Sunday Arts Magazine

Heide Museum of Modern Art is delighted to announce full program details for the inaugural Heide Summer Festival which will activate the museum’s much-loved sculpture park with an outdoor event series designed to support local performing artists, youth bands and cultural festivals impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria the nine-week program, presented from mid-January to March 2021, will feature free and ticketed curated programs of music, dance, and storytelling from the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Songlines Music Aboriginal Corporation and Australia’s premier queer arts and cultural organisation Midsumma.

Heide Museum Artistic Director Lley Harding said, “We are excited to be presenting this dynamic series of events that will fill Heide’s sculpture garden with music and stories during the summer months. The Summer Festival is the first of its kind for Heide and we are delighted to kick off our 40th anniversary program with a celebration that has Indigenous heritage and culture at its centre and that also supports Melbourne’s talented local artists and performing arts organisations in the wake of COVID-19. Our gardens set us apart from other institutions and while they have never closed, with the support of the Victorian Government it is wonderful to be able to invite audiences back to Heide in a big way. We look forward to starting 2021 in a celebratory way and together as a community.”

Opening the Festival, the Melbourne International Jazz Festival will curate a series of jazz performances by Victorian-based artists across three Sundays in January including:

 

Solomon Sisay | Sunday 17 January, 4pm

 

World class saxophonist Solomon Sisay, who shot to fame with legendary Ethiopian band Axumite Band, will pay tribute to the Ethio-Jazz sounds endemic to his homeland for the first of three events presented by the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Solomon has played alongside the greats such as Mahmoud Ahmed, Aleymehu Eshete, Ali Bira, Tsegaye Eshetu as well as many up and coming Ethiopian music stars.

 

Nichaud Fitzgibbon | Sunday 24 January, 4pm

 

A natural, charismatic performer and one of Australia’s favourite jazz stylists, Nichaud Fitzgibbon has been delighting Melbourne audiences for years. Hailing from the famous Fitzgibbon family, Nichaud’s musical pedigree spans three generations and is regarded as Jazz royalty.

 

Allara Briggs Pattison | Sunday 31 January, 4pm

 

Allara Briggs Pattison is a Yorta Yorta musician, composer, filmmaker, and storyteller. Inspired by ancient oral traditions and using a double bass and loop station, Allara will take audiences on a cultural and spiritual journey, delivering a unique soul stirring sound.

 

In collaboration with Songlines Music Aboriginal Corporation, Heide is proud to present Indigenous artists, dancers and storytellers across two weekends in February. Hosted by singer/songwriter and Songlines CEO Robert Bundle, the program includes:

 

Djirri Djirri Dance Group | Sunday 7 February, 1pm to 2pm

 

Melbourne’s only Wurundjeri all-female dance group and Traditional Custodians of Narrm (Melbourne), Djirri Djirri will perform dance and song in their mother tongue, Woiwurrung language, that represent creation, values, respect and protection of Country. They are all related by blood through Annie Borate, William Barak’s sister.

12 JANUARY 2021: In a first for Melbourne, 17 metre tall Space Robots made from upcycled industrial waste will invade Melbourne’s iconic Chapel Street Precinct in a spectacular show of force that will become a must-visit free attraction for families across Melbourne and Australia. The out-of-this-world open air exhibition called Robot SPACEland will call the famous precinct home between January 14 – 31, 2021. These ‘guests’ will commandeer four unique locations – Grattan Gardens, 402 Chapel Street (worksite), the new Prahran Square, and the Chapel Off Chapel forecourt.

 

“We’ve literally reached into a new stratosphere of creativity to bring our huge Robot SPACEland activation to life in partnership with the City of Stonnington,” said Chrissie Maus, General Manager, of Chapel Street Precinct. “We can’t wait to introduce these larger-than-life intergalactic creatures to Melburnians in January, which will help boost the local economy around them!”  

 

The Robots hail from design firm XYZ Dimensions, which has previously put its creatures on display at festivals around the country including Sydney’s world famous VIVID festival. Measuring up to 17 metres in height, each interactive display will grab attention by day and take your breath away by night. In a mix of past and present, the installations combine upcycled materials and industrial waste with vibrant lights and sounds, curating Instagrammable moments for the whole family.

 

“We incorporated industrial waste into Robot SPACEland wherever possible, minimising waste streams and promoting sustainability,” said Tim Bestman, Creative Director of XYZ Dimensions. “It sends a powerful message to the audience about the importance of recycling, and the message comes out even stronger when the light spectacle begins at night.”

 

“There is no better place to be invaded by Robots than in one of the City’s best locations to live, work, stay and play – Chapel Street,” said the newly minted City of Stonnington Mayor, Cr Kate Hely.

 

“We are delighted to partner with the Chapel Street Precinct to bring this fantastic exhibition to the City of Stonnington and our iconic Chapel Street.”

Izabella talks to David about her show which is running from the 20 January 2021 to 31 January 2021 at Theatreworks in Acland Street St. Kilda

Stephen, talks to David about all things films

Producer Rodney Rigby talks about the play Come From Away and the opening of the Comedy Theatre.

David talks to Olivia about what is going on :  the URL is here.

https://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/whats-on/2021/contemporary-music/vault-sessions-live-lo-fi

When serious minded New York choreographer Anna (Jessica Clarke) and hothead restaurant

manager Pale (Mark Diaco) are brought together by a mysterious death, their connection sparks a

chemistry too explosive to ignore in Lanford Wilson’s landmark play Burn This.

Set in the summer of 1983 against the backdrop of lower Manhattan and the raging AIDS

epidemic, Burn This was Wilson’s attempt to create a psychic map of panic after experiencing a

panic attack walking down a street in NY. Looking to understand what was going on around him,

he sat down to write and remembered a guy he’d met seven years earlier from New Jersey who

became the inspiration for Pale.

Directed by Green Room and Sydney Theatre Award winner Iain Sinclair (MTC’s A View from the

Bridge) and produced by 16th Street Actors Studio, this production of Burn This has been a long

time in the making.

“I think the beginning of the story for me was when we brought Academy Award winning actress

Ellen Burstyn to Australia nearly 10 years ago to conduct a masterclass,” says 16th Street’s Artistic

Director, Kim Krejus. “Mark Diaco did a scene playing Pale. I remember when I drove Ellen home

that night, she said – ‘That actor is a star’. The rights to this play are rarely available and Mark has

doggedly stayed on the case until they finally said yes. This is the third attempt to stage the show,

the last being in May this year. He has faced every obstacle and has never given up.” “It’s not lost on me that the world outside is changing into something new,” says Diaco.

“Sometimes it’s felt as if we were living in an actual movie and the drama has superseded anything

Netflix has to offer. This enforced time to take stock, stop, rest and reflect has had its silver linings

though, and I think it’s something that the theatre is going to benefit from as people look to leave

their comfort zones. Burn This is a play about connection when we have all experienced a kind of

forced disconnection.”

With a reputation as one of the best directors of contemporary American plays following his

acclaimed productions of A View From the Bridge in Sydney and Melbourne, and Who’s Afraid of

Virginia Woolf at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre, Iain Sinclair says Burn This is, “Theatre for theatre

lovers. It is not post-modern; it is visceral and it is a play that you burn to do.”

Burn This also marks 16th Street Actors Studio’s first foray into producing, with a mission to

empower actors to shine. “Our studio is all about the actor and the play,” says Krejus. “Our focus

has been on training for over ten years, and the next horizon (while still continuing training) is to

create work opportunities for actors in both theatre and film. We are so delighted to be doing this

at fortyfivedownstairs with this wonderful cast.

Madelynne Cornish is an Australian audio-visual artist and curator based in Victoria. She is co-

founder and director of operations for the Bogong Centre for Sound Culture, an independent arts

initiative that facilitates cultural projects investigating the history and ecology of the Australian Alps.

For ten years Cornish has used sound, video and installation to make works that question our

perceptions of the natural environment. Her practice has focused on the effects of climate on

natural and constructed environments, the dynamics informing remote communities, and the

relationships between environment, human actions and land use.

Radial Fields (2020) is an audio-visual installation investigating the relationships between urban

ecology, human engagement and land use. Created during a month-long residency, it draws on the

rich landscape of McClelland’s sculpture park and surrounding environment, including a wetland

conservation area, council nature reserve, concrete works, sand quarry, and residential estates. The

project’s foci are the temporal and spatial qualities of the geography and the fauna and flora of

these sites—microphones were placed in and around the sculpture park and its borderlands to

register natural and anthropogenic sound including industry, wildlife and weather. These sounds are

juxtaposed with the visual framing of the urban ecology to create an immersive audio-visual

installation in the gallery, which details the complexity of the ecological interactions occurring within

the sculpture park and its environs.

SITE & SOUND: Sonic art as ecological practice, 2 December 2020 – 11 April

2021* is an exhibition that invites audiences to consider the importance of

listening as a means towards a better understanding of the urgent and

complex environmental issues facing our planet.

Whether it be the roar of bushfires; the creak of fragmenting glaciers; silence where there used to

be bird song; or the hum of cicadas, our comprehension of sounds can lead to an intuitive

understanding of the ecological issues confronting us.

Curated by Jon Buckingham, Lawrence Harvey, and Simon Lawrie, SITE & SOUND surveys diverse

practices to reveal the connections between deep listening, field recording, acoustic ecology, natural

science, and spatialised sound in contemporary art.

SITE & SOUND will draw from RMIT’s Sonic Arts Collection, Australia’s first dedicated collection in

this field, augmented by four significant new commissions. It will feature an evolving program of

presentations, both within and beyond the gallery, across the internal spaces and outdoor

environment of McClelland—these include immersive sound environments, a rich array of

performances and listening events, and explorations of the history, theory and significance of field

recording and sonic art which will evolve over time and provide new experiences for each repeat visit

Marli is currently running live shows Sunday fortnightly from Sunday the 10th at 5pm, in collaboration the Pride of our Footscray community bar! The show is held at the Byron Garden Bar located on Byron street in Footscray! Our show consists of interviews with Drag performers live on stage, performances by the drag artists, audience games with prizes to be won and drinks to be had!