The Bronx swept into Sydney’s Metro Theatre last night as part of their current Australian tour, which sees them playing in intimate venues across the country. Melbourne’s High Tension are a welcome addition to any show. Playing songs from their new album Purge, the post-hardcore band showed a deeper, heavier more metallic sound. Though they…
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A legend across contemporary classical, electronica and experimental music, Ryuichi Sakamoto has had a long an illustrious career. Spanning a number of collaborations, it’s his sixteen year partnership with German composer Alva Noto that has stuck, garnering five albums, along with the soundtrack to the movie The Revenant. A largely improvised affair, the duo meshed sparse…
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Set in Europe “20,000 years ago”, a tribe of hunter-gatherers is preparing to hunt before winter. Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee), is learning the ropes from his father, the tribe’s chief Tau (Johannes Haukur Johannesson). Quiet and sensitive, the young Keda is having issues in coming to terms with killing animals, with father gently guiding him unto…
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Narelle (Sheridan Harbridge) skirts across a converted factory floor, all brushed concrete and industrial chic, flanked by an eager estate agent (Nikki Shiels). It’s an all too common scene as Sydney’s working class havens make way for heritage apartment conversions, hip cafes and pet-owning professionals. Narelle however stalks the space with a touch of melancholy,…
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Padraic’s long been away from his home of Inishmore, fighting with the Irish National Liberation Army. Too mad even for the IRA, he’s built an epic thirst for murder and torture, picking small-time pot dealers and bombing chip shops in his spare time. His father Donny calls to inform him his beloved cat is ill,…
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America has an interesting and contentious relationship with soccer. Where the world game has been at the centre of global sports (and often politics) for centuries, Americans sidelined the sport during the depression years, only to resurrect it in the 1960s as a high school game. With many young boys choosing American football (the nation’s…
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The Chinese restaurant is a bastion of our urban culture. Birthdays in the suburbs spent with red lanterns, lazy susans and honey chicken dot our collective memory. While contemporary Australia’s lust for foodie culture and an ever refining palette may have moved away from the Red/Golden Phoenix/Centuries in the 00s, they still form culinary centres…
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Danish group Between Music’s Aquasonic was one of the more intriguing inclusions in this year’s Sydney Festival program. Billed as the ‘world’s first underwater band’, the group performs with purpose-built instruments while completely submerged. The team apparently developed the show for over a decade, generating optimal conditions for water acoustics and creating the soundscapes. The…
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A question commonly asked in arts circles is where all the new Australian musicals are. Surely, they do exist, but grand-scale, blockbuster song-and-dance shows isn’t something we’re generally known for. Hot Shoe Shuffle – arguably Australia’s first hit musical – premiered only 24 years ago, and since then only Pricilla and Strictly Ballroom have made…
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The GFC hit 10 years ago, yet it’s wave still lingers on. In a post GFC world, wages are stagnant, jobs are threatened, house prices skyrocket and global warming’s dark cloud hangs in concert. 10 years on, we’re still asking questions; how did this happen? Can it happen again? And, if so, who’s best equipped…
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With a career spanning close to 30 years, Shepard Fairey is a veteran of world street art. In Sydney to talk as part of Vivid Idea’s Game Changers program as well as unveil a new mural work (his largest to date) and exhibition, he spoke of his early days building the now iconic Obey project…
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June is married to Leo, but she’s also having an affair with his twin brother Rob, and her personal trainer Hellmut. And a Catholic priest, John. Leo, meanwhile, is sleeping with Rob’s sister Michelle, his therapist Dr Shaw, as well as the family au pair Melissa. On top of all of this, June and Leo…
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Beginning in 1989, Chimerica brings us Joe Schofield, an American Photojournalist stationed in Beijing. Sitting in his hotel room during the Tiananmen protests, he manages to snap the all-famous photograph of Tank Man – a young student standing defiantly in the way of a line of tanks. Fast forward to 2012 and Joe, now back…
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Celia Pacquola is (quite literally) everywhere. Turn on the ABC and you’re highly likely to see her face either on Utopia, her own new show Rosehaven or in her AACTA-winning role in The Beautiful Lie. Having built a reputation in standup for the better part of a decade, it’s a natural progression for someone who’s…
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In Ira Glass’ own words, this was a melding of two mediums no one ever asked to see in the same show. A mashup (for want of a better term) of radio and interpretive dance, Three Acts, Two Dancers… could be the most pretentious thing you might ever see, but is far from it. The…
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Set in a post apocalyptic wasteland in the not-too-distant future, The Big Dry leaves more questions than it attempts to answer. Firstly, it is a commentary on climate change and the dire options it potentially leaves our ancestors, but also is a discussion on the abilities of children if left to inherit the earth before…
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A premiere show for the Sydney Festival, In Between Two sees two Australian musicians, TZU’s Joelistics and Sietta’s James Mangohig, overlap their stories as mixed-race Asian Australians in Australia’s hip hop culture. Sharing family photos and tales from their heritage, the two share a basic commonality, however their histories couldn’t be more different. Joelistics happily…
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Two young men explore the Tasmanian wilderness in their youth. Francis, a young engineer and his friend Peter, a geologist, have bright futures ahead of them. But when they stumble upon a tribe of outcasts deep in the bush, they enjoy a moment of curious joy before despair. The tribe are a group of misfits,…
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In a time where our discussion is stilted, mediated and increasingly online, community engagement has formed a central aspect of contemporary theatre. The facilities to congregate and share stories are rare, particularly in outer urban areas or those where many cultures co-exist separately. While Reclaim Australia toots it’s white power horn, there’s a deeper issue…
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An annual piece in Sydney’s calendar, the Sydney Festival’s opening Domain concert has replaced the city-wide Festival First Night with the focus on one big act at The Domain. With previous years sporting artists such as Brian Wilson, Chaka Khan, Grace Jones and Manu Chau, it was a somewhat odd but welcome choice to this…
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Circus Oz has become an Australian institution in its 37 years of performing around the world. One of the world’s first ‘contemporary’ circus’ – presenting shows without animals in more artistic settings – the group is partly responsible for many of the current crop of art circus troupes we’re familiar with today. But Wait.. There’s…
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