopped away, not Björk. </p>
<p>But when it gelled, it was magic, as when Björk sat inside a giant “circle flute” played by four women, the singer’s angst-ridden vocals soaring.</p>
<p>Björk describes the show as representing a futuristic human/nature utopia, but it’s a utopia that has little space for humans. Projections for Body Memory <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaQfixl2Ss4">showed</a> twisting headless bodies with spines and ridges deforming them, while <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu">Cthulhu</a>-like figures ascended as flayed skins. </p>
<p>In Björk’s fantasy, something descended from us will survive, but it won’t be any more human than Schack-Arnott’s mobiles.</p>
<p>Unlike the Black Futurist music theatre of the festival which offers an exuberant critical socio-cultural alternative way of viewing the past and the present, Björk’s alt-classicism and Jekyll echo older European models of the <a href="https://scalar.usc.edu/works/the-bengal-annual/sublime">Romantic sublime</a>: something appealing or beautiful because it will soon destroy us.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-exhibitionism-riot-grrrl-and-climate-change-activism-30-years-of-raging-by-peaches-bikini-kill-and-bjork-still-going-strong-201388">Sexual exhibitionism, Riot Grrrl and climate change activism: 30 years of raging by Peaches, Bikini Kill and Björk, still going strong</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: Anthony Pateras’ compositions were not for a prepared piano. This has been corrected.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202029/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan W. Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Iain Grandage’s fourth Perth Festival continued his focus on First Nations performance, together with an exhilarating dose of Black Futurism as well as demanding post-classical music.
Jonathan W. Marshall, Associate Professor & Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201388
2023-03-16T19:12:19Z
2023-03-16T19:12:19Z
Sexual exhibitionism, Riot Grrrl and climate change activism: 30 years of raging by Peaches, Bikini Kill and Björk, still going strong
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515643/original/file-20230315-22-aol773.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2044%2C1364&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Santiago Felipe/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kathleen Hanna yells like she did in the 1990s, pushing the toxic male patriarchy out of the moshpit at Melbourne’s The Forum on the eve of International Women’s Day.</p>
<p>Hanna’s band Bikini Kill rampages through hits such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjS0R5BmYtg">Suck My Left One</a>, thrilling a happy, bopping crowd of parents with their teenaged children laced with a mixed gender of preppie and diehard punks, goths and curious spectators. </p>
<p>Across town at the Northcote Theatre the next day, Peaches comes out with a walking frame, wearing breast-shaped slippers with bright red erect nipples. </p>
<p>The popular sexual exhibitionist is still hoarsely rapping about abortion, and now the debate over the end of Roe vs Wade, with songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzdefT9nNOM">Boys Wanna Be Her</a>. She later wades into the beloved audience inside a large inflatable penis.</p>
<p>In Perth, a few days later, Björk’s echo-filled, childlike voice is as harrowing and powerful as ever.</p>
<p>These artists, all now aged in their 50s, are popular provocateurs, pulsating with rage. Feminism, ageism, sexism, transphobia, racism, capitalism and environmentalism are their musical agenda.</p>
<h2>Do-it-yourself ethos</h2>
<p>As Gen X, third-wave feminist icons, Peaches (Merrill Nisker), Bikini Kill and Björk grew up during the punk movements of the 1970s and ‘80s. </p>
<p>Based in Olympia in Washington State, Bikini Kill was part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_grrrl">Riot Grrrl</a> movement in the early 1990s, funnelling the do-it-yourself punk ethos into zines, songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOCWma5vOiQ">Rebel Girl</a>, and confrontational live shows.</p>
<p>Bikini Kill encouraged women and girls to start bands as a form of “<a href="https://bikinikill.com/about/">cultural resistance</a>”, challenging masculine toxicity long before <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Reporting-on-Sexual-Violence-in-the-MeToo-Era/Baker-Rodrigues/p/book/9781032115511?gclid=Cj0KCQjwtsCgBhDEARIsAE7RYh17gz-j49hVcVOkxPbOmppFnQc-YtekC7FKeqrtbO-1R72MtoEBIE4aAgKDEALw_wcB">#MeToo</a>. </p>
<p>During the 1990s in Canada, Nisker formed a Riot Grrrl band, Fancypants Hoodlum. </p>
<p>By 2000, aged 33 and recovering from cancer and a heartbreak, she renamed herself Peaches. Her solo electro-pop album The Teaches of Peaches became a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/08/peaches-the-teaches-of-peaches-the-start">feminist classic</a>, with singles like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZz5nBc2_Bw">Lovertits</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515711/original/file-20230316-22-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515711/original/file-20230316-22-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515711/original/file-20230316-22-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515711/original/file-20230316-22-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515711/original/file-20230316-22-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515711/original/file-20230316-22-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515711/original/file-20230316-22-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515711/original/file-20230316-22-fy5fg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peaches, Mona Sessions at Mona, Mona Foma 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recording music since the age of 11 in Iceland, in 1992 Björk left <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFQPNApwJGU">The Sugarcubes</a>, the alternative rock band she co-formed in 1986. </p>
<p>Björk’s first solo album came out in 1993, with huge hits like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0mRIhK9seg">Human Behaviour</a> about the way humans act and interact. </p>
<p>Thirty years on, they are all still making music.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/harder-faster-louder-challenging-sexism-in-the-music-industry-58420">Harder, faster, louder: challenging sexism in the music industry</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Women supporting each other</h2>
<p>Bikini Kill are killing it during their all-ages gigs at The Forum. </p>
<p>The Forum’s iconic roman statues look down from the ceiling. Lead singer Hanna wears a khaki green, girly dress with pink punky tights, backed up by Kathi Wilcox on bass and <a href="https://musicfeeds.com.au/news/bikini-kill-have-announced-their-first-australian-tour-in-25-years/">Sara Landeau</a> (from The Julie Ruin) on guitar. Drummer Vail is sick tonight, so Lauren Hammel from Victoria’s Tropical Fuck Storm is filling in. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515712/original/file-20230316-26-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515712/original/file-20230316-26-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515712/original/file-20230316-26-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515712/original/file-20230316-26-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515712/original/file-20230316-26-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515712/original/file-20230316-26-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515712/original/file-20230316-26-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515712/original/file-20230316-26-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bikini Kill, Mona Sessions at Mona, Mona Foma 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hanna tells us she has “a gratitude journal” now, but remains Riot Grrrl-fuelled about the Trump era, rape, abortion, trans rights and Black Lives Matter.</p>
<p>She tells how during the 1990s audiences once spat in her face and threw things at the band on stage. These days they rarely do. </p>
<p>Hanna’s demeanour softens when a young female audience member gives her a carboard sign reading “Kathleen please draw my next next tattoo based on [the song] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWjCdLtx5t4">Feels Blind</a>”. </p>
<p>At Peaches’ performance, the eclectic crowd is enthusiastically cheering her on. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515713/original/file-20230316-20-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515713/original/file-20230316-20-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515713/original/file-20230316-20-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515713/original/file-20230316-20-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515713/original/file-20230316-20-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515713/original/file-20230316-20-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515713/original/file-20230316-20-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515713/original/file-20230316-20-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peaches, Mona Sessions at Mona, Mona Foma 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Leaning towards us, Peaches asks what The Teaches of Peaches meant to everyone when it was released, “and what does it mean collectively together now?” The crowd cheers louder as if their favourite footy team has won the grand final. </p>
<p>Her encore <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rRIIWo_JeA">Fuck the Pain Away</a>, with Melbourne feminist punk singer Amy Taylor, has the floorboards of the colonial theatre thumping. </p>
<p>For Perth Festival, Björk is performing her sci-fi pop extravaganza Cornucopia in a purpose-built 5,000-seat stadium.</p>
<p>Presented only a few times globally, Cornucopia is Björk’s most elaborate performance to date. Based on her 2017 album Utopia, she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/arts/music/bjork-cornucopia.html">has described</a> the show as “about females supporting each other”, our connection to Earth, and a plea to act on climate change.</p>
<p>In Perth, we have IMAX-sized visuals and a 54-channel surround system to garner an immersive multimedia experience in an Eden of bird sounds.</p>
<p>Argentinian filmmaker <a href="https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-live-reviews/bjork-cornucopia-perth-review-45402/">Lucrecia Martel</a> directs the futuristic screens of lush green plants, live organisms, expanding fungus and blooming blood red and pink-tinged flowers. </p>
<p>An 18-person Australian choir, <a href="https://voyces.com/about-us/our-story/">Voyces</a>, opens and closes the concerts. Björk is also joined on stage by harpist <a href="https://katiebuckleyharpist.com/about/">Katie Buckley</a> and the multi-talented <a href="https://www.sessionworkrecords.com/collections/manu-delago">Manu Delago</a> on the Aluphone percussion instrument, keyboards, other electronics and water drums. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaQfixl2Ss4">Body Memory</a>, the seven female flautists of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/viibraflutes/?hl=en">Viibra</a> are dressed in fairy costumes, circling Björk. A hula-hoop-like circular flute descends over Björk and down to the flautists, requiring four of them to play it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515654/original/file-20230316-2689-i6ezz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman plays the flute" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515654/original/file-20230316-2689-i6ezz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515654/original/file-20230316-2689-i6ezz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515654/original/file-20230316-2689-i6ezz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515654/original/file-20230316-2689-i6ezz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515654/original/file-20230316-2689-i6ezz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515654/original/file-20230316-2689-i6ezz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515654/original/file-20230316-2689-i6ezz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The flautists play a circular flute surrounding Björk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Santiago Felipe/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sound is spellbinding. </p>
<p>Two songs, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPr_D-b5v2Q&t=12s">Ovule</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FD2mUonh5s">Atopos</a> from her new album Fossora have their live global premiere at the concerts. They pay tribute to her mother, the Icelandic environmental activist <a href="https://www.rollingstone.co.uk/music/news/bjork-on-how-her-mothers-death-shaped-new-album-fossora-21625/">Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir</a>, who died in 2018.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the concert, a video of 20-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg looms before us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We need to keep fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity. If the solutions in the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Much as Hanna and Wilcox from Bikini Kill said during their All About Women talks at the Sydney Opera House, Björk is optimistic in the young people advocating for change.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bjork-digital-feminist-diva-helps-cure-our-wounds-in-a-visceral-sydney-show-60324">Björk, digital feminist diva, helps cure our wounds in a visceral Sydney show</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Changing the script</h2>
<p>When I heard Bikini Kill, Peaches and Bjork were performing almost in the same week, I grabbed tickets immediately. I scored a trifecta of my favourite female artists.</p>
<p>It had been many years since I saw them perform live. Seeing them this time was an empowering reminder that women in their 50s are still out there, oozing with vibrant creativity, worthiness and relevance.</p>
<p>We are about the same age: creative, rebellious youths who grew under the shadow of the boy’s club in the punk movement. </p>
<p>Their performances continue to challenge a male-dominated industry defined by fleeting talent, youthful beauty and voyeurism. </p>
<p>Their voices are stronger than ever. Their musicianship is tight, and the onstage antics are imaginative, playful, colourful and fun. Their messages are uplifting and clear, intelligent and thought provoking, now tinged with a softened version of empathetic rage about social injustice. </p>
<p>I have been seeing music gigs for more than 35 years, but these performances left me breathless. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/at-mona-foma-i-encountered-death-rituals-underwater-soundscapes-worship-and-transcendence-199868">At Mona Foma, I encountered death rituals, underwater soundscapes, worship – and transcendence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201388/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Jean Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Seeing these performances was an empowering reminder that women in their 50s are still out there, oozing with vibrant creativity, worthiness and relevance.
Andrea Jean Baker, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/176802
2022-02-25T01:57:27Z
2022-02-25T01:57:27Z
The Smallest Stage is an intricately crafted play for families about incarceration – and the power of stories
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448442/original/file-20220224-17-y0s9jh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=303%2C204%2C792%2C792&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Ben Yew</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: The Smallest Stage, by Kim Crotty for Perth Festival</em></p>
<p>A small, white rectangle taped onto the wide, open expanse of the Studio Underground playing space is a literal representation of one of the small stages evoked by the play’s title. But The Smallest Stage goes way beyond the literal to recreate its primary focus: the space between a parent telling a child a story.</p>
<p>Ostensibly a one-man show, actor Ben Mortley actually shares the stage with a cast of 20 others: ten children with one parent each. </p>
<p>These volunteers, experiencing the performance for the first time, receive their instructions (unheard by the rest of the audience) via headphones that direct their entrances and exits from the front row and stage choreography. They move props, play multiple roles and recreate key moments referenced in the storytelling. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448443/original/file-20220224-61939-ya0bcy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of children wearing headphones walk towards a man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448443/original/file-20220224-61939-ya0bcy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448443/original/file-20220224-61939-ya0bcy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448443/original/file-20220224-61939-ya0bcy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448443/original/file-20220224-61939-ya0bcy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448443/original/file-20220224-61939-ya0bcy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448443/original/file-20220224-61939-ya0bcy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448443/original/file-20220224-61939-ya0bcy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cast of children and their parents become integral parts of the storytelling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Ben Yew</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mortley plays the character of West Australian writer and co-creator of this production, Kim Crotty, who was sentenced to two years in Dartmoor prison in the UK for growing cannabis, separating him from his partner and two sons. </p>
<p>In this autobiographical retelling, Mortley moves seamlessly between present day Crotty as narrator, Crotty in the past dealing with the reality of his situation and the characters he meets along the way.</p>
<p>With the white rectangle now serving as his prison cell, Crotty realises the fleeting phone calls and visits with his children are only deepening the trauma of his absence. This drives him to do what most parents do to settle their children: tell stories. </p>
<p>And so Crotty becomes both writer and illustrator, as he desperately seeks to maintain his connection with his family.</p>
<h2>Stories as lifebuoys</h2>
<p>Running the gamut of children’s storytelling genres, Crotty’s stories include gross-out humour featuring unforgettable characters like Snot Man and Tissue Monster, what he calls “alternate superheroes” and old-fashioned morality tales. </p>
<p>All in all he wrote and illustrated 47 stories for his sons. </p>
<p>Although some of them could work as children’s books or theatre in their own right, The Smallest Stage is about more than the stories themselves. It is about a father rising above his current circumstances to create new worlds to inhabit with his sons, seeking to gain a sense of control in fictional worlds that might eventually transfer to the real world. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448441/original/file-20220224-23-5atmbt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=242%2C202%2C1008%2C794&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man stands in front of large handwritten words: Because I thought I could get away with it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448441/original/file-20220224-23-5atmbt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=242%2C202%2C1008%2C794&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448441/original/file-20220224-23-5atmbt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448441/original/file-20220224-23-5atmbt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448441/original/file-20220224-23-5atmbt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448441/original/file-20220224-23-5atmbt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448441/original/file-20220224-23-5atmbt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448441/original/file-20220224-23-5atmbt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Smallest Stage is about a father rising above his current circumstances to create new worlds to inhabit with his sons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Ben Yew</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Crotty’s stories are lifebuoys cast by a drowning man. By adding the story behind them, The Smallest Stage casts a much wider net</p>
<p>Even with children in the audience, The Smallest Stage doesn’t avoid serious themes. The ugly remnants of family violence, incarceration and misogyny are faced squarely. The vestiges of what we inherit from our parents and what we pass on plays out in the storytelling. Reckoning with what Crotty describes as his own “father-shaped hole”, the work tracks his journey to be a better father than the one he had.</p>
<p>The simple paper of the original storytelling is very much in evidence. The work brilliantly stages the transformative capacity of storytelling via live drawing segueing into animation, projection, puppetry and a pop-up book simply lit by a hand-held torch. One extended animated story of Ghost Girl Elise is beautifully realised. </p>
<p>But while the stories draw us in on their own merits, the focus remains on how the stories bridge the gap between the father and his sons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448444/original/file-20220224-5831-4236nk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Shadow puppet of a girl on a bike" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448444/original/file-20220224-5831-4236nk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448444/original/file-20220224-5831-4236nk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448444/original/file-20220224-5831-4236nk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448444/original/file-20220224-5831-4236nk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448444/original/file-20220224-5831-4236nk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448444/original/file-20220224-5831-4236nk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448444/original/file-20220224-5831-4236nk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Live drawing segues into animation, projection, puppetry and pop-up books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Ben Yew</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Everyone has a story</h2>
<p>This focus is also present in the presence of the audio-guided participant children and parents. Witnessing this layer of the performance illuminates the work’s premise: everyone has a story. </p>
<p>It also extends and expands the specificities of Crotty’s story. The choreography that accompanies the moment when Crotty is reunited with his sons when he is finally released and deported back to Australia creates a simple but emotional release. There is no acting required here.</p>
<p>Crotty’s decision to not hide the truth of his mistakes and failings from his children is one challenge most parents would understand. The Smallest Stage shows by finding “the words to name the ache” Crotty creates a pathway towards a more open, honest and loving relationship with his sons, ultimately forming a lifetime habit of love and storytelling. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448445/original/file-20220224-34050-1tpak6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Children sit on the floor, listening to a man in a chair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448445/original/file-20220224-34050-1tpak6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448445/original/file-20220224-34050-1tpak6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448445/original/file-20220224-34050-1tpak6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448445/original/file-20220224-34050-1tpak6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448445/original/file-20220224-34050-1tpak6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448445/original/file-20220224-34050-1tpak6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448445/original/file-20220224-34050-1tpak6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Smallest Stage doesn’t hide the hard parts of the story from its young audience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Ben Yew</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mortley’s performance is an emotional slow burn. While the work itself is expertly crafted to accommodate all the variables at play, Mortley remains at the mercy of chance created by the presence of the other participants. Retaining and calibrating the emotional arc of the work, while remaining open to the variability of their input, he is the heart and soul of The Smallest Stage’s aches and joys.</p>
<p>Mortley, director Matt Edgerton and designer Zoë Atkinson worked with Crotty to co-create this world premiere performance. As theatre makers, they followed Crotty’s principle of using everything at their disposal to create. </p>
<p>A superb collaborative effort, The Smallest Stage is a real triumph of form emerging from content, a powerful example of the originality that can emerge from a group of artists given time, money and support to work towards one purpose. </p>
<p>It also reminds us of theatre’s communal roots and its capacity to activate and uplift an audience.</p>
<p><em>The Smallest Stage is at Perth Festival until February 27.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Mercer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
While spending two years in Dartmoor prison, Kim Crotty wrote and illustrated 47 stories for his sons, desperately seeking to maintain his connection with his family.
Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/176801
2022-02-14T03:18:51Z
2022-02-14T03:18:51Z
The new dance work And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole is unsettling and deeply engaging
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446142/original/file-20220214-21-1gugn5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C8%2C5431%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole, choreographed by Rachel Arianne Ogle</em></p>
<p>The first act of And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole, performed in Perth’s aptly-named Studio Underground, positions the audience around the edge of a three-sided balcony looking down into the black space and an open-topped grand piano. </p>
<p>Pianist and composer Gabriella Smart begins with a solo rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. She is subsequently joined by composer Luke Smiles who manipulates and extends the piano sound to co-create a live score that transforms the familiar piano sonata into something new and unrecognisable. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446143/original/file-20220214-21-nled36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman plays piano, a man sits at a desk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446143/original/file-20220214-21-nled36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446143/original/file-20220214-21-nled36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446143/original/file-20220214-21-nled36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446143/original/file-20220214-21-nled36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446143/original/file-20220214-21-nled36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446143/original/file-20220214-21-nled36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446143/original/file-20220214-21-nled36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Music from the prepared piano is unsettling and deeply engaging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Created on an electronically <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-composer-john-cage-transformed-piano-with-help-some-household-objects-180973206/">prepared piano</a>, the score is a disconcerting amalgam of classical piano and electronic distortion. At times we see the pianist’s hands at work but no longer hear sounds that you’d usually associate with a piano. </p>
<p>It is an unsettling and deeply engaging prelude to the entrance of the dancers.</p>
<p>As the ensemble of six dancers come into view they seem, at first, weightless, almost adrift. The added plane provided by watching them from above creates an almost vertiginous effect in the viewer. </p>
<p>The longer you look down the more your sense of perspective is challenged and unmoored. Akin to that tingling sensation in the soles of your feet when you keep your eyes on the track as the train pulls into the station, there is a sense of simultaneously falling and standing still. The movement of the dancers seems to mirror that state.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446144/original/file-20220214-55472-1oaetum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six dancers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446144/original/file-20220214-55472-1oaetum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446144/original/file-20220214-55472-1oaetum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446144/original/file-20220214-55472-1oaetum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446144/original/file-20220214-55472-1oaetum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446144/original/file-20220214-55472-1oaetum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446144/original/file-20220214-55472-1oaetum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446144/original/file-20220214-55472-1oaetum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Watching from above, your sense of perspective is challenged and unmoored.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They warp and weft between connection and disconnection, evoking rescue and sacrifice, of each other and themselves. </p>
<p>From our perspective the dancers sometimes seem almost supine. They create images that hold and then just as quickly disintegrate. Their exquisite ensemble work is beautifully sculptured by Bosco Shaw’s lighting design that seems to both hide and reveal. </p>
<p>The work segues seamlessly through variations of movement until the haze lifts to reveal a kind of landscape of markings on the floor. I am reminded of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40755007">Gertrude Stein’s response</a> upon first looking down at the flat landscape from the window of an aeroplane, of how it consolidated her resistance to the specificity of time and place.</p>
<p>Without familiar reference points we are all time, all space. And so the dancers are individuals, pairs, whole nations, falling away and raising again, together and alone, history passing.</p>
<p>The first act finale introduces another layer to the view from above making gorgeous use of a piece of fabric that billows and falls, engulfs and retracts around the lone figure of dancer (Zee Zunnur). Facilitated by the other dancers it is a mesmerising allusion to the title of the piece. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446145/original/file-20220214-17-gxnonh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dancer enveloped by a giant sheet of silk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446145/original/file-20220214-17-gxnonh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446145/original/file-20220214-17-gxnonh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446145/original/file-20220214-17-gxnonh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446145/original/file-20220214-17-gxnonh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446145/original/file-20220214-17-gxnonh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446145/original/file-20220214-17-gxnonh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446145/original/file-20220214-17-gxnonh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We are frail in the face of unstoppable external forces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Equal parts hypnotic and repellent, it speaks to a sense of temporality and frailty in the face of unstoppable external forces and it is a particular highlight.</p>
<h2>Immersive patience</h2>
<p>The second act provides an immediate change of perspective as the audience enters through different doors to arrive on the floor with the dancers. Standing or sitting, we circle the dancers as they enact rituals of devotion, death and burial around the figure of Zunnur. </p>
<p>For the audience, it is an exercise in immersive patience. By the end the actions and focus of the performers have transformed both the space and the atmosphere so there is a sense that we are all breathing together, as equal observers and participants. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A staged funeral" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We are all breathing together, as equal observers and participants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here again the lighting, sound and design work together exquisitely. The live score, like the bodies of the dancers, builds and breaks down and builds again, constantly transforming, like all of us.</p>
<p>In collaboration with her dancers and creative team, choreographer Rachel Arianne Ogle’s adherence to an exploration of mortality and death is steadfast and all-encompassing. </p>
<p>Casting a cartographical eye on the space between life and death And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole is an impressive collaboration between artists, a work that deals in images and sounds that leave an indelible imprint on the senses.</p>
<p><em>And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole plays at Perth Festival until February 14.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Mercer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Rachel Arianne Ogle’s new chorography is an exploration of mortality and death.
Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/176696
2022-02-14T01:53:23Z
2022-02-14T01:53:23Z
A new musical, Panawathi Girl, is a fantasy of Australia’s past – and a critique of Australia’s present
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446134/original/file-20220213-15-vc2ymg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C0%2C6165%2C4134&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dana Weeks/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of people who have died.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Panawathi Girl, written by David Milroy and directed by Eva Grace Mullaley, presented by Perth Festival and Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company.</em></p>
<p>Viewing David Milroy’s new musical Panawathi Girl, the production is inevitably refracted through the fame of Jimmy Chi’s equally ground-breaking 1990 Perth Festival premiere <a href="https://theconversation.com/bran-nue-dae-review-exceptional-singing-and-music-obscure-the-political-heart-of-this-classic-australian-musical-129793">Bran Nue Dae</a>. </p>
<p>Both are comedic music theatre works authored by First Nations artists from northern Western Australia, set in 1969, and staged with a live, rocking band. </p>
<p>This aside, they are very different.</p>
<p>Bran Nue Dae is a tropical love story which, while alluding to the complex racial divisions and crossings typical of Broome, offers a feelgood portrayal of the protagonist’s sexual and romantic awakening.</p>
<p>In contrast, Panawathi Girl is a buoyant yet cynical depiction of racial conflicts in the Western Australian countryside, self-consciously set in a fantasy of an Australian past: violence free, brightly coloured and populated by surprisingly sympathetic white politicians. </p>
<p>Through this fantasy, however, comes a telling critique of our own times. </p>
<h2>The rodeo comes to town</h2>
<p>It is 1969. Reformist Labor leader Gough Whitlam (Luke Hewitt) is heading for election against lacklustre Liberal prime minister John Gorton (Geoff Kelso). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446135/original/file-20220213-15-4qx4s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: Gough Whitlam" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446135/original/file-20220213-15-4qx4s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446135/original/file-20220213-15-4qx4s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446135/original/file-20220213-15-4qx4s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446135/original/file-20220213-15-4qx4s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446135/original/file-20220213-15-4qx4s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446135/original/file-20220213-15-4qx4s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446135/original/file-20220213-15-4qx4s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1967 referendum passed, but Aboriginal people still don’t have equal rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dana Weeks/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Gorton confides to Whitlam, despite the Labor minister’s support for land-rights, it seems an impossibility to “close the gap” – a clever if depressing reference to the 2008 Closing the Gap agreement and its <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-arent-closing-the-gap-a-failure-to-account-for-cultural-counterfactuals-129076">woeful implementation</a>.</p>
<p>A rodeo has come to the town of Chubb Springs, where the places in which people can drink and live are divided between the “blacks” and “whites”.</p>
<p>Although the 1967 referendum means Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are now formally part of the national population, they are <a href="https://theconversation.com/right-wrongs-write-yes-what-was-the-1967-referendum-all-about-76512">often excluded</a> from voting and other rights.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/right-wrongs-write-yes-what-was-the-1967-referendum-all-about-76512">‘Right wrongs, write Yes’: what was the 1967 referendum all about?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446137/original/file-20220213-19-19dwy89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: a woman with a suitcase" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446137/original/file-20220213-19-19dwy89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446137/original/file-20220213-19-19dwy89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446137/original/file-20220213-19-19dwy89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446137/original/file-20220213-19-19dwy89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446137/original/file-20220213-19-19dwy89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446137/original/file-20220213-19-19dwy89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446137/original/file-20220213-19-19dwy89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Molly arrives in Chubb Springs, hoping to connect with Country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dana Weeks/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Molly Panawathi (Lila McGuire) is the estranged daughter of local white farmer Chubb (Peter Docker). Molly has come to Chubb Springs to learn about her presumed dead mother Pansy (Angelica Lockyer). Having been brought up in Perth away from Country and culture, she is not welcomed by the local Aboriginal community.</p>
<p>Billy (Wimiya Woodley) is sick of the flack he gets from other mob for playing the role of loudmouthed rodeo drunk and has decided he will “head out bush… get my head straight.” </p>
<p>His sister Ada (Teresa Rose) has chosen to keep working for her lanky but intimidating boss Buckley (Maitland Schnaars), who passes as white.</p>
<p>Molly eventually stages a joyous rebellion of sorts at the rodeo ball, complete with a wonderful drag turn by her queer city friend Jojo (Manuao TeAotonga). Like a true panto villain however, Buckley is unrepentant. </p>
<p>“50 years from now,” he explains, leaning comfortably back in his tall frame, “nothing will have changed.” </p>
<h2>Idiosyncratic and appealing</h2>
<p>The gentle country-and-western twang of pedal steel guitar (played by Lucky Oceans) competes with the more rhythmic strums of conventional guitars (electric and acoustic) to take us from uncertain, yearning songs performed by Molly and others, to party pieces, and other tunes. </p>
<p>There is even a dash of tuba to underpin the sillier moments, some Andrews Sisters-style harmonies with Ava’s slightly awkward turn at the ball, and a particularly demented elegy to a Palomino pony who has become sandwich-meat from Molly’s hippy friend Beth (Grace Chow).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446138/original/file-20220213-87622-1sqhbrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: a man and a woman dance" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446138/original/file-20220213-87622-1sqhbrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446138/original/file-20220213-87622-1sqhbrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446138/original/file-20220213-87622-1sqhbrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446138/original/file-20220213-87622-1sqhbrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446138/original/file-20220213-87622-1sqhbrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446138/original/file-20220213-87622-1sqhbrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446138/original/file-20220213-87622-1sqhbrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Panawathi Girl draws on many musical references.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dana Weeks/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gorton and Whitlam come together as a recurring double-act, adding political depth and humour to proceedings. Their song and dance routine The Land of the Long White Sock is a particular highlight.</p>
<p>Rodeo broncho buster Knuckles (Gus Noakes) gives some impressive boot scooting in the style of Oklahoma! and Noakes has the finest voice in the cast. </p>
<p>While other actors have beautiful character voices, their vibrato and sustain is not strong. Even in the climactic moments, they don’t belt it out. </p>
<p>But despite this lack of strength, the casts’ voices are idiosyncratic, appealing, and either crack or soar as required, adding to the vaudevillian feel.</p>
<h2>Celebration, and critique</h2>
<p>Panawathi Girl’s antecedents are at least as much the hilarious but politically pointed vaudevillian Australian music theatre works <a href="https://www.nida.edu.au/library-archives/jane-street-exhibition/experimental-theatre/experimental-tabs/1970-the-legend-of-king-omalley">The Legend of King O’Malley</a> (1970) or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manning_Clark%27s_History_of_Australia_%E2%80%93_The_Musical">Manning Clark’s History of Australia</a> (1988) as they are Bran Nue Dae.</p>
<p>Milroy’s canny political references and criticisms are woven throughout an enjoyably diverse array of styles and references, from Oklahoma! to electrified country, from vaudeville double acts, to wistful solos, set in a kind of Neverland past where everything from the safari suits, to the stripey clothing and Whitlam’s reformist rhetoric, are amplified and celebrated.</p>
<p>But although much of the play feels like a celebration, with an engaging tone and musical appeal, underneath it is truly a critique of how far those dreams have receded in 2022.</p>
<p>As Milroy states in the program, “fifty years on it is difficult to maintain the same optimism.” </p>
<p><em>Panawathi Girl played as part of the Perth Festival. Season closed.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan W. Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
David Milroy’s Panawathi Girl is a rocking, vaudevillian, politically sharp and engaging piece of Australian First Nations’ music theatre.
Jonathan W. Marshall, Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155120
2021-03-19T01:02:02Z
2021-03-19T01:02:02Z
Galup theatrical walking tour recalls the dancing and violence of the colonial encounter
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390308/original/file-20210318-21-89w2t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C15%2C2017%2C1348&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ian Wilkes leads a Galup evening tour. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Grant</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Galup, by Ian Wilkes and Poppy van Oorde-Grainger, Perth Festival with Same Drum and Performing Lines.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/events/galup/">Galup</a> is a “theatricalised” walking tour created by Ian Wilkes and Poppy van Oorde-Grainger. The artists’ aim is <a href="https://www.reconciliation.org.au/truth-telling-and-reconciliation/">truth-telling</a>, to restore memories of the First Australians and their early contact with white settlers beside Lake Monger, Perth.</p>
<p>Tales of hunting, of spear throwing, of Noongar warrior Yagan, and of visitors from distant Aboriginal lands have been <a href="https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/shaking-hands-on-the-fringe-negotiating-the-aboriginal-world-at-king-george-s-sound">told before</a>, but are not well known.</p>
<p>The Noongar name for the lake is Galup, or place of the fires. It was used as a campsite, with ready food and fresh water. Today it is a popular reserve.</p>
<p>At the core of Wilkes’ one-man guided tour is the 1833 meeting between local Noongar (including Yagan) and two Aboriginal men — Gyallipert and Manyat — who had <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tiffany-Shellam/publication/304637159_Manyat%27s_%27Sole_Delight%27_Travelling_Knowledge_in_Western_Australia%27s_Southwest_1830s/links/5f73dc4b299bf1b53efff02e/Manyats-Sole-Delight-Travelling-Knowledge-in-Western-Australias-Southwest-1830s.pdf">undertaken an epic journey</a> by tall ship from the southern coast to visit their northern peers.</p>
<p>Yagan attended the meeting, despite the fact he’d recently been declared an Imperial outlaw for his defence of Noongar sovereignty. Not long afterwards, he was murdered by white shepherds further up the Swan River.</p>
<p>Yagan’s death is an especially grotesque colonial incident. His head was souvenired for display in the United Kingdom. His remains were repatriated in 1997. Wilkes was one of those who <a href="https://www.noongarculture.org.au/yagan/">welcomed Yagan back to Noongar <em>boodja</em> (land)</a> through dance.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/part-escape-room-part-choose-your-own-adventure-the-whodunit-whistleblower-has-the-audience-at-its-heart-154271">Part escape room, part choose-your-own adventure, the whodunit Whistleblower has the audience at its heart</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A rarely told massacre</h2>
<p>One story about Lake Galup is rarely told. It is about the massacre that began when mounted troopers rode into a Noongar camp and opened fire. Those who could ran to the lake and hid, slipping away at night. The closing sequence of Galup features Noongar elder Doolann Leisha Eatts telling this story by the campfire.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390309/original/file-20210318-13-1w5tvpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people sitting around campfire" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390309/original/file-20210318-13-1w5tvpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390309/original/file-20210318-13-1w5tvpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390309/original/file-20210318-13-1w5tvpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390309/original/file-20210318-13-1w5tvpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390309/original/file-20210318-13-1w5tvpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390309/original/file-20210318-13-1w5tvpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390309/original/file-20210318-13-1w5tvpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The story of a massacre is told around the campfire, at the site where it happened.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Grant</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Lake Monger massacre is not listed on the Newcastle University <a href="https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php">Colonial Frontier Massacre map</a>, though two comparable attacks have been recorded that were launched to <a href="https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=885">demonstrate colonial military superiority</a> and as <a href="https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=884">reprisals for killing sheep</a>.</p>
<p>Galup is restricted to 15 spectators per night, giving it an intimate social ambience that begins convivially. Wilkes tells us we are moving into a dual time. The artists are explicit in their goal for this as an activist work; they hope to <a href="https://www.samedrum.com/galup">erect a memorial</a> in the future. One must not therefore get lost in the past. One must hold these experiences in the present.</p>
<p>Wilkes introduces one of the many characters he plays, both white and Black, as the son of a white settler and a Noongar woman. The settler hid the woman from pursuers at his hut, and came to love her — or so the son hopes.</p>
<p>Wilkes takes on these and other roles with a light grace. He gently alters his bearing and intonation — these are not the deep alterations of “<a href="https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/deep-focus/birth-method-revolution-american-acting">method actors</a>” like Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman and company. Gestures lie upon the body, rather than transforming it. The boundary between Wilkes playing various characters or being an anonymous guide are therefore fluid.</p>
<p>Wilkes delivers much of his speech in Noongar. Spectators may not retain the utterances themselves, but Wilkes makes the performance an act of affective gifting. Understandings are shared even if the precise grammar is not unpacked.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/articulation-of-womens-rage-slow-burn-together-and-its-haunting-of-women-dancers-154270">'Articulation of women’s rage': Slow Burn, Together and its haunting of women dancers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Give and take</h2>
<p>Gyallipert and Manyat <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Y-SGDAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA128&ots=X4_9g_53bq&dq=Gyallipert%20and%20Manyat%20whites%20played%20piano.&pg=PA128#v=onepage&q=Gyallipert%20and%20Manyat%20whites%20played%20piano.&f=false">reportedly attended a dinner where the civil commissioner’s wife played piano</a> for them. They were said to have reciprocated with song and dance.</p>
<p>Wilkes teaches those on the tour a Noongar song of walking. Later we come across a piano, and like Gyallipert and Manyat, Wilkes teaches us dances including that of the rainbow serpent (<em>waugul</em>) whose snaking journeys above and below the ground produced Lake Galup and its underground water sources.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390311/original/file-20210318-15-106tt98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people walking outside together and smiling" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390311/original/file-20210318-15-106tt98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390311/original/file-20210318-15-106tt98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390311/original/file-20210318-15-106tt98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390311/original/file-20210318-15-106tt98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390311/original/file-20210318-15-106tt98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390311/original/file-20210318-15-106tt98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390311/original/file-20210318-15-106tt98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The tone of the show is intimate and social.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Grant</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-drop-effect-review-infusing-the-present-moment-with-layers-of-the-past-129785">Black Drop Effect review: infusing the present moment with layers of the past</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We try our hand at spear throwing, and Wilkes elects me to play Gyallipert. It is, for me as a <em>wadjela</em> or white man, an embarrassing honour to be dressed in his gorgeous kangaroo skin cloak. Unlike Gyallipert, I have no cloak or weapons to gift back. </p>
<p>Snippets of language and history are offered throughout, sometimes with audience participation. We receive biscuit rations as the Noongar did. Now, as then, the portions are meagre.</p>
<p>Wilkes mourns on behalf of his ancestors, “What are we Noongar to do, now all our <em>birdiya</em>, all our leaders, are dead?”</p>
<p>Yet, there is grace here. The dominant characteristic of the performance is one of openness. There is space to ponder. Listening to the dual narrative of survival and dispossession, I was struck by how encroached-upon the reserve is today. At one point Wilkes moves through a pair of poplar trees. Unlike the thin line of gums earlier on the trail, these trees are signs of colonial conquest.</p>
<p>Where we throw spears, I notice barely perceptible marks where someone has illegally driven a vehicle. Lake Galup is hemmed in by neat suburban housing. It is far from “wild”, though its waters still sustain game.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-are-you-really-from-the-harsh-realities-of-afro-aussie-life-are-brought-to-stage-in-black-brass-156110">'Where are you really from?' The harsh realities of Afro-Aussie life are brought to stage in Black Brass</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Beginning a full accounting</h2>
<p>Survival and resistance in these circumstances is fraught. Social conditions and the high value placed by nearby householders on neatly maintained lawns — irrigated by underground water we steal from the <em>waugal</em> below — work against the development of an improved relationship with Noongar <em>boodja</em> and its peoples.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390312/original/file-20210318-17-uwenbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People walk alongside lake, city buildings" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390312/original/file-20210318-17-uwenbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390312/original/file-20210318-17-uwenbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390312/original/file-20210318-17-uwenbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390312/original/file-20210318-17-uwenbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390312/original/file-20210318-17-uwenbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390312/original/file-20210318-17-uwenbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390312/original/file-20210318-17-uwenbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lake Galup is far from ‘wild’, surrounded by urban housing and facing the city buildings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Grant</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The episodic structure of Galup renders it a thoughtful if uneven experience. The massacre story does not develop out of preceding action, and it is a jarring conclusion for a work that doesn’t seem to be aiming for tragedy.</p>
<p>A full accounting of the histories of contact between First Nations people and white settlers, of singing together at the piano, of dancing, as well as violence and murder, has yet to become central to our national memory. Galup and works like it may change this.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/events/galup/">Galup</a> is part of the Perth Festival, running until March 20.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan W. Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Artists Ian Wilkes and Poppy van Oorde-Grainger invite audiences to walk where the first contact between Noongar and white settlers at Lake Monger took place.
Jonathan W. Marshall, Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154270
2021-03-12T04:50:34Z
2021-03-12T04:50:34Z
‘Articulation of women’s rage’: Slow Burn, Together and its haunting of women dancers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389204/original/file-20210312-21-axnzyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C2%2C1436%2C959&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Christophe Canato</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Slow Burn, Together, choreographed by Emma Fishwick. Emma Fishwick and Performing Lines for Perth Festival.</em></p>
<p>It goes against the very core of Slow Burn, Together to respond to it so quickly in print. In the program, choreographer Emma Fishwick <a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/media/zz3fzzh4/event-program_slow-burn_marketing_20210311.pdf">quotes</a> art historian Ernst Gombrich: “the reading of a picture needs a very long time.” </p>
<p>Slow Burn, Together encourages a dream-like reflection on our relationship with time, especially history and progress, how it shapes us, how we work with it and against it.</p>
<p>Moving through the cavernous stage of Perth’s Her Majesty’s Theatre — on foot, on wheels, on their knees, on a swing — an ensemble of 15 women create an ever-changing series of pictures. Evoking pathways to the past or into an unknown future, the dancers shift between movement and stillness, horizontal and vertical, witnessing and being witnessed. </p>
<p>Against the backdrop of a giant golden sail, with the bare bones of the theatre on display, everything is exposed.</p>
<h2>An amorphous sense of time</h2>
<p>Slow Burn, Together performs a delicate magic act that manipulates time, slowing down the tempo of the audience. </p>
<p>I am reminded of the words of American theatre director <a href="https://siti.org/blog-122-march-2021-poetry-as-a-catalyst-for-sense-and-sensation/">Anne Bogart</a>, who describes this sensation as those moments in the theatre when “the laws of space and time” alter radically and the audience enter “the poetic realm”.</p>
<p>In this realm, time seems “to stop and expand at the same time”. </p>
<p>This sense occurs here in the meditative quality of performers and audience breathing together.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389201/original/file-20210312-19-16d95ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three women, one pours a bucket of water over another." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389201/original/file-20210312-19-16d95ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389201/original/file-20210312-19-16d95ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389201/original/file-20210312-19-16d95ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389201/original/file-20210312-19-16d95ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389201/original/file-20210312-19-16d95ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389201/original/file-20210312-19-16d95ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389201/original/file-20210312-19-16d95ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fishwick places a female gaze upon this mix of ages, bodies and ethnicities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Christophe Canato</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The all-female cast is made up of many different types of women: senior dancers, some of whom have taught, mentored and worked with Fishwick; younger dancers who are new to her practice. Seeing these bodies — old, young, different shapes, sizes and ethnicities — take up space with an aura of persistent stillness, the female gaze replaces the usual male one.</p>
<p>Gradually, an array of objects are introduced into the picture: high heel shoes, random books, coconuts. A gramophone, in conjunction with Tristen Parr’s sound design, draws attention to the ways music cuts across time to meet us in this moment. </p>
<p>Balanced with extended moments of silence, the performers also work in glorious tandem with Chris Donnelly’s evocative lighting design, through which we alternatively glimpse and gape at the kaleidoscopic images.</p>
<h2>Women through women’s eyes</h2>
<p>The representation of women through art’s <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-aesthetics/">male gaze</a> is directly referenced in projected paintings from Baroque and pre-Raphaelite masters. </p>
<p>These images are reconstructed in a number of artfully-composed tableaus where the dancers’ bodies seem to transform from flesh to form before our eyes. Exposing the effort and construct behind these seemingly perfect images, they also deconstruct these paintings in moments of gentle, wry humour.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389202/original/file-20210312-15-16v3pd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women dance in front of an overhead projector" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389202/original/file-20210312-15-16v3pd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389202/original/file-20210312-15-16v3pd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389202/original/file-20210312-15-16v3pd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389202/original/file-20210312-15-16v3pd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389202/original/file-20210312-15-16v3pd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389202/original/file-20210312-15-16v3pd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389202/original/file-20210312-15-16v3pd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contemporary dancers are paired off against women painted by, constructed by, the masters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Christophe Canato</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are two central duets by Ella-Rose Trew and Francesca Fenton. The second is an exercise in endurance, a sort of aerobics-class-meets-contemporary-dance that moves them from an exquisite, unified precision to an exhausted, deliberately looser partnership. </p>
<p>This gradual loss of finesse exposes us to the effort it takes to appear effortless.</p>
<p>The duration of these duets creates time and space for us to reflect upon our act of witnessing. There is rarely just one focal point; our eyes gaze at the different moments occurring simultaneously around the stage. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389200/original/file-20210312-15-1q9scdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1437%2C959&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A wide shot of a proscenium arch. Two women look tiny against a messy stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389200/original/file-20210312-15-1q9scdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1437%2C959&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389200/original/file-20210312-15-1q9scdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389200/original/file-20210312-15-1q9scdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389200/original/file-20210312-15-1q9scdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389200/original/file-20210312-15-1q9scdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389200/original/file-20210312-15-1q9scdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389200/original/file-20210312-15-1q9scdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is never just one thing to look upon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Christophe Canato</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coming back to the duets in our own time, at our own pace, we bring our dreamy associations with us. These multiple worlds evoke a stream of consciousness response: beauty and aging; past and present; our familial and creative ancestors and descendants. Images of the French stage actress <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Bernhardt">Sarah Bernhardt</a> (1844-1923), who once graced this same stage, and <a href="https://tracksdance.com.au/maggi-phillips-1944-2015">Maggi Phillips</a> (1944-2015), the doyen of Australian dance and scholarship, especially in Western Australia, fluttered before my eyes.</p>
<h2>Strength in unity</h2>
<p>In this week of International Women’s Day, this year where the Australian of the Year is speaking out about sexual assault, this month when we have highly-publicised utterings of what happens to women’s bodies and minds as a result of sexual assault, I was also reminded of the increasing profile and articulation of women’s rage. </p>
<p>These silent women of Slow Burn, Together — across generations, watching each other, watching out for one another — seemed to speak to this moment in Australian history. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389206/original/file-20210312-19-1ese6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A mass of women in black dresses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389206/original/file-20210312-19-1ese6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389206/original/file-20210312-19-1ese6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389206/original/file-20210312-19-1ese6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389206/original/file-20210312-19-1ese6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389206/original/file-20210312-19-1ese6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389206/original/file-20210312-19-1ese6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389206/original/file-20210312-19-1ese6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Slow Burn, Together takes on a particular resonance this week; this month.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Christophe Canato</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The piece culminates in a gorgeous coming together of the ensemble. There is something very satisfying about watching a group of people move in unison after so much asynchronicity. </p>
<p>What’s the collective noun for an ensemble of women dressed in black, performing a delicate choreography with their feet, while their hands remain hooked behind their backs? I suggest a haunting. </p>
<p>There’s an eerie strength in this vignette of unity. Then, just as quickly Bogart’s poetic realm disassembles and we are returned to her “bricks and mortar” of the theatre.</p>
<p><em>Slow Burn, Together is at His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, until Sunday March 14.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Mercer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From choreographer Emma Fishwick, this slow, dreamy performance and its cast of 15 dancers, speaks especially loudly to Australia of today.
Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/156110
2021-03-10T19:07:10Z
2021-03-10T19:07:10Z
‘Where are you really from?’ The harsh realities of Afro-Aussie life are brought to stage in Black Brass
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388432/original/file-20210309-17-1wmc50s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1424%2C4009%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christophe Canato/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Black Brass, written and performed by Mararo Wangai; directed by Matt Edgerton. Performing Lines WA for Perth Festival.</em></p>
<p>The scene opens into a messy music studio, used bottles and pizza boxes littered everywhere. A young man of sub-Saharan African descent appears, exhausted, entering the room late at night. </p>
<p>As the young janitor starts cleaning, he is distracted by the music playing in the background. Suddenly, the security alarm goes off: he has forgotten the code and immediately calls his manager to request assistance. </p>
<p>Over the phone, we hear his manager reprimand him, but he sounds more interested in petting his dog than providing the code and protecting the welfare of the cleaner.</p>
<p>Black Brass is a captivating theatrical piece written and performed by Mararo Wangai as the janitor named Sleeper, and accompanied by musician Mahamudo Selimaneat. The show is well executed in all areas: the oratory prowess of Wangai as Sleeper, the transitions, lighting, music and innovative rotating stage were superb. </p>
<p>But behind the artistic brilliance, Black Brass is a story of the harsh realities faced by many African-Australians. </p>
<h2>Hyphenated identities</h2>
<p>Black Brass is the story of people with <a href="https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajpy.12153">hyphenated identities</a>: the Black Africans who juggle and struggle with who they are. </p>
<p>They live here, they were schooled here, they work here, they are “Australians” — but feel they don’t belong here, in a country that constantly asks “<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1242022467960/where-are-you-really-from-s1-ep1">where are you really from?</a>” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388438/original/file-20210309-13-1lnor6i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Black man smokes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388438/original/file-20210309-13-1lnor6i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388438/original/file-20210309-13-1lnor6i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388438/original/file-20210309-13-1lnor6i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388438/original/file-20210309-13-1lnor6i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388438/original/file-20210309-13-1lnor6i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388438/original/file-20210309-13-1lnor6i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388438/original/file-20210309-13-1lnor6i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many Black African Australians describe themselves as juggling different identities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christophe Canato/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1901A00017">Immigration Restriction Act 1901</a> ushered in the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy">White Australia Policy</a>, prohibiting the permanent settlement of Asians, Black Africans and other coloured races in the country. </p>
<p>The abolition of this racist policy in the 1970s by the Whitlam government opened the doors for non-white, non-European immigrants, but neo-White Australian Policies — such as <a href="https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/english-language-test-requirement-deemed-a-racist-measure,14434">citizenship tests</a> — are still with us, effectively determining <a href="https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/2001-john-howard">who comes to Australia and who does not</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7ECultural%20Diversity%20Article%7E60">Only 5.1%</a> of Australia’s overseas-born population were born in sub-Saharan Africa (including White Africans). Clearly, not many Black Africans live in Australia — but, as portrayed in Black Brass, many Black Africans who live here have many troubles.</p>
<p>Blackness in Australia is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244017720483">too often</a> seen as not only inferior, but burdensome. Still, when Wangai interviewed people from Perth’s Zimbabwean, Sudanese, South African, Central Congo, Mauritius, Nigerian, Congolese and Kenyan communities to develop his script, he focused on the theme of resilience.</p>
<h2>Brilliance</h2>
<p>As Sleeper finally gets his boss to provide the code, we hear police sirens. Sleeper would be all too familiar with <a href="https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2118605/Police-are-good-for-some-people-Report-27.02.2020.pdf">police brutality against black bodies</a> and operations that <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/racist-police-targeted-africans">target</a> Black Africans.</p>
<p>The play shows how he subconsciously begins to plan for his arrest and a defence against potential incarceration — or even being shot dead (though he is unarmed).</p>
<p>Then, Sleeper sighs with relief. The police are not coming to where he is, after all: a white-man’s music studio late at night.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388439/original/file-20210309-21-1mo8ofr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black man looks at a propped up guitar case" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388439/original/file-20210309-21-1mo8ofr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388439/original/file-20210309-21-1mo8ofr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388439/original/file-20210309-21-1mo8ofr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388439/original/file-20210309-21-1mo8ofr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388439/original/file-20210309-21-1mo8ofr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388439/original/file-20210309-21-1mo8ofr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388439/original/file-20210309-21-1mo8ofr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many Black African Australians are not employed in the jobs they are qualified in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christophe Canato/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sleeper laments his underemployment in the country he now calls home. He doesn’t like his job, it demeans him; but he needs to make ends meet for himself and his extended family in Africa, who depend on him financially. </p>
<p>This is the resilience of the Black African. Sleeper’s extraordinary retentive memory and excellent command over the English language are a testament to his brilliance.</p>
<p>Sleeper lives in a country where <a href="https://www.vwt.org.au/overlooked-and-underutilised-african-migrants-in-the-australian-workforce/">skin colour matters</a> more than what a person can offer. It’s a country that so often reduces Black Africans who hold <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-degree-doesnt-count-for-south-sudanese-job-seekers-64667">masters and doctoral qualifications</a> earned in Australia to taxi drivers, cleaners, security wardens and menial job workers. </p>
<p>Not all Black Africans are underemployed in Australia, but sadly many gainfully employed Black Africans pay the “<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90296371/the-hidden-black-tax-that-some-professionals-of-color-struggle-with">black tax</a>”: an unspoken requirement to do more to keep their jobs, or move up the corporate ladder, than their non-black colleagues. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-degree-doesnt-count-for-south-sudanese-job-seekers-64667">A degree doesn't count for South Sudanese job seekers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Highly qualified Africans in Australia remain underemployed. Perhaps, suggests Black Brass, bosses are more interested in their pets. </p>
<p>The other reality of this performance is that Sleeper misses Africa. He misses his parents and family. He misses his fiancée, who has stayed in Africa when her visa for Australia was refused. Part of him would like to go back to where he came from and start afresh. But it is not a simple decision. </p>
<p>The corruption, the abuse of power by the political elite, the lack of opportunities in his home country scare Sleeper. He feels trapped in a world where almost everyone — including blacks — hate blacks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388440/original/file-20210309-21-qjrozt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two black men: one mimics playing a trumpet, one plays guitar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388440/original/file-20210309-21-qjrozt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388440/original/file-20210309-21-qjrozt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388440/original/file-20210309-21-qjrozt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388440/original/file-20210309-21-qjrozt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388440/original/file-20210309-21-qjrozt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388440/original/file-20210309-21-qjrozt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388440/original/file-20210309-21-qjrozt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Black Brass, solace and connection is found through music.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christophe Canato/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, on stage, he finds solace in the soulful music of Mahamudo. Although their colonial past has eroded their ability to communicate in the same language, they find a common ground in African music. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Sleeper has to keep cleaning up the mess in the white man’s studio. We don’t know this job will ever end.</p>
<p><em>Correction: this story originally said 5.1% of Australia’s population was born in born in sub-Saharan Africa. 5.1% of Australia’s overseas-born population was born in sub-Saharan Africa.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kwadwo Adusei-Asante does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Mararo Wangai is captivating in his play, which captures the truth of being Black African in Australia.
Kwadwo Adusei-Asante, Senior Lecturer, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154271
2021-03-10T00:34:31Z
2021-03-10T00:34:31Z
Part escape room, part choose-your-own adventure, the whodunit Whistleblower has the audience at its heart
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388377/original/file-20210308-22-1tfyfot.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C9%2C2041%2C1355&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel James Grant/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Whistleblower, directed by Arielle Gray, Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd and Tim Watts. The Last Great Hunt for Perth Festival.</em></p>
<p>Whistleblower is a cross between a choose-your-own-adventure book and an escape-room experience with a dash of the improv TV-show <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0809816/">Thank God You’re Here</a>. The protagonist is chosen from the audience and the audience are part of the creation. </p>
<p>Given COVID restrictions, it is a feat to have pulled off interactive theatre of this magnitude, but the cast began by assuring us that, while what we were about to watch was theatrically risky, they’d taken every precaution to ensure it was virally safe. </p>
<p>An old-school video game vibe to the design belies the sophisticated technical manoeuvres that make the show so slick. With the onstage technicians dressed in white lab coats, a bank of computer monitors and a visible sound desk, watching the wheels keeping the show in motion is part of its appeal. </p>
<p>For the chosen performer, it is an exercise in trust as they hand themselves over to the ensemble cast of 11. Other audience members become involved, but the weight of the show rests on the shoulders of this one former audience member, who is told only their character’s name before they begin.</p>
<p>Everything else, they find out along the way, as they move through a series of locations trying to work out who they are, why they’re there and who to trust.</p>
<p>Multiple cameras project the live action onto screens; pre-recorded segments provide close-ups of what’s happening; Rachel Claudio’s looping, electronic soundtrack responds to the changing action. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388378/original/file-20210308-24-1cexzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A full stage shot showing the technology and multiple screens." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388378/original/file-20210308-24-1cexzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388378/original/file-20210308-24-1cexzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388378/original/file-20210308-24-1cexzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388378/original/file-20210308-24-1cexzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388378/original/file-20210308-24-1cexzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388378/original/file-20210308-24-1cexzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388378/original/file-20210308-24-1cexzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Much about this production is high tech, with all of the work behind the scenes in sight of the audience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel James Grant/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet often it is the low-fi elements — relying on the central character’s ability to operate a combination lock briefcase, or their presence of mind and memory under pressure — that become the source of the drama. </p>
<h2>An experience above a story</h2>
<p>Whistleblower is set in a fictional town resembling a cheesy, 1970s Australian TV show, in a time before the internet brought everything to our fingertips in an instant. The audience member at its heart must choose between acting for the greater good or privileging their personal freedom.</p>
<p>It would be unforgivable for me to blow the whistle on the plot, since future audiences depend on there being no spoilers.</p>
<p>But Whistleblower is not about the plot. It is about the experience of watching real people deal with what is thrown at them, make choices and manage the consequences of those choices. The thrill of the risk is what makes it so engaging. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388379/original/file-20210308-21-u255z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Creative Ensemble shooting live news with audience member" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388379/original/file-20210308-21-u255z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388379/original/file-20210308-21-u255z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388379/original/file-20210308-21-u255z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388379/original/file-20210308-21-u255z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388379/original/file-20210308-21-u255z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388379/original/file-20210308-21-u255z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388379/original/file-20210308-21-u255z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The heart of the show is the way the audience gets behind one of their own in the spotlight.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel James Grant/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The awkward moments have a compelling, car-crash quality. We watch the protagonist miss seemingly obvious clues, and careen towards narrative disaster. Equally, moments when the penny drops, when they — with their hand over their mouth in shock — experience genuine “a-ha” moments, were legitimately felt. We truly celebrated their victories. </p>
<p>Witnessing these authentic responses (albeit expertly manufactured by the ensemble) is a big part of the production’s success. Watching the delight of the cast as their chosen performer makes an unexpected choice or achieves a long-sought victory is another part of the work’s appeal. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388380/original/file-20210308-21-ecxxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The cast in white lab coats." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388380/original/file-20210308-21-ecxxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388380/original/file-20210308-21-ecxxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388380/original/file-20210308-21-ecxxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388380/original/file-20210308-21-ecxxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388380/original/file-20210308-21-ecxxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388380/original/file-20210308-21-ecxxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388380/original/file-20210308-21-ecxxwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No matter what happens with the audience, the cast keep the show moving along.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel James Grant/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given that they’re onstage in front of an audience, the production does a brilliant job of isolating the performer via an ingenious combination of sensory deprivation and overload, deepening their immersion in this fictional world.</p>
<h2>The art of community</h2>
<p>Much of the show is about the audience-member-turned-actor relying on their own wits. This is intensified by their disconnect from the electronic devices we all rely on: setting the story in a time before the internet and mobile phones truly makes the past seem like a foreign country. </p>
<p>The Gen Z performer selected on the night I attended at first seemed overwhelmed by her isolated disconnection.</p>
<p>Quite early, she dropped her persona and tried to call her real-life boyfriend through the old-fashioned, push button telephone prop: the real world and the fictional world in which she was temporarily residing momentarily collided and she lost her bearings.</p>
<p>Watching her rally and forge a path forward became an integral part of her story.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388381/original/file-20210308-21-1mnnhuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four cast members smile at computers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388381/original/file-20210308-21-1mnnhuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388381/original/file-20210308-21-1mnnhuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388381/original/file-20210308-21-1mnnhuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388381/original/file-20210308-21-1mnnhuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388381/original/file-20210308-21-1mnnhuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388381/original/file-20210308-21-1mnnhuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388381/original/file-20210308-21-1mnnhuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The greatest pleasure in Whistleblower is its creation of a community.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel James Grant/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The takeaways from this production will be different for each performance, but I found the greatest pleasure in being part of the audience: a community instinctively on the protagonist’s side. </p>
<p>We wanted her to do well, even when we were frustrated by her choices. Her vulnerability awoke our compassion. Recognising we all make mistakes meant it was joyously cathartic every time she had a lightbulb moment and self-corrected: making a choice that would move her forward rather than keep her stuck.</p>
<p>We not only forgave her for stumbling, we celebrated her for persevering.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154271/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Mercer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Produced by Perth’s wunderkinder ensemble The Last Great Hunt, Whistleblower is about the thrill of the risk when you throw the audience into the spotlight.
Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/153198
2021-03-03T00:03:47Z
2021-03-03T00:03:47Z
Pining for St Kilda instead of Moscow: The Cherry Orchard grapples with our cultural inheritance
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386889/original/file-20210301-19-9kax96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C5%2C4000%2C2652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: The Cherry Orchard, directed by Clare Watson. Black Swan State Theatre Company for the Perth Festival.</em></p>
<p>Stories get told over and over, each version sitting atop every other in a never-ending <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest">palimpsest</a>. Extracting and extending the metaphors of Anton Chekhov’s classic 1904 play <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cherry_Orchard">The Cherry Orchard</a>, this production adapted by Adriane Daff and Katherine Tonkin and directed by Clare Watson is as much about its staging at a former hospital as it is about the story and characters.</p>
<p>Reimagined in 1980s Western Australia, the parallels to Chekhov’s treatise on class and land work well: the mining boom, the influx of property developers, Australia (specifically WA) winning the America’s Cup, the Black Tuesday stock market crash, the gross short-sightedness of the Bicentennial celebrating only “200 years of Australian history”.</p>
<p>Set in Manjimup, 300 kilometres south of Perth, known for its annual cherry festival and familiar to all West Australians as the name on the cherry boxes they buy for Christmas, act one begins in the old hospital’s hall. </p>
<p>A mishmash of what was there and what set designer Zoë Atkinson has added, the hall represents a dilapidated home on a country estate. The act seems to be performed under the natural light gradually receding as twilight approaches.</p>
<p>With the audience seated around the edges, our views vary between extreme close-up or way-down-the-other-end. This shifting perspective reinforces the sense nobody in this story ever has the full picture. Wireless microphones strike a disconcerting, disembodied note.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386901/original/file-20210301-22-1fbz5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: the cast parties in a hall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386901/original/file-20210301-22-1fbz5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386901/original/file-20210301-22-1fbz5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386901/original/file-20210301-22-1fbz5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386901/original/file-20210301-22-1fbz5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386901/original/file-20210301-22-1fbz5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386901/original/file-20210301-22-1fbz5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386901/original/file-20210301-22-1fbz5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The audience are spread around the space: sometimes you watch in close up, sometimes you are looking down the other end of the hall.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Characters out of time</h2>
<p>For act two, we amble down a grassy slope on the bank of the Swan River to sit on fold-up chairs or picnic blankets. The characters gather around a barbecue, wandering in and out of the scene while the sun slowly disappears.</p>
<p>The adaptation has to work the hardest against this site. The strong evening breeze and pace of the setting sun don’t always sync with the script. </p>
<p>Such disconnect, plus the inclusion of original Russian character names in an otherwise “Aussie-fied” script and the disembodied amplified voices, give the piece a televisual quality, like images from some long-forgotten Australian TV show, swarming with fuzzy memories of big hair, Laura Ashley dresses and Casio keyboards.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386902/original/file-20210301-17-1vxmdbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: two characters in 80s dress outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386902/original/file-20210301-17-1vxmdbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386902/original/file-20210301-17-1vxmdbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386902/original/file-20210301-17-1vxmdbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386902/original/file-20210301-17-1vxmdbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386902/original/file-20210301-17-1vxmdbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386902/original/file-20210301-17-1vxmdbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386902/original/file-20210301-17-1vxmdbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On the banks of Swan River, The Cherry Orchard captures 80s Australiana.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Peppered throughout are montages of leisurely set-ups and drunken parties to a soundtrack of 80s pop classics. These montages slow the show down, but there is a payoff in this playing with time. Watching these people go about the ordinary business of their lives, it is as if we are hanging out with them.</p>
<p>It also echoes Chekhov’s use of time: his characters act as if they have all the time in the world, until it suddenly catches up with them. </p>
<p>Act three, outside against a festoon-lit verandah, brings us to the tail end of yet another party as the characters, resplendent in fancy-dress costumes, wait for news of the orchard’s sale. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386903/original/file-20210301-18-rz0hqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In fancy dress, the family stand on the porch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386903/original/file-20210301-18-rz0hqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386903/original/file-20210301-18-rz0hqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386903/original/file-20210301-18-rz0hqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386903/original/file-20210301-18-rz0hqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386903/original/file-20210301-18-rz0hqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386903/original/file-20210301-18-rz0hqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386903/original/file-20210301-18-rz0hqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The characters think they have all the time in the world — but time catches up with them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Lopakhin (Ben Mortley), the “cashed-up bogan” neighbour, it is the culmination of his class-war tightrope walk. Emboldened by his purchase of the property, he cuts sick to Talking Heads’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3eC35LoF4U">Burning Down the House</a>. A cross between David Byrne and a drunken used-car salesman, it is a splendidly gauche one-man celebration of his lifelong ambition for status and belonging.</p>
<p>Finally, we return to the hall. Sold, the house has been stripped of furniture and light, and reverberates with the sound of cherry trees being chopped down outside in the long-gone twilight.</p>
<h2>Stories out of place</h2>
<p>Many of the characters are disconnected from their sense of place. </p>
<p>The matriarch and landowner Ranyevskaya, played with a sexual weariness and fierce fragility by Hayley McElhinney, is a Marilyn-Monroe-little-girl-lost superimposed over Madonna’s Material Girl. In the action to save her home she is pulled taut between inertia and grotesque desperation.</p>
<p>Sam Longley’s long legs, improvisational skills and comedy chops are put to great use as Yepikhodov, the family’s accountant. From his squeaky-shoed entrance to the image of him in fancy dress as a pickle eating a pickle he is an ugly cry waiting to happen.</p>
<p>These dislocated characters make you think about the rite-of-passage exodus from country towns to the big smoke, or from Perth to the east coast. But the play also addresses bigger pictures of displacement: Varya, Ranyevskaya’s adopted daughter, is played by Asian-Australian actor Grace Chow, and Trofimov, the perpetual uni student is played Mark Nannup, a Yamatji Nyoongar man.</p>
<p>Trofimov moves between the philosophical (“Real progress is possible, but you have to give something up”) and the realistic (“Maybe you shouldn’t buy another boat”), and most directly addresses the play’s questions about land “ownership”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386904/original/file-20210301-22-9ierz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people talk on a bench." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386904/original/file-20210301-22-9ierz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386904/original/file-20210301-22-9ierz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386904/original/file-20210301-22-9ierz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386904/original/file-20210301-22-9ierz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386904/original/file-20210301-22-9ierz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386904/original/file-20210301-22-9ierz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386904/original/file-20210301-22-9ierz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Questions of ownership and place are very different in Chekhov’s Russia and today’s Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel J Grant/Black Swan State Theatre Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That much of the adaptation’s gravitas is put into the mouth of the only First Nations character makes absolute sense, but it sometimes seems like a burden he carries alone.</p>
<p>Even so, Daff and Tonkin’s adaptation brilliantly occupies the land created by Chekhov and it serves them well. </p>
<p>WA in the 80s is the perfect time and place to tease out the themes of Chekhov’s play. Pining for St Kilda in lieu of Moscow reeks of the requisite cultural shame. </p>
<p>Wrestling with our cultural inheritance should be a core part of the business of our state theatre company. In sewing together these elements of personal, regional and national identity, this production’s conversation with Chekhov’s classic has done just that.</p>
<p><em>The Cherry Orchard plays until March 20.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Mercer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In this brilliant new adaptation, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard is transported to Manjimup, 300 km south of Perth, and the Australia of the 1980s.
Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155742
2021-02-25T04:27:43Z
2021-02-25T04:27:43Z
A Forest of Hooks and Nails is a joyous exhibition about the art of hanging art
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386067/original/file-20210224-22-h7668i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2000%2C1335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Maxxi Minaxi May, The light crystals (detail). FSC wood and plastic rulers, glue.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre/Rebecca Mansell</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: A Forest of Hooks and Nails, Fremantle Arts Centre for Perth Festival</em></p>
<p>Several years ago, when being shown around an exhibition under preparation with a Nobel prize-winning guest, an academic colleague asked what one of the install crew was doing high above on a scissor lift. </p>
<p>When told he was moving a speaker 5mm to the left, my colleague scoffed and asked if that was necessary. </p>
<p>His guest boomed in, “I would never have been awarded a Nobel Prize if I hadn’t taken that level of care.” Duly rebuffed, they moved on, and the work proceeded. </p>
<p>The Nobel Prize winner and the young man installing the work were well aware of the importance of attending to the small details that make a difference.</p>
<p>Indeed the install crew at any art gallery is typically a group of talented and committed young artists. Their job requires attention to detail, complex problem solving, respect for the integrity of every artwork, and a willingness to respond to changes of mind — no matter how close to the deadline.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386074/original/file-20210224-13-mr3p9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386074/original/file-20210224-13-mr3p9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386074/original/file-20210224-13-mr3p9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386074/original/file-20210224-13-mr3p9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386074/original/file-20210224-13-mr3p9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386074/original/file-20210224-13-mr3p9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386074/original/file-20210224-13-mr3p9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386074/original/file-20210224-13-mr3p9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hugh Thomson, Pyramid Scheme (detail). Wood, copper, leather, nails, electrical components, synthesizers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre/Rebecca Mansell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, it must be a little frustrating for artists to install the work of others when they would ideally be preparing their own works for exhibition. So, this year for a Perth Festival exhibition, the Fremantle Arts Centre has made their dreams come true. </p>
<p>Tom Freeman, the gallery’s install coordinator, has curated an exhibition of the work of 10 of his install staff, allowing them to take over the walls, floor, and gallery spaces as artists in their own right.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386073/original/file-20210224-21-y95v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386073/original/file-20210224-21-y95v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386073/original/file-20210224-21-y95v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386073/original/file-20210224-21-y95v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386073/original/file-20210224-21-y95v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386073/original/file-20210224-21-y95v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386073/original/file-20210224-21-y95v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386073/original/file-20210224-21-y95v3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phoebe Tran, Moss lounge for contemplating gallery spaces. Moss, wintergreen couch grass, sun lounge, geotextile fabric, found stones.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre/Rebecca Mansell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among their work is a small altar to installation, a shelf on which the tools of their trade are laid out in a row of implements and accessories.</p>
<p>Wall plugs of different sizes and colours, rolls of tape, paint cans, a laser level, a paint stirrer, and the cleverly folded paper dust collector used when drilling are aligned together alongside signs announcing “PLEASE DON’T PAINT THIS SECTION,” another “PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH.” </p>
<p>The installation is a homage to former gallery director Jim Cathcart, who described the middle of an install as like entering “a forest of hooks and nails”. </p>
<p>Freeman conceptualised the exhibition as an opportunity to showcase the talents of his remarkable crew, but also a chance for staff to reveal “the bones” of the building, built by convict labour in the 1860s for use as the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum.</p>
<h2>Making magic</h2>
<p>Rob Kettels’ work is an act of imaginative transformation. Occupying the small gallery to the rear of the building, his installation, Mineral Rites, uses salt, lighting gel, audio, and acrylic paint to create a magical environment.</p>
<p>Based on his 2016 experience of trekking across the dry salt-lake <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mackay">Wilkinkarra/Lake Mackay</a>, one of Australia’s remotest places and our fourth-largest lake, Kettels investigates the ambience of the salt-infused environment and deploys those sensual cues within the gallery to shift our consciousness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386069/original/file-20210224-15-1buvgxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A room washed in pink." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386069/original/file-20210224-15-1buvgxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386069/original/file-20210224-15-1buvgxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386069/original/file-20210224-15-1buvgxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386069/original/file-20210224-15-1buvgxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386069/original/file-20210224-15-1buvgxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386069/original/file-20210224-15-1buvgxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386069/original/file-20210224-15-1buvgxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rob Kettels, Mineral Rites. Salt, lighting, gel, audio, acrylic paint.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre/Rebecca Mansell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The juxtaposition of the seductive salt crystals covering the floor and the soft leaching of pink colour up the walls toward the blue sky is completely absorbing and convincing.</p>
<p>Within that space, we are transported to a different reality where everything is subsumed or inflected with the heat, the piercing light, and the brittle dryness of that remote site.</p>
<h2>The work of the gallery</h2>
<p>Other artists in the exhibition have found inspiration in their roles as install assistants. </p>
<p>Maxxi Minaxi May’s marvellous, fugue-like variations on rulers, set squares, measuring tapes and assorted plastic protractors are both witty and aesthetically intriguing. Despite the fact she lists her favourite install tools as the scissor lift and drill, she mines a great deal of visual impact from assembling these measuring devices into sculptural forms. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386070/original/file-20210224-15-j5gupi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386070/original/file-20210224-15-j5gupi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386070/original/file-20210224-15-j5gupi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386070/original/file-20210224-15-j5gupi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386070/original/file-20210224-15-j5gupi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386070/original/file-20210224-15-j5gupi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386070/original/file-20210224-15-j5gupi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386070/original/file-20210224-15-j5gupi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maxxi Minaxi May, The light crystals. FSC wood and plastic rulers, glue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre/Rebecca Mansell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Deployed within the gallery, they throw interlocking shadows against the wall, mix colour through refraction, and re-articulate the space in surprising ways.</p>
<p>Tyrown Waigana is similarly inspired by installing — painting walls, unpacking artworks, and the inevitable cleaning up. His delightful digital animation documenting the unpacking of each new artwork on arrival in the gallery is enthralling. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386071/original/file-20210224-13-wh6uyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two figurines paint." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386071/original/file-20210224-13-wh6uyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386071/original/file-20210224-13-wh6uyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386071/original/file-20210224-13-wh6uyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386071/original/file-20210224-13-wh6uyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386071/original/file-20210224-13-wh6uyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386071/original/file-20210224-13-wh6uyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386071/original/file-20210224-13-wh6uyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tyrown Waigana, Painting. Wire, aluminium, polymer clay, acrylic paint, fabrics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fremantle Arts Centre/Rebecca Mansell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In combination with his sculptural portrayal of wall preparation, we are given an insight into the attraction of install as professional engagement for an artist.</p>
<p>Not only do these artists get to work with the materials of their craft — in itself a great joy — but there is also the pleasure of engaging with the work of artists you admire.</p>
<p>Perhaps that is why this is such a joyous exhibition. The works of these ten artists fill the galleries of the Fremantle Art Centre with their creative energy, with their delight in transforming spaces, and their enthusiasm for sharing the pleasure of encountering artworks for the first time.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.fac.org.au/2021/01/fac-presents-a-forest-of-hooks-and-nails-for-the-2021-perth-festival/">A Forest of Hooks and Nails is at Fremantle Arts Centre</a> until 14 March 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
What if an ‘install crew’ was given carte blanche to take over the walls and floor of a gallery? At this year’s Perth Festival, this is exactly what happened.
Ted Snell, Honorary Professor, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155733
2021-02-23T00:42:06Z
2021-02-23T00:42:06Z
Perth Festival review: Whale Fall is a powerful story about a trans boy, and the life of a whale
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385492/original/file-20210222-19-1fu0inm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1495%2C994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Daniel James Grant</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Whale Fall, written by Ian Sinclair and directed by Melissa Cantwell for The Kabuki Drop. Commissioned by PICA and co-presented with Perth Festival.</em></p>
<p>Whale Fall follows the emotional journey of a 12-year-old boy, Caleb (Ashton Brady), and his family grappling with Caleb’s desire to medically affirm his gender: letting go of the daughter they had; accepting and getting to know the son he has become. </p>
<p>We are immersed in an ocean setting. Ian Sinclair’s script carries a strong marine undercurrent from beginning to end: the beachside house, the young boy’s dream of becoming a marine biologist, his excitement in recounting his readings about intriguing sea creatures to his mother, Nadine (Caitlin Beresford-Ord), and the parallel theme of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall">whale fall</a> sewn into the story. This is the new life borne out of a dead whale when it reaches the ocean floor.</p>
<p>The play is as much about a young trans person’s journey as it is about Australians’ strong connection to the ocean and ever-increasing awareness of our ecological responsibility for its preservation.</p>
<h2>In death, and life</h2>
<p>Sinclair drew inspiration for his play from Rebecca Grigg’s 2015 <a href="https://granta.com/whale-fall/">essay of the same name</a>, which she later developed into the book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52765413-fathoms">Fathoms</a> (2020).</p>
<p>Contrary to common belief, most whales’ bodies are slightly higher in density than seawater. Unless their lungs are filled with air, whales will quickly sink to the bottom of the ocean. </p>
<p>Once decomposition of a dead whale sets in, the carcass’ density decreases and gas is produced through putrefaction. In marine environments over 100 meters deep, hydrostatic pressure is sufficiently high to hold carcasses <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235972915_Float_explode_or_sink_Postmortem_fate_of_lung-breathing_marine_vertebrates">on the seafloor</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385484/original/file-20210222-17-1vij9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385484/original/file-20210222-17-1vij9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385484/original/file-20210222-17-1vij9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385484/original/file-20210222-17-1vij9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385484/original/file-20210222-17-1vij9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385484/original/file-20210222-17-1vij9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385484/original/file-20210222-17-1vij9n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two southern right whales resting along an Australian beach.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chandra P. Salgado Kent</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the seabed, the carcass transitions to what is scientifically called a “<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4171/654c16ea5a77e8cddb75f0ce9fb9d76e7315.pdf?_ga=2.190596715.1728100629.1613884038-1435596727.161388403">whale fall ecosystem</a>” – a unique habitat island inhabited by a biodiverse and highly specialised range of marine organisms subsisting on the dead carcass. </p>
<p>Since their discovery in the late 1980s, it has become clear that whale fall ecosystems are abundant in certain regions of the deep sea. They support extraordinarily rich communities of species, which can be supported by one whale fall for decades.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-south-african-theatre-project-explores-collective-solutions-to-saving-the-ocean-135229">A South African theatre project explores collective solutions to saving the ocean</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Caleb explores the whale’s journey as a way of both escaping the emotional toll of his situation, and finding his path forward. </p>
<p>He sees the whale — a mammal like himself — living and dying in deep-sea darkness, before emerging and giving life in a new form. </p>
<p>The boy’s account of the whale’s journey into the abyss and transforming into whale fall is a delightful mixture of poetry and accurate scientific detail, conjuring images of what it might be like to undergo such a change. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385494/original/file-20210222-21-6xl2y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young boy and his mother" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385494/original/file-20210222-21-6xl2y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385494/original/file-20210222-21-6xl2y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385494/original/file-20210222-21-6xl2y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385494/original/file-20210222-21-6xl2y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385494/original/file-20210222-21-6xl2y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385494/original/file-20210222-21-6xl2y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385494/original/file-20210222-21-6xl2y1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In studying the whale fall, Caleb finds both escape and joy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival/Daniel James Grant</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ashton smoothly rolls the scientific poetry off his tongue to describe the “buoyancy of the meat” of the sinking whale, “weighed down by bones, with white worms clinging to a parachute of muscle, a macabre marionette”.</p>
<p>He then takes us into the complex ecosystem of isopods, polychaetes, crustaceans and deep-sea fish that eventually scavenge and inhabit the carcass: incredible new life in the abyssal depths of the sea.</p>
<h2>Ecological responsibility</h2>
<p>Whale Fall brilliantly brings important social issues, and an intriguing and important ecological phenomenon, to a mainstream audience.</p>
<p>Under Melissa Cantwell’s direction, the performers tell the powerful story with tenderness, emotional outbursts and witty humour. </p>
<p>The dynamic tempo (sound design and composition by Rebecca Riggs-Bennett) is sometimes playful, intensifying to a climax and then releasing, only to be followed by a new wave of dynamic emotion, leaving you caught up in the journey. </p>
<p>Whale Fall highlights our internal battles to adapt to life’s challenges, its humanity, and important social issues regarding gender identity — all while communicating a message about ecological responsibility for safeguarding the ocean. </p>
<p>Only by exploring these issues through powerful, emotionally engaging and thought-provoking artistic works such as this one can we create the cultural changes required for a healthy society. </p>
<p><em>Whale Fall is at PICA Performance Space until 27 February.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155733/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chandra Salgado Kent does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Through the whale’s journey from life to death, Caleb escapes the emotional toll of his situation, and finds his path forward.
Chandra Salgado Kent, Associate Professor, School of Science, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132271
2020-03-03T02:20:23Z
2020-03-03T02:20:23Z
Fidelio review: Beethoven’s only opera bristles with contemporary relevance
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318210/original/file-20200303-18279-1wzg72q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C2000%2C1326&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WASO/Rebecca Mansell</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Beethoven’s Fidelio. West Australian Symphony Orchestra, West Australian Opera and Perth Festival.</em></p>
<p>There’s something disconcertingly compartmentalised about opera – particularly opera in concert. The audience stays lit throughout, and the chorus sit behind the orchestra looking at us looking at them. </p>
<p>Then there’s the surtitles, the amplification of the voices that separates them from their source, the position of the singers across the front of the orchestra, the varying degrees to which they enact the experience of their characters, and the fact they’re all dressed in contemporary clothes not connected to their characters. </p>
<p>Add to this there is something out of time about opera. But maybe that’s just me, maybe it’s just out of my time. </p>
<p>All of these variables were in play as I watched Beethoven’s Fidelio, presented by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) and Perth Festival in association with the West Australian Opera. </p>
<p>When the narrator (Eryn Jean Norvill) enters and says something like “Imagine a world entirely unlike ours, or maybe it isn’t so different…” the shackles of my preconceptions and discombobulation start to soften. Equal parts storyteller and commentator, Norvill provides the perfect bridge for us to cross over into Fidelio’s world.</p>
<p>As she continues, her words make us imagine a prison, and a prison of “misdirected desires”; a garden and a garden of freedom. Themes of love, imprisonment and freedom run through this work. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ahead-of-his-time-beethoven-still-inspires-129454">Ahead of his time, Beethoven still inspires</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Fidelio is Beethoven’s only opera. Presented here in concert rather than production, WASO’s principal conductor, Asher Fisch, suggested the addition of narrated text to provide a throughline for the audience. Using description and commentary, writer Alison Croggon touches on the tangle of love (both misplaced and perfectly placed) and the themes of corruption and political persecution underpinning this story. </p>
<h2>A bridge between old and new</h2>
<p>The narration provides hooks for the audience to grasp, and historical and contemporary context to remind us how these themes remain as pertinent as ever. </p>
<p>Croggon tracks Beethoven’s <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2019/03-04/napoleon-inspiration-beethoven-third-symphony/">diminishing faith</a> in Napoleon to the way he <a href="https://www.opera-online.com/en/articles/fidelio-a-unique-opera">redeveloped</a> the opera from its poorly received premiere in 1805 to the final version, which was rapturously received in 1814. Then, she writes of illegally detained prisoners, “everywhere, even today, even in this country”, and the work seems to bristle with contemporary, cultural relevance.</p>
<p>Croggan highlights the ways the powerful punish those who tell the truth, and the undeniable truth, “not every wall is visible”.</p>
<p>Standing behind a lectern with script in view, the audience views the narrator differently from the singers who are wholly immersed in the physical act of performing these songs. This divide creates a striking contrast in embodiment. </p>
<p>There are many highlights throughout the evening. The quartet in act one, between Leonore (disguised as the boy Fidelio) (Christiane Libor), Marzelline (Felicitas Fuchs), Jaquino (Andrew Goodwin) and Rocco (Jonathan Lemalu), starts as a delicate interplay between Marzelline expressing her love for Fidelio and Leonore her fear of exposure. It builds into a complex overlap as the other characters join.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/performing-beethoven-what-it-feels-like-to-embody-a-master-on-todays-stage-129184">Performing Beethoven - what it feels like to embody a master on today's stage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The thrilling complexity of juggling four concurrent points of view makes this quartet an early turning point where all the diverse elements seem to come together. The form settles. Or perhaps I just settle into the form. </p>
<p>Warwick Fyfe is impassioned as the evil prison governor, joined by the 40-strong male members of the WASO chorus in his rousing introduction. His is a visceral performance. From the thump of his footsteps as he enters the stage, Fyfe’s performance supersedes the concert form, giving a peek into how this character could be played in a full production.</p>
<p>When we return from interval, the house lights are slightly dimmed to suggest Leonore’s descent into the underground prison to rescue her husband Florestan (Tomislav Mužek), falsely imprisoned for political reasons. We first see Florestan seated, leaning forward, hands crossed in his lap. This simple staging choice helps encapsulate his suffering.</p>
<p>In the program, Croggan says one of the things that drew her to Fidelio was here was an opera in which the woman doesn’t die. She is, in fact, the hero who rescues her husband. Her reveal as his wife Leonore rather than Fidelio is splendidly performed by Libor, culminating in a beautifully performed duet with Florestan. </p>
<p>To paraphrase Croggan’s narration, “Leonora’s other name is Hope.” This is how the evening ends, full of rousing hope and joy. The crowd hisses with glee at the curtain call of the villain and yells <em>bravos</em> and <em>bravas</em> for everyone else. </p>
<p>The sense of triumph in the room is infectious. Beethoven’s music and Croggan’s images – “the garden is always there waiting for us” – resound as we walk away into the night.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132271/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Mercer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A new narration written by Alison Croggon and performed by Eryn Jean Norvill comes together in triumph.
Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132270
2020-02-28T04:38:36Z
2020-02-28T04:38:36Z
Leviathan review: Circa’s new production explores the ordinary, extraordinary mass of humanity
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317716/original/file-20200228-24701-12f27ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C3%2C2030%2C1356&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sergio Lordao/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Leviathan, directed by Yaron Lifschitz. Circa in collaboration with Co:3 Australia, MAXIMA Circus and CircusWA for Perth Festival.</em></p>
<p>As the audience takes their seats, two feet poke out from beneath the curtain. </p>
<p>In hindsight, it’s the first trick they play on us, lulling us with this image of a human body involved in the ordinary business of lying down. </p>
<p>Things get complicated fast. The single figure is joined by a cast of about 40 on a vast stage filled with discarded party streamers. It’s as if we’ve arrived too late for a fancy dress party. There’s an astronaut, a king, an assortment of other costumes. </p>
<p>Just as quickly as it appears, the party is replaced by a stunning feat of physical derring-do: a body standing on top of a body, standing on top of another body. </p>
<p>A great height, and a stomach-dropping fall.</p>
<p>For the next 80 minutes, Leviathan progresses through a melange of bodies moving through space. Transforming shapes, they morph from humans to totems to mythical creatures (perhaps the leviathans of the title) back to humans. From extraordinary to ordinary and back again. </p>
<p>Each sequence stands on its own while also seeming to build on what came before. At its most basic level, Leviathan is a series of bodies climbing up and climbing down, falling and getting up again, but the work’s cumulative effect evokes an almost contemplative, trance-like reverie in the viewer.</p>
<h2>Playing with scale</h2>
<p>Directed by Yaron Lifschitz for Brisbane’s Circa Ensemble in collaboration with three West Australian companies – Co:3 Australia, MAXIMA Circus and CircusWA – Leviathan is a highly accomplished work and a one-of-a-kind collaboration. </p>
<p>Casts of this size are a rare treat and a great outcome for any festival. Leviathan – in process, form and content – speaks directly to Perth Festival’s <a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/media/c1xjiecs/perthfestival_brochure_190x225_20201011_lr-copy.pdf">celebration</a> of “our town, our place and our Festival”. Bringing together four companies means the cast members range from children to young adults to adults, and the sense of on-stage community is palpable. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317717/original/file-20200228-24655-qwj3ds.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317717/original/file-20200228-24655-qwj3ds.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317717/original/file-20200228-24655-qwj3ds.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317717/original/file-20200228-24655-qwj3ds.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317717/original/file-20200228-24655-qwj3ds.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317717/original/file-20200228-24655-qwj3ds.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317717/original/file-20200228-24655-qwj3ds.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leviathan speaks to Perth Festival’s celebration of ‘our place and our town’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sergio Lordao/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dressed in an eclectic array of contemporary streetwear they could have been any of the (mostly) young audience members. I could have sworn I’d seen one of them leaning against a street sign on my way into the theatre. </p>
<p>Community underpins Lifschitz’s vision for the piece. In <a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/news/leviathan-q-a-with-yaron-lifschitz/">the program</a> he refers to the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’ book <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/20/the-100-best-nonfiction-books-no-94-leviathan-thomas-hobbes-1651">Leviathan</a> as inspiration: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A monster king rising up out of the sea whose body is constituted by these tiny little people – the populace. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Taking Hobbes’ exploration of power, the individual and society, Lifschitz explores individual freedom and the responsibility each of us has to be part of a community by acknowledging our interdependence. He does so by creating a performance that moves between extraordinary individual feats and startling images of the mass at work. </p>
<p>It is a repeated motif, but one that stays vivid and fresh in the hands of this extraordinary creative team and cast.</p>
<p>Somewhere between contemporary circus and dance, Leviathan moves between exquisitely precise choreography and kinaesthetic improvisation, between union and seeming chaos. </p>
<p>When the party space transforms, it is possible to imagine a human chessboard that becomes a school playground that becomes a prison. The associations flow free and fast. At points throughout, an overhead perspective of the performers is provided via a live-feed projection at the top of the stage: the kaleidoscope of possibilities expands further.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sequins-and-symphonies-how-opera-ran-away-with-the-circus-64125">Sequins and symphonies: how opera ran away with the circus</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In a show full of many extraordinary physical feats of strength and dexterity there is an astonishing duet between a young woman in a fluoro-green tank top and a young man in fluoro-pink shoes. </p>
<p>Performed with physical and emotional intensity, he seems to lift and manipulate her with just his hands placed on her face. Just when our eyes tell us he’s lifting her it becomes apparent that her strength is doing just as much of the work. It is one of many tricks of light, time, space and physical ability that cause a literal gasp in the audience as it comes to a momentarily terrifying then stunning conclusion. The work of both performers here is truly mesmerising.</p>
<p>The cast is characterised by a compelling seriousness of purpose. For the majority of the performance they are an anonymous mass, as the lighting celebrates the imprint of their bodies in space, rather than their faces. </p>
<p>However, towards the end, there is a moment of direct eye-to-eye connection with the audience as each of them gives a final straight-to-camera curtain call. </p>
<p>It beautifully serves the work’s higher purpose.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Leviathan plays at the Regal Theatre until March 1.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Mercer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Leading Australian circus company Circa joins with three West Australian companies to create a complex, shifting work that casts a trance over the audience.
Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126829
2019-11-19T03:31:03Z
2019-11-19T03:31:03Z
Australia’s major summer arts festivals: reckoning with the past or retreating into it?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302312/original/file-20191118-169393-1nioih9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C2%2C1905%2C1074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wesley Enoch's Sydney Festival has placed First Nations people and artists at its heart.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victor Frankowski/Sydney Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia invests heavily in its major festivals: <a href="https://acncpubfilesprodstorage.blob.core.windows.net/public/c83df050-38af-e811-a95e-000d3ad24c60-db26ab3e-a975-49b3-a2b6-66842dfff283-Financial%20Report-b45bb30e-3a45-e911-a973-000d3ad24282-2018_Annual_Report.pdf">A$5 million</a> in state government funding for Sydney Festival, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-11/perth-festival-opening-weekend-boorna-waanginy-kings-park/10798726">$7 million</a> for Perth, and <a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/media/4958/b431014-adelaide-festival-corporation-2018-19-annual-report.pdf">$9 million</a> for Adelaide.</p>
<p>Funding for festivals has remained relatively constant over the past five years, even as other <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-arts-funding-in-australia-is-falling-and-local-governments-are-picking-up-the-slack-124160">arts funding has been slashed</a>. Adelaide Festival will even receive an additional <a href="https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/arts/2019/06/19/state-budget-arts-funding-adelaide-festival-windmill/">$1.25 million a year for the next three years</a> while the rest of the local sector will <a href="https://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/grants-and-funding/richard-watts/shock-as-arts-budget-slashed-in-south-australia-256418">face cuts</a>.</p>
<p>So what should festivals do in such circumstances: focus on bringing the world to us – or make us reflect on ourselves?</p>
<p>Major Australian arts festivals have always balanced <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org.au/crossing-points/kath-m-mainland-what%E2%80%99s-point-festival">the local and the global</a>. Festivals can offer local artists the opportunity to create works of scale and reach <a href="https://www.artshub.com.au/festival/news-article/features/festivals/richard-watts/creating-entry-points-for-non-arts-audiences-256411">wider audiences</a>. On the other hand, festivals are also a chance to bring <a href="https://creative.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/313780/vic-creative-festivals-review.pdf">new and challenging work from overseas</a>.</p>
<p>Three of Australia’s major multi-arts festivals take place in the first three months of the year, and their 2020 programs offer an interesting insight into how artistic leaders are making festivals in the face of shrinking budgets for the rest of the sector.</p>
<h2>Sydney, 8–26 January</h2>
<p>Wesley Enoch started at Sydney Festival in 2017 armed with passion and vision. </p>
<p>The first Aboriginal artistic director of the festival, his tenure has been characterised by a strong focus on First Nations artists. Sydney Festival overlaps with Australia Day, and Enoch programmed <a href="https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/the-vigil">The Vigil</a> on January 25 2019: an invitation to gather at Barangaroo and reflect on “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjQ87oJZZCg">the day before it all changed</a>.” He is repeating this programming in 2020.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JjQ87oJZZCg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>2020 also includes three world premiere theatre works by Indigenous artists, and major visual art exhibitions including <a href="https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/fiona-foley-who-are-these-strangers">Fiona Foley</a> and <a href="https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/vernon-ah-kee-the-island">Vernon Ah Kee</a>. Enoch has championed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jan/03/patricia-cornelius-a-courageous-australian-playwright-neglected">Patricia Cornelius</a>, started a <a href="https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2020/accessibility">disability programming initiative</a>, and the festival <a href="https://content.sydneyfestivalcdn.org.au/2020/Documents/Sydney%20Festival%202020%20media%20release.pdf">claims to be</a> “the largest single commissioner of Australian work.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302082/original/file-20191118-66917-10v0v4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302082/original/file-20191118-66917-10v0v4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302082/original/file-20191118-66917-10v0v4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302082/original/file-20191118-66917-10v0v4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302082/original/file-20191118-66917-10v0v4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302082/original/file-20191118-66917-10v0v4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302082/original/file-20191118-66917-10v0v4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">My Name Is Jimi at the 2018 Sydney Festival told the story of four generations of Torres Strait Islanders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Boud/Sydney Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Enoch’s programming feels driven by a conviction that festivals have the power to rehearse new stories, resurrect lost classics, and re-imagine the future.</p>
<h2>Perth, 7 February – 1 March</h2>
<p>During her four years at the helm of the Perth Festival from 2016-19, Wendy Martin cultivated a profound sense of place, giving local audiences and artists space to reflect on what it means to live and create in the city.</p>
<p>Her festivals opened with large, inclusive <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/feb/11/perth-festival-opens-with-an-exquisite-million-dollar-spectacle-and-an-urgent-warning">public events</a>. She commissioned work from Perth artists, culminating in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-11/perth-festival-opening-weekend-boorna-waanginy-kings-park/10798726">seven world premieres</a> this year. She invited international artists to <a href="https://thewest.com.au/entertainment/piaf-reviews/interactive-journey-of-discovery-ng-b88402437z">collaborate with local companies</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/15/birth-water-sweat-and-menstrual-blood-museum-of-waters-australian-donations">work with local communities</a>. She <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-01/perth-festival-disability-arts-initiative-putting-artists-centre/10851924">foregrounded artists with disabilities</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302118/original/file-20191118-66917-f6t6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302118/original/file-20191118-66917-f6t6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302118/original/file-20191118-66917-f6t6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302118/original/file-20191118-66917-f6t6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302118/original/file-20191118-66917-f6t6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302118/original/file-20191118-66917-f6t6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302118/original/file-20191118-66917-f6t6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You Know We Belong Together, a play about Down Syndrome and Home and Away, premiered at the 2018 Perth Festival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>2020 will be Iain Grandage’s first festival, and he is following Martin’s lead. The first week of the festival will be <a href="https://www.artshub.com.au/festival/news-article/news/festivals/richard-watts/perth-festival-dedicates-first-week-exclusively-to-first-nations-259144">dedicated exclusively to Aboriginal work</a>, including a large-scale Shakespearean production and a suite of children’s songs, both devised and performed in Noongar language. </p>
<p>It is too early to say what will define Grandage’s term in Perth, but if 2020 is anything to go by he is going to continue to focus on the local and celebrate what it means to be from WA.</p>
<h2>Adelaide, 28 February – 15 March</h2>
<p>Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy debuted in Adelaide in 2017. In contrast to Enoch and Martin’s emphasis on local people and place, Armfield and Healy have defaulted to <a href="https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2019/09/11/is-there-enough-adelaide-in-the-adelaide-festival/">prioritising works of scale from overseas</a>.</p>
<p>If there is a guiding concept to their four festivals, it is the classic. Their international imports have focused on proven successes from Europe, with a preference for male auteurs (<a href="https://theconversation.com/search/result?sg=1e281d4d-0196-4b48-bb81-221d66ae673b&sp=1&sr=3&url=%2Fbarrie-koskys-the-magic-flute-is-a-contemporary-spectacle-despite-the-operas-outdated-attitudes-112284">Barrie Kosky</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-miserable-year-the-adelaide-festival-brought-us-joy-74846">Thomas Ostermeier</a>, <a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/requiem/">Romeo Castelluci</a>) directing canonical operas and plays .</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302119/original/file-20191118-66945-189dcly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302119/original/file-20191118-66945-189dcly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302119/original/file-20191118-66945-189dcly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302119/original/file-20191118-66945-189dcly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302119/original/file-20191118-66945-189dcly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302119/original/file-20191118-66945-189dcly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302119/original/file-20191118-66945-189dcly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barrie Kosky’s Saul was the centrepiece of the 2017 Adelaide Festival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Lewis/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2020, while Sydney and Perth are staging major new theatre works, the only Australian theatre in Adelaide will be William Zappa’s 2017 adaption of <a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/the-iliad/">The Illiad</a>; and a Belvoir/State Theatre Company of South Australia production of American playwright Clare Barron’s <a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/dance-nation/">Dance Nation</a>.</p>
<p>The 2020 program has no Indigenous-led opera, theatre, dance, or visual art – surprising given Armfield’s strong track record of <a href="https://belvoir.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Belvoir_Production_History-to-2018.pdf">nurturing Aboriginal artists at Belvoir</a>. </p>
<p>Each of Armfield and Healy’s festivals have <a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/news/latest-news/adelaide-festival-2019-the-most-successful-in-its-59-year-history/">broken box office records</a>. But ticket sales are <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-bulldust-benchmarks-and-numbers-what-matters-in-australian-culture-101459">not the only measure of a festival’s value</a> and bigger is not always better. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-bulldust-benchmarks-and-numbers-what-matters-in-australian-culture-101459">Beyond bulldust, benchmarks and numbers: what matters in Australian culture</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Would it matter if box office dipped, if local artists and audiences gained? The number of tickets sold doesn’t speak to the number of new stories told, old languages learned (Enoch has programmed free classes of the <a href="https://content.sydneyfestivalcdn.org.au/2017/17_PDF_Uploads/Press_Releases/Bayala_Let%E2%80%99s_Speak_Sydney_Language_Press_Release.pdf">Sydney language</a>), or traditions invented. </p>
<p>Adelaide Festival looks increasingly out of step with other major Australian festivals. Whereas Perth and Sydney are firmly anchored in place, Adelaide Festival could be happening anywhere in the world.</p>
<h2>What is a festival for?</h2>
<p>When the broader arts sector has been starved of <a href="https://theconversation.com/just-29-companies-receive-59-of-australia-council-funding-artists-are-calling-for-a-change-124873">funding</a> but is also hungry for change - eager to become more <a href="https://theconversation.com/creating-and-being-seen-new-projects-focus-on-the-rights-of-artists-with-disabilities-124270">equitable</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-art-institutions-dont-reflect-our-diversity-its-time-to-change-that-122308">diverse</a> - I think festivals take on additional visibility and responsibility.</p>
<p>Perth and Sydney have recognised this by commissioning diverse local artists working in diverse forms. These festivals are engaging with their place in contemporary culture by supporting local artistic communities, and reflecting stories of their cities back to their audiences. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Adelaide has continued down a well worn path. One could say they are being conservative but my read is the reverse – their refusal to move with the times is almost radical.</p>
<p>Sydney and Perth festivals have shown us artistic leadership that wants to reckon with the past; Adelaide’s leadership want to retreat to it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126829/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Wake receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
She is Chair of the Board of PACT Centre for Emerging Artists.</span></em></p>
Australia’s three major summer festivals in Sydney, Perth and Adelaide give an interesting insight into how festival programming is changing – or not.
Caroline Wake, Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112760
2019-03-04T03:29:50Z
2019-03-04T03:29:50Z
The sounds of Speechless, where words are superfluous
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261553/original/file-20190228-106359-juoa48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Speechless is a Perth Festival co-commission produced by Tura Music.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Speechless, Perth Festival</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Speechless is the new opera by award-winning composer Cat Hope, co-commissioned by the Perth Festival and Tura New Music. This is Hope’s powerful response to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2014 report into <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/publications/forgotten-children-national-inquiry-children">children in immigration detention</a>.</p>
<p>Hope created what she describes as a “<a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/src/uploads/2019/02/EP_Speechless_8pp_V7_WEB.pdf">graphic score</a>” derived from drawings and graphics extracted from the Report. This system of “animated graphic notation” is explained by <a href="https://www.tura.com.au/the-speechless-score/">Tura</a> as “the representation of music through the use of visual symbols in place of traditional music notation”.</p>
<p>This graphic score serves as both the text and music of the opera. Rather than singing arias as in a conventional opera, the singers make sounds, not words, in response to the notation. The score is read during performance by the musicians through the Decibel New Music Ensemble iPad app.</p>
<p>The result proved to be an absorbing and visceral experience. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261555/original/file-20190228-106353-ecwqha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261555/original/file-20190228-106353-ecwqha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261555/original/file-20190228-106353-ecwqha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261555/original/file-20190228-106353-ecwqha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261555/original/file-20190228-106353-ecwqha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261555/original/file-20190228-106353-ecwqha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261555/original/file-20190228-106353-ecwqha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261555/original/file-20190228-106353-ecwqha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Speechless is the result of a ‘graphic score’ created by Cat Hope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The opera took place in the community hall at the Sunset Heritage Precinct, on the banks of the Swan River in Dalkeith. As the performers were miked it is difficult to gauge the acoustics of the hall, but it has a wooden floor and I could feel the vibrations of sound through my feet. </p>
<p>Seating was arranged around a central oval space, with vertical tube lighting and hanging swathes of strongly hued material. </p>
<p>These were later transformed from hanging curtains and wrapped by the performers into what appeared like backpacks, or baggage, weighing down and inhibiting to some degree the movement of some of the soloists, giving them a certain stateliness in their movements. </p>
<p>The featured soloists in the Thursday night performance were soprano Judith Dodsworth, heavy metal band vocalist Karina Utomo, throat singing specialist Sage Pbbbt and Perth soprano Caitlin Cassidy, who substituted for the Iranian singer Tara Tiba who could not be present. All performed with clarity and strength.</p>
<p>The soloists’ voices were ably complemented by a combined community choir of some 30 voices. Their range of ages and physicality provided a rich comment on the diversity of peoples affected by political upheavals and natural catastrophes.</p>
<p>The expressiveness and variations of the sounds served to create empathic emotive resonances. This was even more evident when the soloists could improvise sections based on their own particular vocal practices. </p>
<p>In particular, the guttural roaring of Karina Utomo into a microphone, and the anguished sounds emitted by Sage Pbbbt were evocative of the grief, outrage, fear, and anger that could well be expressed by children in peril.</p>
<p>The choir provided often subtle harmonies and backing sounds to the soloists and the orchestra, composed of the Decibel New Music Ensemble and the Australian Bass Orchestra. As the name implies, only the lower register of the musical scale is utilised – bass notes below middle C. The orchestra was superbly conducted by musical director, Aaron Wyatt.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261551/original/file-20190228-106362-tidhlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261551/original/file-20190228-106362-tidhlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261551/original/file-20190228-106362-tidhlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261551/original/file-20190228-106362-tidhlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261551/original/file-20190228-106362-tidhlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261551/original/file-20190228-106362-tidhlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261551/original/file-20190228-106362-tidhlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261551/original/file-20190228-106362-tidhlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aaron Wyatt conducted the orchestra for Speechless, who used only bass notes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This use of these lower registers created sometimes haunting, sometimes cacophonous, visceral waves of sound. At times, these built from a gentle hum into great crescendos of percussion and brass, sending vibrations through one’s body.</p>
<p>In creating such physical resonances on and through the body, this seemed to work more effectively, at least for me, than much of the orchestral music of the Romantic era. However, that was admittedly playing to very different contexts. </p>
<p>Many of the sounds conveyed particular emotions, and towards the end of the performance, the mingling of the voices of the four lead vocalists plus the choir evoked the crying of children. </p>
<p>The performance certainly creates an emotional connection and visceral response to the issue of children in detention, that is arguably far more effective than words on a page, or even dialogue on a stage.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/src/uploads/2019/02/EP_Speechless_8pp_V7_WEB.pdf">Hope</a> speaks of the power of music being in its abstractness. She states that it is not her intention to speak on behalf of others, rather this work constitutes her personal response to the issue.</p>
<p>This was an excellent opera-theatre experience, creating a nuanced commentary on an emotive issue without the need to preach to the audience. The visceral quality of the sound and the power of the emotions expressed through voice and instruments amply made a point about children in immigration detention. Speechless allows their plight to be heard. Words were superfluous.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/speechless">Speechless</a> was performed as part of the Perth Festival from February 26 to March 3.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112760/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Chinna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Speechless is an opera written in response to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2014 report into children in immigration detention.
Stephen Chinna, Senior Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112764
2019-03-01T05:52:19Z
2019-03-01T05:52:19Z
Dada Masilo’s Giselle is a courageous retelling for our times
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261616/original/file-20190301-110143-v4oh6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dada Masilo's Giselle follows the ballet's original story outline but changes it in clever ways.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Hogg</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Giselle, Perth Festival</em></p>
<hr>
<p>To reimagine a classic and present it as a story relevant for our times takes more than fiddling around the edges. It requires a courageous retelling, and that is just what South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo has done with her <a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/dada-masilos-giselle">Giselle</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Giselle">This ballet</a>, based on a Slavic legend, was first performed in 1841 and set in the Middle Ages. </p>
<p>In the original story, Giselle is courted by the nobleman, Albrecht. But they cannot be together, as he is already betrothed. Giselle suffers deeply when he is forced to leave her and she dies of a broken heart. Soon her spirit is roused from her grave by spirits known as the Wilis and their queen, Myrtha.</p>
<p>These avenging ghosts force any man they encounter to dance until he dies of exhaustion. When Albrecht faces this terrible fate, Giselle rescues him. Through this act of forgiveness she is released from the hold of the Wilis and her spirit can rest. </p>
<p>Dada Masilo is having none of this. She follows the original story outline but changes it in significant ways, making the story cleverly contemporary. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261579/original/file-20190228-106371-w50u0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261579/original/file-20190228-106371-w50u0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261579/original/file-20190228-106371-w50u0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261579/original/file-20190228-106371-w50u0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261579/original/file-20190228-106371-w50u0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261579/original/file-20190228-106371-w50u0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261579/original/file-20190228-106371-w50u0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261579/original/file-20190228-106371-w50u0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dada Masilo’s retelling of Giselle is unconventional.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stella Olivier</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is apparent from the start. The original medieval peasants bringing in the grape harvest are now farmers toiling in the field under a hot sun. The work is back-breaking and the local “nobles” are cruel and arrogant. </p>
<p>When Albrecht courts Giselle we are swept up in the romance through their beautiful pas de deux. But in this version, when he reunites with Bathilde, his equal and his betrothed, he does so with relish and without any thought of Giselle. </p>
<p>This makes his actions towards her all the more terrible: it is deliberate abuse, not an impossible love between two people from different social classes as in the original.</p>
<p>The most emphatic change in this retelling, though, is the role of the Wilis. They become avenging spirits who are powerful and have agency. The men they meet are tormented and beaten to death, rather than dying from exhaustion. Their queen, Myrtha, is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_healers_of_South_Africa">sangoma</a>, a shaman-like figure from South Africa who communicates with ancestors but is also a traditional healer.</p>
<p>The set for Masilo’s production is sparse, with projections and lighting creating the settings. The opening image of an idyllic landscape is ironic, presented in black and white like a pen and ink drawing. Other images of clouds which slowly change colour create a range of atmospheres, from warm autumn days to ominous sunsets.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261613/original/file-20190301-110123-1o6n4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261613/original/file-20190301-110123-1o6n4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261613/original/file-20190301-110123-1o6n4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261613/original/file-20190301-110123-1o6n4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261613/original/file-20190301-110123-1o6n4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261613/original/file-20190301-110123-1o6n4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261613/original/file-20190301-110123-1o6n4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261613/original/file-20190301-110123-1o6n4i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The most emphatic change in this retelling is to the role of the Wilis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Hogg</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The effect is to keep our focus firmly on the dancers, who are all sensational. There is no <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_de_ballet">corps de ballet</a> here to provide crowd scenes or spectacle, only a company of 12 dancers. But they are also actors, using voice, song, chant and expression to convey the story. </p>
<p>As Giselle, Masilo is brilliant, with an impressive emotional range. We journey with her as she transforms from being a carefree, cheeky, young woman, through her humiliation, anger and then revenge. </p>
<p>Xola Willie as Albrecht is charismatic and seductive, the perfect portrayal of the narcissist we cannot help but like, even though we know Giselle will suffer at his hands. </p>
<p>When he finally rejects her for Bathilde, danced by an impressive Liyabuya Gongo, Giselle disintegrates before our eyes. Her solo dance before her death is filled with pain and equally painful to watch. </p>
<p>The slow funeral procession across the stage that follows is accompanied by a recording of a traditional hymn, <em>Hamba Nhliziyo Yami</em>. The lyrics translate as “Go to heaven my heart, for there is no peace on earth”, and the scene ends with one moving moment as Giselle’s mother (Sinazo Bokolo) picks up her child and carries her away. </p>
<p>Llewellyn Mnguni’s Queen Myrtha is portrayed as androgynous. The power and intensity of this performance pulls us into the mystical world of the Wilis as they wreak their revenge. </p>
<p>The choreography throughout is sensational. It blends classical ballet with contemporary dance, but is rooted firmly in the energy and movements seen in South Africa, such as traditional <a href="https://binoandfino.com/blog/2015/12/15/a-list-of-some-traditional-dances-from-different-african-countries">Zulu dance</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261577/original/file-20190228-106344-6bzh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261577/original/file-20190228-106344-6bzh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261577/original/file-20190228-106344-6bzh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261577/original/file-20190228-106344-6bzh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261577/original/file-20190228-106344-6bzh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261577/original/file-20190228-106344-6bzh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261577/original/file-20190228-106344-6bzh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261577/original/file-20190228-106344-6bzh8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sparse set for Masilo’s Giselle allows the dancers to shine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stella Olivier</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The contemporary soundtrack has echoes of the original orchestral arrangement but is mixed with drums, electronica and pumping bass lines. Like the choreography, it blended many musical styles and was a fitting accompaniment. However, even though the recorded music was excellent, it lacked the vibrancy of a live performance.</p>
<p>The final scene after the Wilis have killed Albrecht is both magical and sinister. It reflects the funeral procession across the stage that ended Act One, but this time the dancers walk in the opposite direction. One by one they throw a white powder into the air. This hangs like clouds above as each of them exits, symbolising their release from the spirit world to eternal rest.</p>
<p>Giselle is the last to leave. She approaches Albrecht’s prone body, throws her powder, then walks over him as if he did not exist. This Giselle’s innocence has turned to revenge, and she does not forgive. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/dada-masilos-giselle">Giselle</a> is being performed as part of the 2019 Perth Festival until March 2.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vivienne Glance is affiliated with the Australian Writers Guild, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and is a member of the Australian Greens</span></em></p>
An unconventional take on Giselle is playing as part of this year’s Perth Festival.
Vivienne Glance, Hon Research Fellow in Poetry and Theatre studies, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112284
2019-02-22T04:26:38Z
2019-02-22T04:26:38Z
Barrie Kosky’s The Magic Flute is a contemporary spectacle, despite the opera’s outdated attitudes
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260312/original/file-20190222-195873-149zyic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A unique production of Mozart's The Magic Flute is playing at this year's Perth Festival.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: The Magic Flute, Perth Festival 2019</em></p>
<hr>
<p>As the overture ends, the red curtains at His Majesty’s Theatre rise to reveal a flat, white floor-to-ceiling wall. This suddenly transforms to show a young man being chased through a forest by a red dragon-like serpent. But the performer on stage is not really running; he is standing still, with a pair of comic, animated legs projected onto a white board from his waist down.</p>
<p>This opening sequence sets the tone for the <a href="https://www.komische-oper-berlin.de/">Komische Oper Berlin</a>’s cinematic production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. </p>
<p>Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade’s interpretation of this popular and oft-performed opera (first performed in 1791) is unlike any previous production staged in Australia. Teaming up with animator Paul Barrit and co-director Andrade, both from UK theatre company 1927, Kosky’s version captures the vaudeville anarchy of the original opera.</p>
<p>The singers inhabit a world filled with monsters, magic, revenge, death, love and lust: a perfect fairy tale scenario. The colour-filled era of 1930s German expressionism and the black and white of the popular silent movies of the 1920s provide consistent design motifs for Barritt’s exquisite, hand-drawn animation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260316/original/file-20190222-195883-1ir454n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260316/original/file-20190222-195883-1ir454n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260316/original/file-20190222-195883-1ir454n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260316/original/file-20190222-195883-1ir454n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260316/original/file-20190222-195883-1ir454n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260316/original/file-20190222-195883-1ir454n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260316/original/file-20190222-195883-1ir454n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260316/original/file-20190222-195883-1ir454n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Barritt’s animation draws upon the aesthetics of German expressionism and silent films of the 1920s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>German expressionism emphasised the artist’s feelings over reality, and the more fantastical elements of this opera are well-suited to this style, full of bright colours and simple shapes. Blending this with live action and live music (Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hendrik Vestmann) makes the production quite unique. The performers add to this with stylistic movements straight out of silent film, including wide-eyes and exaggerated tip-toeing steps. </p>
<p>The opera’s protaganist, the young prince Tamino, was sympathetically portrayed by Aaron Blake on opening night (most roles are rotated between two performers). He has a compelling presence on stage, and there is a wonderful sequence where his soaring tenor voice is accompanied by animated creatures from the constellations, charmed by his magic flute. </p>
<p>Tamino’s unlikely companion, the bird-catcher, Papageno, was performed in a canary-yellow suit by Joan Martín-Royo. He is wonderfully entertaining, and shows a versatile emotional range moving from alcoholic euphoria through suicidal despair, to undying, stuttering love. The duet when Papageno is finally together with his love Papagena, played as a stockinged chorus girl by Talya Lieberman, is delightful and made even funnier by the exaggerated animation.</p>
<p>No Magic Flute review would be complete without comment on the Queen of the Night and her rendition of the famous aria, “Der Hölle Rache” (Hell’s Revenge). Kosky and Andrade depict the queen as a spider with coloratura soprano, Christina Poulitsi, placed high up on a platform. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xCwB4jeaIH4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Queen of the Night is depicted as a spider in Barrie Kosky’s production.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the screen is filled with her prodding, spindly legs, the singer is confined in a body sleeve. Nonetheless, she displays her range and virtuosity with a note-perfect performance.</p>
<p>The woman Tamino falls desperately in love with is Pamina, sung beautifully by Soprano Iwona Sobotka on opening night. She played the heroine-in-need-of-rescue to perfection, but despite the sexism spouted by some characters, Pamina showed courage, determination and integrity. </p>
<p>That said, she does fall into despair when she believes she is no longer loved by Tamino, and Sobotka sings Pamina’s aria with great feeling as she contemplates suicide.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260320/original/file-20190222-195876-sad0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260320/original/file-20190222-195876-sad0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260320/original/file-20190222-195876-sad0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260320/original/file-20190222-195876-sad0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260320/original/file-20190222-195876-sad0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260320/original/file-20190222-195876-sad0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260320/original/file-20190222-195876-sad0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260320/original/file-20190222-195876-sad0bs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pamina and Papageno in The Magic Flute.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, The Magic Flute is a problematic work when to comes to the portrayal of women. For example, the Three Ladies who serve the Queen of the Night start complaining about each other in the first scene.</p>
<p>Male characters make generalised statements about women’s failings: when Pamino’s captor, Sarastro states that “women do little but talk a lot” there was an audible groan from the audience; and Papageno dreams of catching a thousand women by bewitching them with his pipes. </p>
<p>However, these attitudes are countered by the suggestion that if a woman has no fear of death or night, then she is worthy to enter Sarastro’s Temple. Pamina earns this respect from the Temple knights by accompanying Tamino on his trail of Fire and Water, wonderfully realised through animation with images of skeletons in the bowels of the earth and deep-ocean creatures. </p>
<p>The original opera also has racist elements, with the black slave, Monstatos, depicted as a self-loathing, sexual predator. This production side-steps this by making this character look like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu">Nosferatu</a> from the 1922 silent horror movie. He is played so villainously by Ivan Tursic that he provoked pantomime “boos” during his curtain call.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260333/original/file-20190222-195853-rv3fba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260333/original/file-20190222-195853-rv3fba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260333/original/file-20190222-195853-rv3fba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260333/original/file-20190222-195853-rv3fba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260333/original/file-20190222-195853-rv3fba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260333/original/file-20190222-195853-rv3fba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260333/original/file-20190222-195853-rv3fba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260333/original/file-20190222-195853-rv3fba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monstatos is portrayed villainously by Ivan Tursic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the historical problems with this 200-year-old opera, Kosky and Andrade have created a visual spectacle that, along with the fine performances, provides an enjoyable and accessible night of opera.</p>
<p>However, there are limitations to the staging. The flat wall across the stage onto which the amazing animation is projected includes five access doors placed high up, each with one-person-sized platforms in front. Another door is in the centre at the stage level. This means that characters can only be positioned across the front of the stage or on these platforms. </p>
<p>Efforts are made to break up the staging by having the characters bring on hand-held projector screens, but at times it felt a little repetitive. Yet that is a minor quibble. With a packed house on opening night, it seems audiences will never tire of this fantastical tale.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/mozarts-magic-flute">The Magic Flute</a> is playing at Perth Festival until February 23.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vivienne Glance is affiliated with the Australian Writers Guild, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and is a member of the Australian Greens</span></em></p>
A new production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute uses animation to bring the fantastical opera to life.
Vivienne Glance, Hon Research Fellow in Poetry and Theatre studies, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/111597
2019-02-19T19:02:12Z
2019-02-19T19:02:12Z
Desert River Sea is a vibrant, compelling tour of the Kimberley
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259237/original/file-20190215-56220-ugop85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Garry Sibosado, Aalingoon (Rainbow Serpent), 2018, ochre pigment on engraved pearl shell, detail.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy the artist</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley, Art Gallery of Western Australia.</em></p>
<p>For the past century, the curator has been the deciding factor in what is shown by museums and galleries, reassuring audiences of the importance of what they are seeing. While acknowledging other commercial and audience drivers, the centrality of curatorial decision-making has been sacrosanct.</p>
<p>But when the curatorial team from the Art Gallery of Western Australia embarked on an epic quest to document the art of the Kimberley region in the state’s north west, they abandoned this idea of a single authorial voice in favour of a new model of partnership and exchange. Artists and art centres in the Kimberley were invited to help shape the Desert River Sea project. </p>
<p>This is, after all, an area with a 50,000-year history of continuous cultural engagement, made up of over 200 communities and 30 language groups. Since the 1980s, it has been an important hub for contemporary art. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259230/original/file-20190215-56236-y71jxg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259230/original/file-20190215-56236-y71jxg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259230/original/file-20190215-56236-y71jxg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259230/original/file-20190215-56236-y71jxg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259230/original/file-20190215-56236-y71jxg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259230/original/file-20190215-56236-y71jxg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259230/original/file-20190215-56236-y71jxg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259230/original/file-20190215-56236-y71jxg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ngarralja Tommy May with his art work Untitled, synthetic polymer and paint pen on sheep hide, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through centres such as Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency at Fitzroy Crossing, (which opened in 1981), the Goolarabooloo Aboriginal Arts & Crafts Centre, Broome (which opened in 1985) and the East Kimberley Waringarri Aboriginal Arts Centre, founded in Kununurra in 1988, a worldwide audience had been created for the region’s art. </p>
<p>These centres have nurtured and showcased artists such as Rover Thomas, Paddy Bedford, Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Queenie Garagarag Mckenzie, Jimmy Pike and Freddy Timms. Many have acquired art star status, acknowledged nationally and internationally.</p>
<p>So what has the Desert River Sea project achieved and how does it differ from other survey exhibitions of Aboriginal art that have populated galleries in Australia, North America, and Europe?</p>
<p>After six years of travel, conversations and exchange, curators Carly Lane and Emelia Galatis have overseen a massive project that culminated with eight major commissions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259224/original/file-20190215-56246-1xdvpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259224/original/file-20190215-56246-1xdvpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259224/original/file-20190215-56246-1xdvpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259224/original/file-20190215-56246-1xdvpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259224/original/file-20190215-56246-1xdvpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259224/original/file-20190215-56246-1xdvpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259224/original/file-20190215-56246-1xdvpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259224/original/file-20190215-56246-1xdvpwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shirley Purdie, Goorralg-Goorralg: Storm Bird and Willy Wagtail, natural ochre and pigment on canvas, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Warnum Art Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some communities used the commissioning funds to revive ceremonies and teach younger members the correct protocols for “painting up” before rituals. Garry and Darrell Sibosado from Lombadina, created a stunning Rainbow Serpent (Aalingoon) from carved and incised pearl shell.</p>
<p>At the Kira Kiro Art Centre in Kalumburu, the focus was on showcasing the works of Betty Bundamurra and the late Mrs. Taylor. These two elders document their country with an expressive armoury of lively dots and brush marks in a rich, ochre palette. </p>
<p>The final celebration of what has been achieved by the 40 artists within the parameters of these commissions, is presented in a compelling and vibrant exhibition, on show as part of the Perth Festival. It is a highly condensed tour through the vast landscape of the northwest, literally from the sea, through the rivers and into the desert.</p>
<p>Each commission has its own area in the expansive gallery. But through multiple lines of sight, many enchanting connections are made and some surprising juxtapositions are encountered. </p>
<p>From Eva Nargoodah’s bush clothes fabricated from Dingo Flour bags, past Mrs. Taylor’s array of scintillating dots and shapes evoking fruitful abundance and onto Mervyn Street’s extraordinary carved and painted cow hides, it is an exhilarating journey that encapsulates the diversity of approaches to recording life in the Kimberley.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259235/original/file-20190215-56208-ft46q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259235/original/file-20190215-56208-ft46q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259235/original/file-20190215-56208-ft46q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259235/original/file-20190215-56208-ft46q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259235/original/file-20190215-56208-ft46q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259235/original/file-20190215-56208-ft46q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259235/original/file-20190215-56208-ft46q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259235/original/file-20190215-56208-ft46q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mrs Taylor, Aru, ochre pigments on paper, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy the artist's family and Kira Koro Art Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The hides that Street carefully shaves and then paints to describe the heifers and bulls he knows so well from years of mustering and branding are a stand out example of the synthesis between people and place this show encapsulates. </p>
<p>“I have been around a lot of places, and these memories are all in my head,” he explains. “I use art to tell my history … I have to keep it in my mind and share it for young generations”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259617/original/file-20190218-56204-hvq956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259617/original/file-20190218-56204-hvq956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259617/original/file-20190218-56204-hvq956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259617/original/file-20190218-56204-hvq956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259617/original/file-20190218-56204-hvq956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259617/original/file-20190218-56204-hvq956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259617/original/file-20190218-56204-hvq956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259617/original/file-20190218-56204-hvq956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mervyn Street Droving cattle in the summertime 2018 (detail) shaved and etched cow hide 195.5 x 217.5 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several of the communities have created film-based works that both describe the landscape and chronicle important cultural protocols. These videos are documents of empowerment that speak eloquently about a deep connection to country and the need to maintain cultural practices as communities seek to regain sovereignty over their land.</p>
<p>Daniel Walbidi from Bidyadanga has created an installation depicting Wirnpa, a creation being. Constructed within the gallery, it echoes a similar work he made on the shoreline of a salt lake that was slowly swallowed up by the advancing waters. The large scale video work chronicling that process is screened on the back wall, completing the loop that links his country with this city environment. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259231/original/file-20190215-56208-1q15oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259231/original/file-20190215-56208-1q15oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259231/original/file-20190215-56208-1q15oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259231/original/file-20190215-56208-1q15oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259231/original/file-20190215-56208-1q15oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259231/original/file-20190215-56208-1q15oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259231/original/file-20190215-56208-1q15oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259231/original/file-20190215-56208-1q15oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joey Tjungurrayi Wangkartu, Wangkartu, Helicopter, kiln fired glass, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Warlayirti Artists</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the most arresting series of works are the sumptuous glass panels made by the Warlayirti Artists from Balgo. These nine artists have documented the abundance of bush tucker found on country using beads, rods and sheets of coloured glass. Fused together, they form luminous panels and glow magically in the gallery.</p>
<p>The vibrancy of the works on show and the integrity of the outcome has only been possible because of the courageous decision to rethink the curatorial parameters of this project, allowing multiple voices to shape the outcome. Both the Gallery and its partner Rio Tinto are to be congratulated on this initiative.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://desertriversea.com.au/">Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley</a>, is at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, until 27 May.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Indigenous artists and arts centres from the Kimberley region were invited to help curate this new exhibition, presented as part of the Perth Festival 2019.
Ted Snell, Professor, Chief Cultural Officer, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/111985
2019-02-19T00:55:33Z
2019-02-19T00:55:33Z
In Kwongkan, Indian and Australian performers convey an urgent climate change message
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259467/original/file-20190218-56204-41nc2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ian Wilkes in Kwongkan, an artistic collaboration between Australia and India.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Grant</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Kwongkan, Perth Festival 2019</em></p>
<hr>
<p>“Kwongkan” means sand in the language of the Nyoongar people, the first inhabitants of south-west Western Australia. Both Nyoongar and Indian traditional ceremonies, which are recreated in <a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/kwongkan">this collaboration</a> between Australia and India, take place on the bare earth. Dancing feet connect with the sacred earth beneath.</p>
<p>But sand also has wider cultural significance. It appears in phrases like “putting your head in the sand”, to imply someone is ignoring the obvious or not thinking. There’s also the “sands of time” and images of sand running through an hourglass, both reminding us that time may be running out.</p>
<p>These themes are all too relevant when considering the urgent global challenge of climate change, explored in this world premiere performance as part of Wendy Martin’s final and stunning 2019 Perth Festival. </p>
<p>Through ancient dance practices, contemporary live music, aerial acrobatics, sound, video and epic theatre, Kwongkan invites us to hope for change, but more importantly, to be stirred to action. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259465/original/file-20190218-56229-5f8t2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259465/original/file-20190218-56229-5f8t2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259465/original/file-20190218-56229-5f8t2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259465/original/file-20190218-56229-5f8t2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259465/original/file-20190218-56229-5f8t2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259465/original/file-20190218-56229-5f8t2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259465/original/file-20190218-56229-5f8t2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259465/original/file-20190218-56229-5f8t2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Isha Sharvani (front) and Tao Issaro, Kate Harman, Ian Wilkes (back left to right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Grant</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Created and directed by Mark Howett of <a href="http://ochredance.org/">Ochre Contemporary Dance Productions</a>, the production grew out of a three-year collaboration with Daksha Sheth Dance Company, who are based in the western Indian state of Kerala. Like Ochre, <a href="http://www.dakshasheth.com/background">Daksha Seth</a> brings together “performing artists from diverse backgrounds who seek to bridge contemporary dance and traditional dance movements”.</p>
<p>Howett travelled with an ensemble of artists to sacred desert lands in Australia and tropical India to create this journey from the past to the present, with a weather eye on the future. The result is not just dance theatre, but a hybrid form with strong narrative strands and a political punch. </p>
<p>Performed on a large, bare wooden platform overlooked by Norfolk Pines, and extending up onto the raised sloping grass behind, there is vast space available and Howett uses it well. A film screen at the back sets the tone of the work right from the start. A video (produced by Howett and associate director Tao Issaro) flashes images of bushfires, floods, polluted oceans, falling trees and rusty cars, one after the other, demonstrating the urgency of this story of climate change and humanity’s role in it. </p>
<p>After the dramatic bushfire opening sequence, the three performers enter, each dancing in their own cultural style. We are led on a journey through colonisation, loss, forced-forgetting and consumption. The performers move beyond pure dance into a blend of movement, acting and direct presentation, demanding a range of skills from each of them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259462/original/file-20190218-56215-12rkzgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259462/original/file-20190218-56215-12rkzgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259462/original/file-20190218-56215-12rkzgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259462/original/file-20190218-56215-12rkzgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259462/original/file-20190218-56215-12rkzgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259462/original/file-20190218-56215-12rkzgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259462/original/file-20190218-56215-12rkzgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259462/original/file-20190218-56215-12rkzgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Isha Sharvani (front), Kate Harman (middle), and Ian Wilkes (back).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Grant</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These were amply supplied by the three main dancers. Ian Wilkes, a young and very talented Nyoongar performer, is terrific. He will be known to Perth audiences through his work with Yirra Yaakin Theatre and with Ochre Contemporary Dance Productions. </p>
<p>Wilkes switches easily from traditional Nyoongar to contemporary dance, and on to dramatic performance. A highlight was the sequence where he became a kangaroo entangled in the barbed wire from a fence, then transformed into a man, subjugated by missionaries and forced to wear Western clothes. </p>
<p>Another regular Ochre performer, Kate Harmann, brings an intense emotional commitment to both the dance and the drama. When she manipulates a flimsy sheet of clear plastic, she creates beautiful yet disturbing images, ripe with metaphor. </p>
<p>Finally, Isha Shavani, the lead dancer of Daksha Sheth and a renowned aerialist, brought grace, precision and strength to her performance. She is trained in various Indian dance forms such as Kathak, Chau and Kalaripayattu, and displayed her skills in rope Mallakhamb (where acrobatic feats and poses are performed using a hanging rope). She was exceptional in the dance forms of all three cultures and is a compelling presence. </p>
<p>The intensity of these performances was supported by Tao Issaro’s compositions. He is Shavani’s brother, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uXfNZndLCA">describes himself</a> as “a son of an artistic tribe”. He performs energetically on his drums and found objects, complementing a layered instrumental music track incorporating sounds of nature. One impressive drum is hand made from a large brass biryani pot covered with hide.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lead dancer of Daksha Sheth, Isha Sharvani.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Grant</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kwongkan builds to its climax when the performers desperately try to clear the stage of a mountain of plastic. Balancing on top of an oil drum – a fitting podium if ever there was one – Wilkes uses a megaphone to urge us to get our heads out of the sand. He recalls the quote from Native American leader <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Seattle">Chief Seattle</a>, who watched the destruction of his country following colonisation and famously said “we can’t eat money”. </p>
<p>In the context of pleas from young people around the world to adults to save their future, this final sequence has a powerful impact. </p>
<p>It is interesting to see the epic theatre techniques of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht">Bertolt Brecht</a> alive and well today. Brecht used theatre to confront an audience and arouse in them the capacity to action. He wanted them to make a decision about a political issue, to question orthodoxy and become active and curious. His work aimed to awaken the audience to the realisation that they can change society for the better. </p>
<p>We are used to being empathetic with characters on stage, but in doing so we remain detached from them and uncritical. Epic theatre aims to disrupt that state. Kwongkan takes this one step further and invites onto the stage a member of <a href="https://www.millenniumkids.com.au/">Millennium Kids</a>, an organisation that works with young people to encourage action on environmental issues. </p>
<p>13-year-old Bella spoke on the night I saw the performance, and pleaded with us to take action on climate change. In light of growing global movements such as <a href="https://www.schoolstrike4climate.com">School Strike 4 Climate</a> and <a href="https://rebellion.earth">Extinction Rebellion</a>, Kwongkan uses art to reflect the zeitgeist.
It begs the question: if the art we are given is not doing that, why not? </p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/kwongkan">Kwongkan</a> is playing as part of the Perth Festival until February 20.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Vivienne Glance is affiliated with Australian Writers Guild, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and is a member of the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>
An artistic collaboration between India and Australia, playing as part of this year’s Perth Festival, stirs its audience to action on climate change.
Vivienne Glance, Hon Research Fellow in Poetry and Theatre studies, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/111531
2019-02-12T05:12:17Z
2019-02-12T05:12:17Z
Sunset, a danced evocation of love, loss, and rebirth
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258394/original/file-20190212-174870-6448pv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sunset is collaboration between freelance director and choreographer Maxine Doyle and Western Australia’s STRUT Dance, in association with Tura New Music.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon Pynt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Sunset, Perth Festival 2019</em></p>
<hr>
<p>On a humid night with strong easterlies blowing across the river, the opening night audience for dance-theatre performance <a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/sunset">Sunset</a> was ushered towards the Sunset Heritage Precinct, on the banks of the Swan River in Dalkeith.</p>
<p>The precinct is currently undergoing refurbishment as a community space and arts centre after many years of disuse. It seems fitting that a piece invoking, in the <a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/sunset">director’s words</a>, “loss, memory, space and silence”, should be chosen as the initial performance for the venue. It was constructed as a home for destitute men and later became a hospital, with resonances of an asylum (the men’s home had two padded cells). </p>
<p>The performance, to some degree paradoxically, takes place in the hospital’s former cinema, although this cinema space is more a dance hall cum theatre auditorium. A Perth Festival Co-commission, it is a collaboration between UK-based freelance director and choreographer Maxine Doyle and her associates Conor Doyle and Paul Zivkovich, and Western Australia’s STRUT Dance in association with Tura New Music.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sunset explores love, love and memory.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon Pynt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once inside the precinct, the Sunset audience moved past rooms with piles of dirt and spindly plants, evocative of a deserted building in the outback where “nature” overcomes civilisation. But, this was also a reference to the myth of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Demeter">Demeter</a>, the Goddess of Grain, seeking her daughter Persephone. As the director indicates in the program, the myth had a significant influence on Sunset’s narrative.</p>
<p>More time spent in these rooms to reflect on the institutional architecture and ablution blocks reminiscent of a prison, or asylum, would have helped set the tone for what followed. However, perhaps the number of patrons precluded that, even though 100 is the maximum allowable for any one performance. </p>
<p>From there patrons moved into the “cinema”, a cavernous hall with peeling-paint walls, a small stage at one end, and a servery at the other. Chairs were scattered throughout, allowing spectators the opportunity to stand or sit, or wander at will – though few took up this opportunity. </p>
<p>Thematically, the performance focused on those “universal” themes of love, loss and memory, tied in with the myth of Demeter and Persephone. That spectators may infer something different from what is intended is very much part of the “dreamlike” experience.</p>
<p>While the former home housed, among others, Great War veterans and Depression era homeless, what was evoked for me was the displacement of diaspora. This was in part expressed in the character of Alfred Ganz, a fictional poet performed by Humphrey Bower, complete with an Eastern European accent and with a nod to T.S. Eliot in his poetry titles. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258397/original/file-20190212-174857-betpfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258397/original/file-20190212-174857-betpfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258397/original/file-20190212-174857-betpfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258397/original/file-20190212-174857-betpfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258397/original/file-20190212-174857-betpfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258397/original/file-20190212-174857-betpfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258397/original/file-20190212-174857-betpfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258397/original/file-20190212-174857-betpfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humphrey Bower as Alfred Ganz in Sunset.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon Pynt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This European influence was evident when the stage was used early in the performance in a conventional manner, inviting the audience to be unidirectional in their focus. This was to witness the performance of a quasi-Expressionist playlet “The Lost Girl”, complete with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Toller">Ernst Toller-like</a> skeletons wooing the girl.</p>
<p>The stage was not used again in a major way until the long closing dance sequences, where the Tura New Music quartet played so wonderfully as accompaniment to the dancers. </p>
<p>In what no doubt signified a celebration of rebirth, in tune with the Demeter and Persephone myth, the performers danced a mixture of folk-style dances with touches of the tarantella and a Scottish <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A8ilidh">cèilidh</a>. Earlier, performers had moved individually among the audience, either hugging the walls or breaking into brief intermittent dances. When dancing as a group, the varying levels of experience and expertise of the performers were made more obvious.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sunset is performed in a former men’s home and hospital.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toni Wilkinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of the dancers were excellent, particularly Natalie Allen as Demeter. But it is difficult to identify who in the performance were dancers and who were actors. The program is devoted to words and pictures on the Sunset precinct, notes from the directors, a poem from the character Alfred Ganz and pictures and bios of the major production and technical crew. The 12 performers get just their names — four lines in total. </p>
<p>That said, there are many fine things about this performance, such as evidence of some hard thinking on the best use of the space and how best to incorporate certain stories and omit others. </p>
<p>An effectively varied soundscape, and excellent use of lighting, helped draw out the sometimes nightmarish qualities of the experience – for the cast, as seeming inmates of this asylum cum hospital cum prison space, and for the audience, where at any moment a bystander might break into a performance. The voice of composer and soundscape designer Rachel Dease was beautifully utilised and added yet another layer of a dreamlike quality. </p>
<p>Many spectators appeared to have enjoyed it, notwithstanding the sauna-like conditions. And although there are workers in the world who must undergo far more blistering and extended working hours in extreme conditions, congratulations should be extended to the performers for their energy and commitment in spite of the oppressive heat.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/event/sunset">Sunset</a> is playing as part of the Perth Festival until February 17.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Chinna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As part of the 2019 Perth Festival, dance-theatre performance Sunset takes place in a former men’s home on the banks of the Swan River.
Stephen Chinna, Senior Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.