Seduction - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

Get ready for a sweet sweet seduction 
with Gold Satino's new site-specific immersive show, aptly titled, Seduction. Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, this critically acclaimed theatre collective returns with another intimate offering that allows audiences to unearth the secrets that are in our streets and observe life from the perspectives of people we've never met before, whose stories are as much a mystery to us as they are to themselves.

In Seduction, two women navigate the world, the violence of making performance and the seduction of art, friendship, and how their feminisms are different and yet the same. This show for nine audience members at a time is described as a 'drive-in/drive by performance of excruciating intimacy set in a landscape of bleak urban grandeur', and can easily be considered as a nightmarish dream of contradictions and confirmations. "You will be seduced. No, not really, well maybe," Gold Satino's creative director and Seduction co-writer and director Davina Wright tells me. "A lot of things happen. Most of it is in the back of a car. But there's no participation. The audience is safe to watch, see, experience and dream with us. God that got corny quickly."

Dion - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Dion. Oh Dion. Why'd you go and break my heart? That's what writer/director Davina Wright explores in the new immersive piece by Gold Satino for Melbourne Fringe Festival, aptly titled Dion. It's business as usual here, as three audience members jump in the back of the Honda Jazz and are driven around the outskirts of North Melbourne in what can be called an epic "fuck off" homage to exes. 

What I really enjoyed throughout Dion is the juxtaposition of being connected with the show yet witnessing distant and detached vignettes. The performers (Tamiah Bantum, Ross de Winter, Lachlan McColl, Cazz Bainbridge, Xavier O'Shanessy and Wright) all exude this feeling that they are living in their own world and generally void of any emotion but the connectivity felt with the subject and the scenes that play out paint a completely different picture. The exploration of first kisses, last kisses, fleeting moments, broken hearts and heartache; they are all experiences we've had and something we can all relate to.

Dion - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

Last year, performance makers Gold Satino brought us their sell-out show Suburbia, a voyeuristic look at the nighttime goings on in the seemingly quiet back-streets of North Melbourne. This year they return to Melbourne Fringe Festival with Dion, another show for three "passengers" in the back of a Honda Jazz, but this time taking us on a slightly more thematic journey around broken hearts. So get in, fasten your seat-belt and prepare yourself for am eventful and highly entertaining bumpy ride.

While both shows allow you to create your own meaning from what you are watching, in Dion, the exploration of love and heartbreak is also explored.  "Dion is my ex girlfriend. Or everyone’s ex girlfriend. I guess we’re still exploring voyeurism and the surreal shit that happens on the streets. But this time I’m on tinder as well. And casually hooking up with strangers. And trying to work out how to be alone in the world, which, lets face it, I was before as well, it just feels more lonely now," explains writer and director of Dion and Creative Director of Gold Satino, Davina Wright. "Anyway, what better way to move on and grieve an ex than to jam three strangers in the back of your car and make them drive around with you for an hour."

Suburbia presented by Gold Satino - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

For those who dare, how about taking an evening drive through the suburbs of the inner north and watching some of its residents going about their lives? With Suburbia, you can do just that. Three audience members are picked up at the front of the North Melbourne Town Hall and squeezed into the back of a Honda to see suburbia in a very different light. It's a literal journey through everyday yet surreal streetscapes and experiences. There will also be snacks.

"It's about driving with mum and dad at night and also about being frightened about all the weird shit that happens after 10pm in the suburbs," Davina Wright, writer and director of Suburbia explains. "It's also about looking at things and how looking at things helps us be okay. I guess we can say expect the unexpected! No one has said that before right?"