Sunday Arts Magazine

Rohan Shearn arts gossip is back on the Sunday Arts Magazine Show.  

Morgan Ræ (aka MxRS) can be described a series, a performance, a story, a literary painting or living art.

An award-winning interior & living designer with two decades of global hospitality brand experience, an author of two cookbooks, former NYC restauranteur, producer, director, writer and show host focused on space.

Morgan Ræ began her career by directing the local children in games and plays on her self-made stage at the age of 8 in South Dakota. She became a part of the theatre tribe during high school learning all aspects of what it takes to run a production while taking the lead in a number of Shakespeare plays. Her memorisation skills won tripiés and her comedic MC acts made local TV.

Known for her pop-up activations, Tuk Tuk tours, artist in residence projects and creative space design, she has been an essential thread of culture introducing the public to the many facets of art.

Morgan’s storytelling is influenced by her years working with hospitality royalty such as AvroKO, Brand Bureau & David Mexico Design Group. She has brought design  stories to life with worldwide recognized brands such as Kerzner’s Atlantis and One&Only Resorts, Westin, Sheraton, 11Howard, Fairmount, Foutainebleau, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas and hospitality focused residences such as Urby, Roam & BMW’s Mini Living.

Morgan has also participated in discussions on the New Age of Hospitality with SohoHouse & 1Hotels and frequently gives Feng Shui 101 to hotel brands like Nomade in Tulum. She also hosted a series of art classes during 2020 to brighten isolation.

Currently taking her otherworldly skills to space with her multimedia series MxRS we will witness the evolution of storytelling from pen and ink to wherever it leads.

A sell-out hit at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, Craig Christie’s Jungle Bungle is about

to be unleashed at Theatre Works these April School Holidays. With arts and

crafts before each show, and Jungle Juice and snacks on offer, this colourful Mel-

bourne season is an engaging musical adventure for the entire family that explores

the fear of the unknown while celebrating friendship, individuality, and imagina-

tion.

Jungle Bungle is the wild and wonderful story of Oliver’s first day at new school. Even when he makes a new

friend in Claire, he can’t shake the nagging feeling that everything’s a bit weird and nothing is as it should be.

When Claire agrees to show Oliver home at the end of the day, and then stay and play, things still aren’t right.

And then they get much worse. Somehow, Oliver and Claire find themselves a lot further away from home than

expected, and they’re not too sure how they’re going to find their way back. Oh, and did we mention that they

were being followed?

Renowned writer Craig Christie has had over 40 musicals professionally produced in Australia and internationally

and his children’s shows have been seen by a total audience of over 3 million worldwide. A “family” show on

many levels, Jungle Bungle also sees him collaborating with his son, US-based Composer Andrew Christie (The

Simpsons), on the captivating and dynamic musical score for the adventure.

On the site of the old Collingwood TAFE and taking up almost an entire city block, Collingwood Yards lay dormant for close to a decade before its transformation. After two years of construction works, Collingwood Yards officially begins its life as a major contemporary arts incubator – a place where community and creativity meet and emerging culture begins.

The queen of the miniskirt, colourful tights and tailored trousers, Mary Quant personified the energy and fun of swinging 60s and was a powerful role model for working women – encouraging a new age of feminism.

 

Always challenging conventions, Quant inspired young women to rebel against the traditional dress of their mothers and grandmothers, turning her tiny London boutique into a wholesale global brand, making fashion less exclusive and more accessible to a new generation.

 

This brilliantly colourful exhibition comes direct from a sell-out season at London’s revered Victoria & Albert Museum, and explores the years between 1955 and 1975, when Quant revolutionised the high street, harnessing the youthful spirit of the sixties and new mass production techniques to create a modern new look for women.

 

Drawn from Mary Quant’s own archive as well as the V&A’s extensive fashion holdings, which include the largest public collection of Quant garments in the world, the exhibition brings together over 110 garments as well as accessories, cosmetics, sketches and photographs.

 

Many of the star objects featured in the exhibition come directly from a public call-out by the V&A to find rare garments and collect personal stories from the real women who wore Quant clothes. The results of the WeWantQuant social media campaign, which received over 800 responses, demonstrates the scale of Quant’s impact on fashion and her vital role in pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable for women to wear.

Stephen is back again with more film gossip.

Electronic composer Ehsan Gelsi’s majestic new composition, Ephemera merges the grandeur of Melbourne Town Hall’s ten thousand pipe acoustic organ with synths, computer generated sounds and live percussion in a special one night only performance to commemorate Melbourne Town Hall’s 150th anniversary.

Having shared the stage with Snoop Dogg, Pendulum, Calvin Harris, Carl Cox and Danny Tenaglia among other global acts and played Festivals around the world including the legendary Glastonbury, Ephemera is a rare chance to see Gelshi perform live in his hometown.  He will be accompanied by Ben Crook (Oolluu) on drums and an alluring live laser show.

Ephemera traverses classical organ music, vintage prog rock and contemporary electronica in this groundbreaking hybrid commission.  The result is a spectacular mix of grand organ fetishism, progressive soundtrack exploration and ecstatic analogue electronica.

Ehsan Gelsi has spent the last 20 years immersed in the world of synthesizers; as a performer, educator and specialist. Crossing genres from techno and experimental to hip hop and electronica, Ehsan’s musical scope is diverse and has seen him tour the world.

Support on the night comes from Melbourne electronic genius Jannah Quill. Jannah’s experimental approach to the uncasing of electrical processes manifests in installation, performance and recorded sound. In her live performances, she sculpts cracked everyday electronics into pulsating, beguiling and menacing fields of static and tone. Her approach to sound-making is heavily influenced by her interest in dance and club music apparatus and the ways in which this can blend with experimental, improvisatory and collaborative music.

Melbourne Town Hall’s 150th anniversary milestone is also being celebrated in You Are Cordially Invited ­– a visual arts exhibition featuring new works from celebrated Melbourne artist Patrick Pound, archival film and photographs from the City of Melbourne’s vast art and heritage collection.  Held in the newly refurbished City Gallery, the exhibition examines the Town Hall’s 150 years of civic life, governance, politics and culture, curated by Andrew Stephens.

100 Australian Birds is a beginner’s guide to the world of birdwatching. From the outside, this strange hobby of

birdwatching appears to consist of sizeable camera lenses, khaki pants that are pulled up too high, and gruelling

treks in pursuit of rare bird species. But for those who haven’t been scared off by jumbo field guides and excessive

terminology, this book is for you.

Carefully tailored to guide birdwatchers anywhere in Australia, this book reveals insights into one hundred key

native specieswith lush illustrations and accessible descriptions. As well as the author’s original illustrations, there

are distribution maps, identification methods, behavioral information and contributions from First Nations people on

Taungurung, Gumbaynggirr and Wiradjuri names for particular birds.

100 Australian Birds is for anyone interested in birds, culture, history or our environment, but without the geekspeak.

Ted Gott talks to David and Neil about the National Gallery of Victoria’s French Impressionism.  

Melbourne Theatre Company returns to the mainstage on Thursday 11 March with the Australian premiere of Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, an incisive #MeToo-era take on the archetypal student-teacher romance starring Dan Spielman (The Code) and Izabella Yena(Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears).

With MTC Associate Director Petra Kalive at the helm, this timely exploration of power, truth and desire is a captivating drama of contemporary gender politics.

Petra Kalive said, ‘Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes is an exciting and pressing new work. It is immediate and timely; deftly navigating the complexities of power in a romantic relationship. Hannah Moscovitch’s writing is surgical in its precision and the characters are flawed and complex in the best possible way. I am absolutely thrilled to be directing such a vital new text, and to work with such true talent as Dan Spielman and Izabella Yena.’

About the play: Jon is a prize-winning novelist who wants more out of life. His third marriage is going about as well as his first two, and he’s stuck at university teaching creative writing to lazy undergraduates. He’s a good teacher, but believes there’s really only one student worth his time. Annie is clever, imaginative, and a huge fan of Jon’s work. One afternoon, Jon catches himself admiring Annie in her red coat, and very soon it feels like their affair was destined from the start. But when the embers have cooled and the affair is over, who will control their narrative? As Jon brings the audience into his confidence, freely sharing his internal turmoil, Annie shows us a young woman coming into her own power. In telling the story of the two, award-winning Canadian writer Hannah Moscovitch employs her fiery wit and incisive ability to tackle complex subjects with humour and intelligence.

Hannah Moscovitch is an acclaimed playwright whose work has been produced across Canada as well as in the United States, Britain, Ireland, Greece, Japan, Germany, Austria and Australia. Past stage work includes East of Berlin, Little One, This is War, Bunny, What a Young Wife Ought to Know, and Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (co-created with Christian Barry and Ben Caplan). Moscovitch has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work, including the Trillium Book Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, The Nova Scotia Masterworks Award, both The Scotsman Fringe First and The Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Festival, and the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize administered by Yale University. She was formerly a Playwright-In-Residence at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto.

MTC Associate Director Petra Kalive has previously directed Hungry Ghosts, Melbourne Talam(Green Room Award-nominated Best Director), Beached and the Cybec Electric reading of In the Kingdom of Cha for the Company, and was Assistant Director on Constellations. Her acclaimed adaptation of Peter Goldsworthy’s novel, Three Dog Night, toured nationally in 2009. Her most recent work as a director includes the much-acclaimed Taxithi (Green Room Award-nominated Best Director), which, after two sell-out seasons at fortyfivedownstairs, went on to tour. Other credits include Mirror’s Edge, her own work Oil Babies at Northcote Town Hall (shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards), and the new musical by Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank, My Brilliant Career. She was Dramaturg at Red Stitch from 2009 – 2012 and Assistant Dramaturg at Malthouse Theatre in 2010. In 2019, she completed five years as Artistic Director of Union House Theatre at the University of Melbourne.