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THIS WEEK IN WEDNESDAY 28 Gunter Christmann & Yvonne Kendall – ‘Kozmix’ abstractions and a body of work around ‘the mystery of trees’. Closing night. Niagara Galleries. Let The Sunshine – Melbourne Theatre Company production of a new David Williamson play. Opening night. The Arts Centre until 4 September. Rug Trip – a night of international film, music and performance raising funds for children in Cambodia. Loop, 7.30pm.
THURSDAY 29 Rain: The Musical – an appropriation of Lysistrata set in contemporary Australian politics. Opening night. Trades Hall until 8 August. Sci-Fi And Spin-Offs – a look at classic sci-fi films and shows and the others they’ve inspired. ACMI, 7pm. Tales From The Undergrowth – the launch of three books from independent publishing house Undergrowth, with readings and performances. Loop, 8pm. Tango Inferno – the Tango Fire Company of Buenos Aires present a series of dance performances. Opening night. The Arts Centre until 1 August.
FRIDAY 30 Art Tour of Melbourne with Ash Keating – the local artist and identity leads a ‘backstage’ tour of the city’s art scene. Starts at Federation Square, 2pm. Australian Shorts – mini-festival of six local short films as part of MIFF. Greater Union Cinema 5, 7pm. Planet Of The Apes – Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham-Carter in Tim Burton’s remake of the sci-fi classic. ACMI, 9.30pm. Sappho… in 9 fragments – a history lesson in theatre on the poet’s 2,500-year history. Opening night. Malthouse Theatre until 21 August.
SATURDAY 31 End Game & Urban Appropriations – solo show from Christina Hayes and a group exhibition. Closing day. Anna Pappas Gallery. Papunya Group Exhibition – works from the Papunya Tula artist centre
ARTS
PEATS RIDGE ARTS APPLICATIONS OPEN Hey, you! Yes (provided you do art or make music) you! This is a callout! Thus the exclamation marks! Peats Ridge Artist Applications are still open! Be part of the lovely and environmentally responsible festival in Glenworth Valley and spend New Year’s with the likes of… well, they’re not announced yet but they’ll be good. Applications are online at peatsridgefestival.com.au and are accepted until Monday 2 August for musicians, and Wednesday 11 for other performers.
in the Western Desert. Closing day. Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi. Placed And Spaced – paintings examining form and composition in representational and abstract forms. Closing day. Charles Nodrum gallery. We’re Living On Dog Food – a behind the scenes account of the making of Dogs In Space and a snapshot of 1980s’ post-punk Melbourne. ACMI until 14 August.
SUNDAY 1 Into The Shadows: Burton’s Gothic Suburbia – a look at Tim Burton’s childhood landscapes and their influence on his films. ACMI, 2pm. Bob Dylan’s Drawn Blank series – limited edition graphics from his 40+ years as a visual artist are on view and for sale. Closing day. Artiq Galleries.
MONDAY 2 Bill Henson: Melbourne Art Foundation 2010 Lecture – the iconic and controversial photographer speaks on artistic expression, censorship and morality. BMW Edge Federation Square, 6pm. The Hard Light Of Day – Rod Moss’ book documents 25 years of his experiences visiting and photographing Alice Springs. Launch night. Anna Pappas Gallery, 6pm.
TUESDAY 3 Melbourne Winter Festival – open air ice rinks, glühwein, performances, and bars. Opening night. Around the city until 15 August. State Of The Arts Lecture – ‘How are our cultural industries performing? How should they be performing?’ The Wheeler Centre, 6:30pm. Stelarc: The Man With Three Ears – screening of Nick Ahlmark’s short film shot for VBS.TV about a man, Stelarc, who’s created an ear from stem cells from his rib cage implanted onto his arm, and is trying to make it fully functional via Bluetooth. Star and director will be in attendance at this Australian premiere. Loop, 8pm.
ONGOING Melbourne International Film Festival – various locations until 8 August.
MINCHIN MEETS ORCHESTRA Australian-based comedian Tim Minchin has announced a symphony orchestra tour for early 2011, a concept he’s successfully carried out overseas. Featuring a bunch of new songs written for the tour, as well as Minchin classics, Tim Minchin vs the Orchestra Tour will travel around Australia, collecting new orchestras as it goes (i.e. Sydney Symphony, WASO in Perth), with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra joining Minchin at the Palais Friday 25 February and Saturday 26, 2011. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.
TIMELY EXHIBITION ON CENSORSHIP
SHOT SNAP-
Displaying at Melbourne Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building Wednesday 4 August to Sunday 8.
TAKING AUDIENCES TO ANOTHER WORLD TONY MCMAHON SPEAKS TO PLAYWRIGHT JENNY KEMP ABOUT THE SECOND WORK IN HER TRILOGY ON MENTAL ILLNESS, MADELEINE.
M
adeleine is the second work in writer/director Jenny Kemp’s triptych on mental illness. Her first play on the subject, Kitten: A Bi-polar Soap Opera, premiered at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2008 and received rave reviews for its explicit yet graceful depictions of mental illness. “Madeleine is an intelligent and vibrant young woman who is becoming schizophrenic,” Kemp says of the new work. “It’s very difficult for the ‘sane’ to know what is actually going on and how it feels inside a mentally unwell person. My intention with Madeleine has been to open this world up to the audience. They experience both what is happening inside and outside Maddy. We witness the struggle she has to fit into the world of the family as another world is unfolding inside her.”
SEARCHING THE SEA FOR SYMBOLS
Kemp’s interest in tackling this subject matter for the stage comes from both real life and the desire to limit the apprehension commonly felt in approaching it.
Remember when everyone loved pirates, not vampires? There’s reference to piracy alongside BP critique in Hollows And Horizons, Nikai van Garderen’s latest works. He uses seascape and landscape and their limits as a way of symbolising the future and the unknowable and the self, in imagery that refers to contemporary events and the historical longevity of concepts. The exhibition runs at For Walls Gallery (inside Miss Libertine) and runs until Monday 9 August.
“My interest in mental illness comes from having closely known a number of mentally ill people. We often experience fear of anything that is unknown, and indeed the unconscious in each of us is largely
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TIM MINCHIN
THE BEAST THAT STINKS OUT ALL THE WORLD II, 2009 AMANDA MARBURG
A show looking at censorship and literature, fortuitously made super-timely by the LA Zombie/ MIFF fracas. We can’t promise you resurrection via necrophilia, but Josie Wadelton’s exhibition DEFACED is inspired by banned and burned books, such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover, American Psycho, and Junkie, scenes from which will be played by Fly On The Wall Theatre actors on the opening night on Thursday 26 August, 6PM. The show continues at Guildford Lane Gallery until Sunday 5 September.
unknown. The mentally ill often inhabit this zone and so become unfamiliar, unknown and therefore threatening to us. They often don’t conform to social patterns and so can have a very destabilising effect. My interest lies in how experience and culture shape our notions of sanity. For those who are supposedly sane, where does the borderline lie? And how we can deal with mental illness, in a way that is not one of denial and fear?” As with her earlier play, humour plays an important part in Madeleine. Kemp says that as well as the obvious release this will engender for the audience, humour and mental illness is an interesting subject in and of itself. “The fascinating thing about the mentally ill is that they often live in a world that has a complete logic of its own. The logic may be very lateral but it can often make sense, sometimes creating an uncannily accurate look into the absurdity of the world. I think in this respect there is a lot of humour to be found. Indeed one finds the mentally ill, although at times deeply tormented, at other times full of very released humour. Madeleine shows both sides of the illness. Indeed humour will play a very important part in Madeleine, giving the audience some relief from the darker side of the play.”
In closing, Kemp acknowledges the tough work that the entire production crew has had to do, but singles out one actor in particular for her bravery. “Directing and performing Madeleine is a significant challenge for us all. The young woman, Nikki Shiels, who is playing Maddy, is just out of the Victorian College of the Arts. Her role is extremely challenging, and requires her to often play several coexisting realities. We are extremely fortunate to have Nikki in the cast, as she is a very
talented and courageous performer. The range she has to cover in the performance is extreme. As a writer and director I want the production of Madeleine to create an experience of schizophrenia. This is not documentary theatre but theatre, which intends to open the closed and socially taboo door of mental illness for contemplation.” WHAT: Madeleine WHERE & WHEN: Arts House Tuesday 3 to Sunday 8 August