How To Art review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

It’s the age-old question: what is art? Who decides what counts as art? And, more importantly, who dares put a price on it? Okay, that’s more than one question, but I’m the curator of this domain, so I make the rules. In How To Art, two bananas wake up duct taped to a wall inside an art gallery. This hilarious clowning show explores the idea of what gets classified as art and who gets to be the gatekeeper of art.

Katie Burson and Georgie Llewellyn are a pair of bananas taped to a wall. They are called "Banana Split" and they are one of a number of artworks by The Artist hanging in this art gallery. Others include a sculpture of two bumbags each attached to a cigarette called "Can I Bumbag a Smoke?" and "Concentrate", a large opened can of Campbell's tomato soup.

With the gallery closed, and the owner not in the room, the two bananas untape themselves and try to make sense of this world around them. Burson and Llewellyn shine with their clowning. Their physicality, movements, and characterisation are constantly surprising. Each moment builds on what came before, keeping the energy fresh and unpredictable. They are confident in their playful interactions with the audience, and the small improvisations and responses to audience reactions never falter.

Oh Great, It's Jessie Ngaio! (Midsumma Festival)

From a young age, Jessie Ngaio has fantasised about killing herself. Originally performed in early 2023, Oh Yuck, It's Me is her dark yet exceptionally entertaining exploration of sexuality, trauma and climate anxiety and finding the will to survive when everything seems stacked against you.

Ngaio received much acclaim during her original season, leading to two 2023 Green Room Awards for Best Performer and Best Production. In 2024, Oh Yuck, It’s Me returns as part of the Midsumma Festival, where she one again hopes to engage her audience with the wider themes of the show while offering an outlet of mutual laughter, vulnerability and honesty.

Exposing the male form through echoes and whispers (Midsumma Festival)

It was back in high school when Evan Cooper picked up his first camera. His English and Journalism teacher decided to set up an extracurricular group for students that might like to learn photography. 

"In those days it was completely analogue so we learnt not only the basics of taking photos but also how to develop the film and print the images," Cooper recalls. "As someone that can be somewhat shy and content in my company, it became something I could do by myself while creating opportunities of being involved in certain activities like being the photographer at school events. 

Fast forward to 2024 and Cooper's solo exhibition will be held as part of Midsumma Festival.

Echoes and Whispers will be a multiple exposure photographic exploration of the male form. "I started experimenting with different photographic processes as a way of playing with the medium by pushing or pulling the film, blurring, and the effects of different shutter speeds. With multiple exposure I found results that interested me, and I wanted to see where I could take it," he explains.



"All of my multiple exposure work is captured in-camera and since I only see the one image when I take the photo I actually have to use my memory to plan how the image is possibly going to look when all three are taken. There is an element of serendipity with the final image, where some are better or worse than expected," he says. "Even though this work is shot digitally, I limit the editing of the images to what I would do in the dark room if I was developing film. So the things I edit are cropping, exposure, contrast etc. By limiting myself in this way I have to be more aware and present during the taking of the images, as I simply can't "fix it in post".

Butoh Bar 番狂わせ OUT of ORDER review

Simply walking into ButohBar 番狂わせ OUT of ORDER is an experience on its own. It feels like we have entered an underground, post-apocalyptic dive bar. Chairs are scattered around the space, various art installations are positioned on the floor or projected onto the walls and drinks and food can be ordered at the makeshift counter. There are roving performers and there are resting performers - lying on chairs, sitting at an altar and even hidden within a box. These initial encounters immediately succeed in setting the scene for the artistic collective of ButohOUT! to present, inform, inspire and enlighten its audience with what butoh is and its potential to bring change.

Alienation review (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

Expectations are high as I walk into the NICA performing space, and see Jake Silvestro and Romain Hassanin sitting in a boat suspended in the air. Created by the two circus artists, Alienation is a physical theatre show that examines what happens when your survival depends on those around you and understanding your environment.

While there's no denying the skill and strength that Silvestro and Hassanin possess, the show left me unexcited and unfeeling. The tricks and acrobatics become repetitive and resemble warm-up activities, things that get the audience anticipating the big stuff. Rollerblades, a hula-hoop and a cyr wheel all make an appearance but they don't eventuate into anything. They disappear as quietly as they appear.

SWAMP review

Created by Andy Freer and Nick Wilson, and presented by Snuff Puppets, SWAMP sends its audience into a fascinating journey into the impact humans have had on Earth's geology and ecosystems through the adventures of a number of Australian animals.

Large scale intricately designed animal puppets - including koalas, mosquitos, cane toads and lyrebirds - are bought to life by puppeteers in "short stories" of their interactions with each other and their changing environment. Varying in their humour and dramatics, each story effectively highlights their plight, and how humans have explicitly and implicitly made their homes a risk to their safety and lives.

Jake Silvestro on bringing together circus, nature and rollerskates | Melbourne Fringe Festival interview

Put a group of people together in any situation and there are bound to be disagreements and arguments. Put a group of people together in an unfamiliar environment and things will intensify even further. Created and performed by circus artists Jake Silvestro and Romain Hassanin, Alienation is a physical theatre show at Melbourne Fringe Festival that explores our relationships and interactions with each other and nature.

Silvestro and Hassanin have been collaborating on Alienation since 2020 but it wasn't until Silvestro happened to come across a quote by art critic Martin Gayford that he realised what it was they wanted to say. "Romain and I had some ideas about what we wanted to do, but couldn't firmly say how they were connected or socially relevant. I find with projects that build over long time periods, the downtime between rehearsals is an opportunity to keep your eyes open and see what is out in the world that corroborates your practice, and that was definitely the case with "A History of Pictures" by David Hockney and Martin Gayford," Silvestro tells me. "I was reading that book and came across the quote “... alienation, the way in which, especially in Western Culture, people are separated psychologically and economically both from each other and from the natural world”, and it tied together a bunch of elements from this new work in a more succinct way than I could have come up with."

Arterial review

Good circus will always find ways to entertain its audience through the impressive abilities of its performers as they display their strength, flexibility and agility. Amazing circus will have this, but will also be able to make you feel something deeper through its storytelling and performances, and Arterial is one of the best examples of this in a very long time. Presented by Na Djinang Circus, the production explores the notion of what community is and the importance in keeping community alive.

Harley Mann - founder of Na Djinang and director of Arterial - is extremely specific and clear in creating his vision and showing this connection to story, to people and to country. While there is a lot to of ground to cover, everything that we see and hear - and even feel - in Arterial has purpose. The scattered eucalyptus leaves and branches around the stage and the way the lighting design by Gina Gascoigne includes red light illuminating the space are subtle yet constant reminders of the relationship to land being depicted and by extension our relationship with the land we live on.

Just Jolks review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

I've been reviewing Barnie Duncan's shows in Melbourne since 2017. They have focused on physical theatre and comedy, both on his own or sharing the stage with other performers like Dani Cabs or Trygve Wakenshaw. These have always had Duncan playing a character or telling a story. But not anymore. For his new show Just Jolks, Duncan has removed all gimmicks and distractions and attempts to tell us jokes, the whole jokes and nothing but the jokes. He is a real comedian now.

Having evolved from physical comedy, Duncan needs to ensure we are aware of the advanced rules and conventions of joke telling. We go through what crowd work means and if he's going to do it or not, the mechanics of observational humour and even the apparatus required for this fresh form of comedy. Such is his skill in comedy that even with his matter-of-fact facial expressions and earnest tone, it's impossible to resist laughing at everything he says, particularly with his loose fitting colourful shirt, white singlet and red cap (and everyone knows real comedians wear black).

IN-VOCATION たまおこし review | Yumi Umiumare | Dancehouse

After an utterly incredible show with Buried TeaBowl - Okuni last year, performance artist Yumi Umiumare returns with IN-VOCATION たまおこし, a potent pairing to the 2022 show. With its predecessor exploring time, ritual, the past and the present through her connection to Okuni, a 17th century Japanese dancer credited as being the founder of kabuki theatre, this new show digs deeper into Okuni's life, with a focus on releasing the "Okuni spirit" inside all of us.

Joining Umiumare are two Japanese artists, Kayo Tamura, a shaman in theatre and Kyoko Amara, a professional clairvoyant and singer. This trio perform music, dance, rituals and storytelling as they share and discover the many characters of Okuni. With the Japanese title of the show translating to provoking / awakening the soul, it's fitting that a shrine to the womb sits in the middle of the stage as the three build and release the female power and energy of Okuni. They go big and bold in their acts but maintain an intimacy and authenticity with their audience that allows us to open our minds and hearts to what we are witnessing.


Triptych review | Temperance Hall

Anyone who has witnessed a Phillip Adams dance work knows to expect the unexpected. Adams has a knack for creating daring and disruptive pieces that explore themes around sexuality in its rawest form. His newest work Triptych, takes inspiration from Francis Bacon’s 1970 triptych painting, Triptych, in which Bacon used distortion and fragmentation to call attention to his own ideas around love, sex and religion.

In the first of three parts, four dancers (Harrison Hall, Samuel Harnett-Welk, Benjamin Hurley and Oliver Savariego) dressed in simple yet stunning Toni Maticevski designs, spend forty minutes writhing and convulsing on a circular pink carpet to a highly piercing and penetrating score by David Chisholm and Duane Morrison. While one pair appears to have more intimate and vulnerable interactions, the other pair is more aggressive and brutal. The two pairs circle each other, and at times make physical contact with each other, indicating how civility and animal instincts can easily be interchanged, something that Bacon depicted with his art. There are times where you wonder if Adams has choreographed this or if the dancers have completely given themselves over to these urges and being spellbound by the stirring composition. It's a rare experience to watch a performance and feel such intensity permeate throughout the room and be utterly transfixed by what is unfolding.

Getting the inside scoop on being an outsider with Amelia O’Leary's new dance work A Certain Mumble

In 2023, Darebin Arts Speakeasy will celebrate a decade of ground-breaking and award-winning performing arts productions, with Amelia O'Leary's contemporary dance work A Certain Mumble making up part of its 2023 season. O'Leary, a First Nations Gamilaroi dancer and choreographer, will be working with Chinese Malaysian artist Janelle Tan Yung Huey as they explore what it feels like to be an outsider in Australia.

"Being an outsider in Australia means feeling different or like you don't belong," O'Leary says. "We particularly felt like outsiders by encountering indirect and direct acts and attitudes of racism. I also struggled with not belonging in certain institutions and social spaces. I can feel the eeriness and unsettling energies of so-called Australia. In a way, being an outsider helps broadens your perspective and makes you a more interesting and understanding person, but it can make you feel unseen, unheard and misunderstood."

Juniper Rising review (Melb Fringe)

The world came to a standstill when this powerful iconic woman recently passed away.  It was a national day of mourning in virtually every country. Everyone had a story or opinion about her life. It was a unique life and one that no one else will ever come close to experiencing. I am, of course, talking about Juniper Wilde, who accidentally committed her own suicide. Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Alex Hines resurrects her alter ego Juniper Wilde in Juniper Rising.

There is one word to describe this show and it is looooooose. SO loose. But Hines thrives on it. She THRIVES. She feeds off the chaos and crazy like a soul-sucking demon feeds off humans. Like a demon in hell. Where Juniper finds herself. But behind all this, there is craft, and it is clever and stupid and absolutely hilarious and frenetic. Hines can take a ridiculous idea and make something hysterical out of it or she'll make a drive-by comment and move on. You never quite know what's going to happen next, and sometimes, you get the feeling that Hines isn't even sure. But it works so brilliantly in Juniper Rising.

Traversing the after life with iconic superstar Juniper Wilde

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the theatre, Juniper Wilde is back with more zest for life than ever be- oh, she's dead. That's right, the icon that is Juniper Wilde has died after losing a lip-sync battle in Hades. But fear not Wildlings, because Juniper has a plan to return to the world but it does involve making a deal with the devil.

If that brief synopsis of Juniper Rising has confused you, then the brains behind the beauty, Alex Hines, has done her job, but it's not easy to create some very twisted and often dark sketches and comedy. "Usually my brain spits these fucked little ideas out at me and if it makes me laugh I’ll do it, even if literally everyone else says no," she explains. "With Wilde Night In and Juniper Rising I’ve been so lucky to have my collaborator and director Sarah Stafford by my side. I’ll go to her with the dumbest ideas and we’ll riff and she’ll shape until it’s a show. Before Sarah it was far more chaotic and unhinged, but she’s got this magical way of helping imagination come to life on stage."

Circonoclasm review

Devised by its second year students, NICA’s Circonoclasm is an exploration of the theft and destruction of the arts through circus. A new artwork is about to be unveiled at the National Gallery of Melbourne. But when it is stolen, everyone become a suspect as the investigators take unconventional, or in some cases too conventional, methods to solve the crime.

Director David Woods has a large cast of performers to play with and that he does, but unfortunately much of Circonoclasm is grounded in acting, sketch and slapstick with not enough satisfying circus. The opening in particular is drawn out far too long as we watch robbers and guards running on and off stage in varying comedic fashion like a montage of Scooby Doo gang as they are chased by (or chasing) the monster.

Scream Star review

Worlds collide in Speak Percussion's new collaborative performance, Scream Star, where three artists from around the globe have come together with three pieces of live music that intersect sound, the moving image and percussion. London-based Matthew Shlomowitz, German Johannes Kreidler and New Yorker Jessie Marino present unique compositions that investigate the playfulness and creativity of sound and music exploration.

The opener by Shlomowitz is an imagined variety show called Hey Hey It’s Tuesday. Archival footage of people lining up for shows, on stage, backstage and everything in between is projected onto a screen as the composers play with a number of percussion instruments including cymbals, drums and xylophones. Through this, we discover  ways of how the moving image can interact with new sounds and to appreciate new ways of hearing sound. The segment involving the Kiama Blowhole, the largest in the world, is a particular highlight.

Future. Joy. Club. review | Finucane & Smith | Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

It's been a hellish last few years for us all, and while we might not be getting off this bumpy ride any time soon, Finucane & Smith are here to ensure that we can still have a good time with their new production Future. Joy. Club. From cabaret to burlesque to dancing to singing and to everything in between, they bring together some beautiful people performing breathtaking acts in a extravaganza full of fun, laughs and love.

Mama Alto begins the show by belting out Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”. It is one of the many highlights of the night and illustrative of the premise for Future. Joy. Club, where we will survive, and we will thrive. Joining Mama is an army of onesie wearing dancers spreading the glee into the audience at the Sofitel ballroom.

Dyslexic Cowboy review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

Who is the Dyslexic Cowboy? In Lachie Ross' Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, Dyslexic Cowboy, it really doesn't matter. In 50 minutes, Ross performs a variety of sketches, stand-up and all that’s in between in his absurdist leaning solo comedy debut.

 

Ross is on the ball from the moment the show begins. His enthusiasm and dedication to his characters and each sketch is refreshing, particularly given the short duration of each skit. His ability to switch between “performing” and being himself because something has gone wrong, when it’s all part of the show, is well executed and entertaining to watch.

To Schapelle and Back review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

Alex Hines is having a pretty crappy birthday. Her dad is missing and Blockbuster is closed. What's a private schoolgirl on a swimming scholarship meant to do? Well not much, because the ancient doppelgänger curse is about to strike and Alex's life is about to become inextricably linked to that of Aussie icon, Schapelle Corby. Alex will need to go To Schapelle and Back in order to see the light on the other side in this incredibly twisted and outlandish Melbourne International Comedy Festival offering. 

While having some background knowledge about who Schapelle is would help with some of the show's subtle (and overt) humour and observations, its look at Australian culture and sense of identity is broad enough for everyone's entertainment. This isn't a show exclusively about Schapelle Corby. Hines' ability to take pop culture references, such as Mr. Squiggle, Big Brother and Chris Crocker, and mould them into something that can slide seamlessly into the Corbyverse is very impressive and reinforces the confidence that Hines has as a performer.

Poncho: Keep it Up! review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | Malthouse Theatre

It's been five years since Dani Cabs' alter ego Poncho graced Melbourne stages and in that time, while he has definitely matured, his humour has fortunately not waned. In Poncho: Keep it Up!, our charming, orange, good-times seeker brings a mix of physical comedy, clowning and storytelling discussing ideas on who we are and what we should strive to be, that are equally entertaining and honest.

Armed with just a rack consisting of a variety of orange clothing on the stage, all eyes are on Poncho, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Poncho feeds off audience interaction and welcomes the occasional impromptu comment or laughter from the audience. Cabs is so comfortable in his Poncho skin that he is never thrown by audience suggestions or responses and remains and responds in character to whatever happens.

Cabs possesses great comedic timing and shares genuine engagement with his audience. During his storytelling/spoken word moments, even behind the facade of this Latin clown, there are interesting observations and statements made about identity and society that are even more potent given the comedic lens they are told through.