Born Dancin'

Elsewhere

2010-02-07T14:16:00.000+11:00

HERE is my interview of sorts with the playwright Will Eno. He makes many very worth-pondering comments therein and proves himself the sort of vertical fellow you'd want by your side during a midnight knife fight in an alley down by the docks. In the most metaphorical sense.

RAM IT

2010-01-29T18:03:00.000+11:00

I'm stunned that it took so long for me to happen upon this most arcadian of musical sub-genres - the American Football Theme Song. By 'happen upon' I mean my sister sent me a clip, which eventually led to the merriest of merry few moments as I discovered how widereaching and unashamedly perfect this style of music clip is. Consider this my gift to you on this fine Friday afternoon.

The LA Rams in "Ram It!" Every second of this one is a second well spent.

Miami Dolphins out-awesome Hammer with "Can't Touch Us".

The Chicago Bears get old school with "The Superbowl Shuffle". I haven't done the research but this sexy number may have been the one to start them all.

The Oakland Raiders' quite awful "Silver and Black Attack".

And the sublime comedy-chase-scene car crash that is the Seahawks' "Locker Room Rock".

Really, if any sports team or individual in Australia released a song in this fashion I would become a devoted lifelong fan in an instant. This is a promise

THAT'S INCREDIBLE!

2009-11-12T15:24:00.003+11:00

A couple of weeks ago I had a sudden and unsummoned memory of a show I watched when I was a kid and today I remembered to hunt it down. That’s the kind of busy lifestyle I lead, suckas.

It really was a special show, so take my hand (not so hard!) and come revisit THAT’S INCREDIBLE!

THAT’S INCREDIBLE! was a 1980s program wholly devoted to showcasing INCREDIBLE things, which as often as not turned out to be mildly interesting things or just filler.

Here’s a clip of an episode intro. Highlights include:

1- The opening moment which combines awful audience screaming with the finest font ever developed for network television.

2- A studio set entirely composed of shades of brown, camel, beige, mushroom and mustard.

3- Co-host John Davidson’s Power Stance ™ at 0.9 and his Bold & Beautiful hair and face.

4- The jawdropping promise of showing us “the world’s most incredible talkers”.

5- Co-host Cathy Lee Crosby’s uncomfortable torso swivelling and restless arms during her intro (0.19), which shout “awkward eight-year-old in the back row of the end-of-year choir concert”.

6- The fashion sense of Jim Bullet Bailey’s glove-putter-onners.

7- Jim Bullet Bailey.

8- Fran Tarkenton, a man who has a) a woman’s name, b) Travis Bickle’s smile, c) Alan Partridge’s hair and suit.

9- Davidson’s walk at 0.50, where his legs akimbo Power Stance ™ is supplanted by the floppy-handed, stoop-shouldered stumble of a man who downed a few white wine spritzers before tonight’s broadcast.

10- Tarkenton’s walk at 0.52, where he ignores the fact that the studio stairs are a bit too short and therefore require small steps rather than manly strides. The result is that his hair ends up beating like wings.

11- Crosby’s hurried walk a second later, where she looks like she’s running for the elevator.

12- Tarkenton’s excited fake banter to his co-hosts at 1.00, where he is clearly telling an INCREDIBLE! anecdote, possibly of a slightly bawdy nature. In case you can’t tell, Tarkenton was the ‘funny’ one of the group.

13- THE THING THAT HAPPENS AT 1.09

14- The parachutists and the flames that follow, but they’re par for the course. At this point, I’m still thinking about THE THING THAT HAPPENED AT 1.09

15- The totally different audience and studio they cut to just before the clip ends.

Let’s have a look.

What I really loved about the show was the pure sense of wonder to which it appealed. There are plenty of similar things today but they always seem either cynical, embarrassedly ironic or just plain cruel. THAT’S INCREDIBLE! was the televisual equivalent of your friend who is always sending you links to the MOST AMAZING/HILARIOUS THING ON THE INTERNET OMFG!!!! It was so excitable it made you excited too, even if you were just watching cats playing in the kitchen. In fact, I think that THAT’S INCREDIBLE! is probably partly responsible for much of the shape of our culture today, but it is of an Eden-like innocence to which we can never truly return. Goodbye, my old Fran.

FOREVER

2009-09-23T15:56:00.003+10:00

I completely screwed up the html code for this site the other day. Be glad if you missed it. It wasn't pretty. I don't even really know what html code is, which might give you a hint.

Anyway, it's mostly back now.

BUT IN MORE IMPORTANT NEWS

I've set up another blog.

Born Dancin' clearly hasn't been focused on the arts for a while now. Unless "ants" was "html code" for "ARTS". Which it wasn't.

So this place will remain a spot for "Born Dancin'" to post, while over at the other blog you'll be able to read arts-related guff by "John Bailey", who was never truly welcome here and sometimes had to be shooed out the door with a broom. You can of course also continue to read writing by John Bailey (no quotation marks) elsewhere too.

Thank you. I will see you at the other blog? We can get icypoles and go boating.

Died Dancin'

2009-08-27T14:54:00.003+10:00

This is the best.

When this week's threethousand newsletter, which is probably properly termed something more technical, or at least technical-sounding, such as ' e-letter', although 'e' is a letter, therefore making me confused if I get lost thinking about it, arrived, I saw the words "Dancing Plague" and thought: "YES".

The skinny: in 1518 in Strasbourg (a city I only know about due to its very admirable astrological clock and automata) a woman began dancing madly in the street. She danced for four to six days. People soon joined her and within a month there were around 400 dancers. Most of them keeled over due to the stress your body probably feels if you've been dancing for a week straight. These days I can hardly struggle through a single song, even if I dance like an old Italian man swaying to "Volare" at a distant family member's wedding. Which is in most other respects how I usually view myself.

So these people were dancing until they died and as expected this became a bit of a concern. What did the authorities prescribe?

MORE DANCING.

Actually, since I'm just paraphrasing (or downright plagiarising) the wikipedia page here, I might as well just copy and paste the whole paragraph on this point:

"As the dancing plague worsened, concerned nobles sought the advice of local physicians, who ruled out astrological and supernatural causes, instead announcing that the plague was a "natural disease" caused by "hot blood". However, instead of prescribing bleeding authorities encouraged more dancing, in part by opening two guildhalls and a grain market, and even constructing a wooden stage. The authorities did this because they believed that the dancers would only recover if they danced continually night and day. To increase the effectiveness of the cure, authorities even paid for musicians to keep the afflicted moving."

There's so much goodness in that para.

Firstly, I like the physicians "ruling out" supernatural causes.
Secondly, I like that "hot blood" was once a more reasonable sounding diagnosis than "devils" or "restless goat spirits" or whatever.
Thirdly, I like that Diana Ross' Upside Down came on as I was reading the section.
Fourthly, they're dancing themselves to death so we need MORE DANCING.
Fifthly, they built a stage and hired a band? And converted three public buildings into discos?

What an awesome story, by which I mean tragic loss of life, by which I really mean awesome story (if anyone reading lost a distant ancestor in this event, you have my sincere condolences and also: you are clearly of awesome genetic stock).

Anyway, it wasn't just Strasbourg.

Between the 14th and 18th centuries, all over Europe, there was swingin', there was swayin', there were municipally-appointed musicians playin', and there was dancin' in the streets. "Dancing mania" affected populations in what's now Germany, France and the Netherlands.

What kind of dancing were they doing? In all instances chronicles asserted that it was dancing, not epileptic spasms or just jumping around. If my eighth-grade understanding of history (which mostly consisted of teachers putting on Hollywood movies depicting whatever period we were supposed to be studying) is reliable, most of the 'dancing' of this period involved people playing slow-motion patty-cake while walking in circles.

An aside: The 'tarantella' supposedly developed in a similar way. People who had been bitten by a tarantula were ordered to dance hard and fast in order to sweat the poison out.

WOW.

What can we learn from all of this? I think the lessons here are obscure and convoluted, much like the gnarly sentence at the top of this post with its nested clauses and grammatically correct but horrible-to-parse employment of parataxis.

That is all.

Dérive

2009-08-18T14:28:00.004+10:00

I was in a taxi a while back and BBC World was on the radio. A report came on discussing the ban on minarets in Switzerland. I was incredulous. So was the taxi driver. Neither of us could believe a country could put a ban on minarets. Minarets?!

The taxi driver and I spoke at the same time – I said “you can’t ban an architectural style!” He said “They’re just puppets for god’s sake!”

-

B. Fleischmann is a lovely Austrian electronic music maker, and I was listening to his song 24.12. when I was writing the above lines. It's a beautiful song - the vocals especially. I was surprised when I brought up the clip for the track and found the following words scrawled across the top:

"When the marionettes started to pull the strings, they noticed that stoking fear helps to keep the strings hold tight. But I think: Angst is not a Weltanschauung!"

-

Angst is not a Weltanschauung.

-

Fleischmann puts the elan back into melancholy. Or melancholie.

-

On Sunday I caught Slava’s Snowshow. I wasn’t sure about going, as I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d actually seen it before. I get that with some of the Big International Shows – P. Genty’s stuff always brings on debilitating déjà vu, for instance. Turns out I hadn’t seen Snowshow.

Sitting behind me and one seat to my right was a kid of about 10. He really, really loved the show. I got the feeling he’d never been to The Theatre before. He was shrieking with pleasure (so were other kids around the auditorium) and would imitate the clownish nonsense-talking that occurred on stage. You could basically tell he’d be spending the next few weeks recalling his favourite bits and reenacting them at school for all his friends.

Maybe he doesn’t have any friends. I shouldn’t assume that.

His excitement was only matched by his parents’ (or guardians’) insistence that he sit down and shut up. They were volubly annoyed that he wasn’t acting like a proper audience member but was getting too involved, physically. They scolded him, repeatedly, almost incessantly.

At the end of the show, when the famous giant balloons flew out across the audience, he was exactly one row away from being able to touch them. They bounced off the balcony above him and he kept trying in vain to stretch out and bat one away. I left and gave him my seat, and he went nuts.

-

It is a theatre which escapes definition and the unequivocal understanding of its actions, as from attempts to usurp its freedom.

From “What Is My Kind of Theatre?” By Slava Polunin

-

The child in any audience is a minaret. The audience is not a weltanschauung!

-

I could continue this directionless ambling but I am one of those marionettes too and my strings only reach so far.

I guess I’ll

have to switch to Plan B which was to go shopping

and text a bunch of friends for no reason.

-

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

-

5pm Friday

2009-08-14T16:58:00.002+10:00

0.01 We open with a young and nigh on unrecognisable Magda Szubanski on the skins – really hammering away to somehow produce what sounds like someone tapping a few plastic pens on their desk. Throughout the rest of the clip, Magda will continue this earnest style of playing, which can charitably be described as ‘workmanlike’.

0.04 A panning shot gives us a tantalising glimpse of a handsome orange pirate shirted bass-player, and the next cut almost provides us with his identity – but alas, a fine curtain of oily locks prevents us from instantly recognising his chiselled features.

0.08 Aaaah: tracking down a bank of keyboards, we can already tell that they are arranged in descending order of smoothness, and for this track we’re going to reach way down to the smoooooth smooth bottom.

0.14 The keyboard player himself, Mr Wayne Cook of Steppenwolf, certainly merits that satisfied grin he’s wearing. Sure, he’s knocking some super smooth keys here and know he has a hit, but here’s a spoiler: he also knows that he’s about to pull out one of Rock’s Finest Moments of Ultimate Power in about two minutes time.

0.16 And here he is, the Moses of Rock, our gently-mulleted guide through the wastelands, lead singer Peter Beckett whose real name is probably Derek, I think we can all agree.

You can tell that Derek is British from the outset as his expression seems permanently set to “resentful”. In fact the whole clip can be read as a struggle between his innate annoyance at his basic lot in life and the commercial need to appear sexy and cool with his rock god status.

0.24 I don’t know who this guy is. He looks like he’s uncomfortable being in shot. Sort of like he once committed a crime and was positively identified but managed to flee across state lines and start up a new life. But the thought that someone who knew him back west may one day turn on the tube and see him, and pick up the phone and start in effect a chain-reaction that could only end with him doing twenty to life with a cellmate name Bearclaw, well, no wonder he’s trembling slightly.

0.25-0.36 The guys look like they’re essentially taking a break here, which is a pretty bold move twenty-five seconds into the song. Magda probably isn’t too happy up the back since her solid protestant work ethic at least demands that every put in a bit of effort until this thing is properly moving, but she’s silent on the issue. And we haven’t even had a good look at our orange pirate yet.

0.37 There we go, Derek’s soon-to-be trademark look of petty injustice. “What do you mean there’s no more orange juice in the green room? SOD THIS.”

0.43 Cook’s jaunty keyboard work definitely suggests he has something wicked up his sleeve. “Oh, the guys are gonna LOVE this,” he smiles to himself.

0.48 “I was parked there for maybe a minute,” thinks Derek, “and it wasn’t even marked as a towaway zone. And what’s that bloody Steppenwolf session guy up to back there? He better not try any cheap rock theatrics. This is MY clip.”

0.52 More sneery Derek- WAIT A MINUTE! The orange pirate is none other than Ridge Forrester from the Bold and the Beautiful! What the dickens?

0.59 Magda’s not one to lose focus in the presence of daytime soap royalty, and continues her steadfast work with all of the polish of an afterschool lollipop lady.

1.22 Our first really good look at Ridge, and my word that pirate shirt is even more impressive than we’d at first realised.

1.26 Magda can see the song’s half-way mark coming up soon and is looking forward to finishing up so she can get home to a nice pie and some steamed vegies, and perhaps something nice will be on the box. It’s nice to unwind after a long day like that, isn’t it?

1.32 “All day long,” sings Derek, “wearing a mask of false bravado… trying to keep up a smile and hide the tears…” Well, you’re not REALLY, are you Derek? I mean, I’d say you’re less trying to keep up a smile and more wearing a mask that speaks volumes about the venue’s poor plumbing.

2.04 I can’t properly see here but it looks as if they are either playing on a white floor (not good commercial sense as it would surely get scuffed) or else they have the smog machine cranked up to create a foot mist, as if these man-gods were actually on some heavenly plane itself, and not the cheap studio that charges $40 an hour if you bring your own PA. Or it could just be a refraction from all the hairspray floating around.

2.11 It’s obvious why Ridge has been so forcibly absented from this clip. His apollonian cheekbones, like the mountainous ranges from which he draws his name, along with his darkly glittering eyes, flexible morals and outstanding ability to rock a four-string make him the group’s only real contender for proper Rock Star Status.
2.18 The hairspray thesis has been confirmed.

Not much going on for the next 15 seconds, so just take a minute to ready yourself for what’s coming up at 2.34.

2.34 Which would be Rock’s Finest Moment of Ultimate Power. Accompanied with a little shoulder roll flourish at the end.

2.41 Derek sneaks in an urgent gesture to the Mysterious Guy, which says “did you SEE that arsehole? Did you SEE it? He’s a freakin’ session musician!” Mysterious Guy tries not to draw attention to himself.

2.45 Derek continues his rage – his movements scream “I’M the star here. ME.”

2.47 Ridge half-pulls off another awesome rock moment, possibly just to enrage Derek further. Oh you coy fox, Ridge.

2.50 Derek is now all “Look, I don’t care anymore, I really don’t. I’m over it. OVER. IT.”

2.59 Ridge just keeps amping up the jolly rock antics, and the group’s cohesion continues to suffer. It looks like they might not even be able to keep it together until the end of the song. This will be a shame.

3.14 This super smooth vocal breakdown and fade proves it – this whole thing was a shambles and the guys aren’t going to finish it. They were wrong. Better to just trail off now and get their deposit back.

3.17 OH NO YOU DON’T! NOT ON MAGDA’S WATCH! Her expression is 100% “GET BACK TO WORK, BOYS”.

3.15 And work they do! You can see the steely determination with which they round out the song; the only thing holding them back now is Derek’s surly, outraged schoolboy prefect look, which stubbornly refuses to go away.

3.28 Ridge is perhaps getting a little too enthusiastic with is bass here. He may be trying to arouse Derek, however, by discussing past conquests in graphic detail.

3.36 Derek returns a look to Ridge that says “Fuck OFF, I know how to be sexy!”

3.39 Always the morale-booster, Magda bangs the drums while howling “Do it, Derek, do it!”

3.45 And our lead singer FINALLY brings sexy back, or at least has an ice cube dropped down his back in order to do a passable imitation.

THAT’S A WRAP.

In the comments on YouTube, a number of people recall it as the ‘mop song’ – it was used in a commercial for mops in the US, apparently. I can only imagine how it feels when your manager sits you down to break the big news that your No. 1 hit track is up for some filthy lucre: an advertising deal! Let’s buy a 747! Hold on lads, it’s… it’s for mops.

The silence that followed that announcement must have been profound. These bright young men offered to sell their souls to the devil and the highest bid came from a mop company. And they said yes.
This may explain Derek’s expression, actually.

Shut Up and Dance

2009-08-12T17:19:00.003+10:00

T’ other night I was in the audience for NYID’s Strangeland and was sitting right behind the dozen-odd teens from Belgian company Ontroerend Goed’s Once and for all we’re gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen. Boy, were they acting up. They were chattering away and clambering over each other and one boy started scrolling through photos on his iPhone for the second half of the performance and I’m pretty sure one girl actually climbed down under her seat and dropped down behind the seating bank so she could run off.

Not proper Melbourne theatre behaviour at all, and when the lights came up afterwards someone to my left remarked that they’d “wanted to punch them in the head”. Corporeal punishment clearly isn’t dead.

I enjoyed Once and For All a lot more than Strangeland. The performers were pretty much acting the way they had in the audience, except on a stage. They were sometimes irritating in the way the youth of today and every day are and that was what made it enjoyable. We in the audience were the oldies and that was the soul of the piece. It was stupid and pointless and yet totally relevant theatre that didn’t seem to be trying to mythologise adolescence or make these people’s lives anything other than what they were.

More importantly, though, it featured a short sequence in which the kids began dancing and, being Belgian, they danced jumpstyle! Long-time readers here will obviously know what I thought of that.

It’s been a while since I posted something on Geographically Specific Youth Dance Trends, but here’s an interesting article on Jerkin’. Jerkin’ is an LA thing that’s been around for a year or more; it’s like a lot of other dance styles except that its proponents blend hip-hop with skinny jeans and tatts and mohawks and other things more closely associated with dorky white indie rock and Euro street dance. It’s like tektonik if tektonik was actually cool or krumping if krumpers were lanky fashionistas who weren’t that great at dancing.

But even though it’s kind of lame and probably became popular because it’s easy and has its roots in a whole pile of earlier dance styles that jerkers wouldn’t even know about, the article above makes a good point about how dancing in public, for a lot of teens, is something to be regretted afterwards, when you’re old and realise what a fool you looked.

“With Pavlovian response, the students form a makeshift dance floor and do the Pin Drop, the Reject, the Sponge Bob, the Dip ... jerkin’. This might be sponsored by the BSA, but the spontaneous locomotion has kids of varying ethnicities and dance abilities covalently bonded by their love of dancing, incandescent color and constrictive denim. Only teen culture could birth something imbued with such unselfconscious, unironic joy. Who in their right mind wouldn’t jerk? This is fun.”

Me? I’m old, like Beckett. And like Beckett, all I want to do is sit on my arse and fart and think of Dante.

Inherent Voice

2009-08-05T13:58:00.003+10:00

My favourite author Thomas Pynchon's new book Inherent Vice is due out in Oz mid-September (Shhh, I have a couple of proof copies) but it's released in the US today.

Penguin has put together a promotional video.

This wouldn't be much news if it weren't for the fact that it's probably Pynchon's voice narrating the clip. And Pynchon doesn't do publicity. No confirmed photos of him for 40-50 years; no interviews; nothing really, apart from the two bizarre appearances he made on the Simpsons (with a paper bag over his head).

Watch the clip here.

The book is an easy read but it's also curiously autobiographical. The setting is a thinly fictionalised Manhattan Beach in LA in 1970 - where Pynchon lived while writing Gravity's Rainbow - and if you're a Pynchonomane you'll also notice that the house he lived in at that point is in the clip above.

Anyway, if nothing else the book has switched me on to some amazing surf rock of the 60s/70s. Check out "Mongoose" by Elephant's Memory and after a few listens the chorus will be firmly lodged in your skull.

In other news:

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Dominic Philip's Book Habit

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tasers

A Painted Ship Upon a Painted Ocean

2009-08-04T17:16:00.012+10:00

A ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION ON THE STATE OF THEATRE CRITICISM LED BY SUNDRY MARITIME CHARACTERS

Hey dudes, much obliged you could front up at such short notice, dig. Let’s get quorum, hey?

Allow me to laugh scornfully before jumping off this barrel. Ha HA!
Also: ‘present’.

Present!

PRIVATEER SAYS HULLOOO!

...

Stowaway?

[present]

From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!

Y- I’ll count that as ‘present’. So I wanna discuss your, uh, critical methods here, today?

Our what?

Is what I mean is, is how you deal with the whole ocean-faring and stuff? Oceans and ships being, maybe, a metaphor? For like…?

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks! If a man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. He tasks me; he heaps me, I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principle, I will wreak that hate upon him.

Wait… dude… so you’re saying the, uh, whale is, like, art? And you’re like, hunting the art to – uh, I’m losing my wave here… cos I thought the ocean was… uh… and our vessels were like the art…

Ah! Avast, as someone once said. So if your vessel is the art, then I board your vessel and commandeer all that I find to my liking, leaving the rest ravaged and afire. My aerobic displays may be fearsome but I accomplish them as if engaging in some kind of fun obstacle course. I take all of worth and leave you with nothing save the invaluable lessons that trail in my wake. My comments all the way are sharp and unmerciful, though none can fault my dextrousness and firm thighs. My truth is unsparing, for I am beholden to no one. This is my critical method.

I AM TOTALLY OFFICIALLY AUTHORISED TO DO THE SAME THING! EXCEPT THEY PAY ME TO DO THIS!

Rilly? OMG.

"I SHIT YE NOT"

I’ve got my boatswain and my chain-gang keeping all the daily crap running smoothly while I kick back and enjoy the ride. There’s totally a thing to put my feet on and all. I’m the one you all wanna be, am I right? My sails got rims, I got an aft spoiler and I when I pull a rope and kick in the hydraulics I can make this thing jump like a mofo.

I just do it to eat. I should look into that.

A contract, flake-man, that’s what you need.

I have no vessel to call my own, but can always find a place stowed in someone else’s pile of unused rigging, scrounging my meals from whatever crumbs are dropped by passing passengers. Nobody knows me and my voice is all but unheard. Thus, I take up the only arms available to me: silence, cunning and exile. From beneath a cot in a dark stern quarter I simply watch them come and go, talking of, oh, what have you, noting down the players and their conversations while avoiding detection. Only rarely do I dare venture to the foc’sle-

LANGUAGE!

In striving not to intrude, I maintain an invisible purity. Like god or mouse, you will never see me; merely the traces I leave behind. Sorry about that time I forgot to flush, by the way.

TRIFLES! You must split your lungs with blood and thunder when you see the white whale! Break your backs and crack your oars, men, if you wish to prevail! This ivory leg is what propels me –

I was going to ask about the whole peg-leg deal –

I don’t think past injuries should play a part in this line of work and this obsession with elusive white whales representing a deeper reality doesn’t sound at all healthy. In my own practice I value consistency and transparency. My motivations are clear from the outset, being a shark, and my methods are informed by a long genetic tradition of shark-like behaviour.

I have a variety of fascinating scars and will discuss their origins at length in some iniquitous gin-house if you would care to stand me a drink. This one here, well, see, I was swinging from a grappling hook with a cutlass clenched between my teeth and you know what? It’s harder than it looks. Those things are hell sharp and the pirate gig doesn’t actually promote healthy dental hygiene –

Tell me about it. But I do believe it’s my white-whale-given right as a shark to take a bite out of pretty much anything I see, and if we’re being brutally honest here I’ll admit that it’s not always for sustenance. The faces of your surfie types when I do my “Here’s Johnny!” routine are priceless.

Harpoons thrust in the sky!
Aim directly for his crooked brow,
And look him straight – in – the – eye!!!

You want a take a hit from one of these bad boys, mah man? Looks like you could use a little R&R in the cabana.

The ocean itself is the medium in which I move. Without it I do not – could not – exist. It is the answer to an unaskable question. Otherwise, I’m pretty much a ‘go-with-the-flow’ kinda shark, y’know.

WHITE
WHALE
HOLY
GRAIL!!

Shoosh!

Righteous, man. I gotta ‘fess that my only experience with art is along the lines of the criminally underrated The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini (1966) and half of the 1937 thriller Sh! The Octopus. I dunno how I should be striking through those masks or how inscrutable they were…

What was their profit margin?

Who knows? And man, what is surfing but a connection to something beyond our understanding? Can’t catch the same swell twice, ‘k. It’s always on the move. But when you’ve got a 20-foot meat-grinder bearing down on your ass, you ken?, that rush, that moment’s what reminds you that you’re alive, right?

To be alive is anathema to my practice. If I attract attention to myself it’ll be the end of me. Aren’t we all just stowaways in this business? Peering between the cracks and scurrying in the shadows? If we’re caught the whole venture will be compromised. Best to become as small and silent as possible and let the ship take its rightful course.

Word! Plus I get PAID!

That’s chicken-shit talk, Stowaway. If I may quote Bertrand Russell’s law of the excluded middle: “Everything must either be or not be”. Our task is simply to determine whether something is or is not – and, ergo, is it good? Or is it not?

You can’t be a very good critic, shark.

Tell that to the gent on the mast.

Turn home, the sun goes down; swimmer, turn home.
Last leaf of gold vanishes from the sea-curve.
Take the big roller’s shoulder, speed and serve;
come to the long beach home like a gull diving.

For on the sand the grey-wolf sea lies, snarling,
cold twilight wind splits the waves’ hair and shows
the bones they worry in their wolf-teeth. O, wind blows
and sea crouches on sand, fawning and mouthing;
drops there and snatches again, drops and again snatches
its broken toys, its whitened pebbles and shells.

SORRY WE'RE LATE TRAFFIC WAS HELL WHAT'D WE MISS?

Give My Apologies to Susan Boyle

2009-08-04T16:04:00.003+10:00

A "talent contest"?!

If this is what you get during a "talent contest" in Ukraine - ie an expertly executed, beautifully framed experience of live sand animation exploring cultural memory, collective trauma and ongoing grief - well, Ukraine's got talent to spare. I can't imagine this ever happening in Australia.

Here's a rough translation of the textual elements:

@0:00 -- Peace, Love
@1:30 -- Original announcement of the German Army invading the country
and bombing the cities
@4:10 -- Perished
@5:00 -- Most people don't know where their loved ones were buried,
hence the obelisk which signifies the remembrance of everyone who gave
their lives during the World War II.
@8:20 -- "You are always close. 1945"

Some Public Service Announcements

2009-07-28T15:07:00.003+10:00

I keep forgetting to mention this anywhere: Zoe Barry is an acquaintance and former mixed-netball teammate of mine (true fact) who is also a wildly talented musician. She's worked with Rawcus and also does her own thing too. Here is one of those things:

"You're an inspiration Jeff Buckley!": Words Yelled At Bands - A Project
Zoe is looking for tales of times when you've felt compelled to yell something at a band on stage, or things that have been yelled at you while on stage.

"Apart from the fact I love hearing people talk about music experiences, underlying the concept is my interest in moments where art overtakes and overwhelms the audience, those moments where you experience an "unmotivated upsurge of the world". And the music gig being one of the rare places where people often articulate those moments, impulsively, loudly and in strange utterances."

Given my own obsession with audience behaviours in theatres, I heartily commend this project, which doesn't have a fixed outcome yet as far as I know. If you have a story, email it to wordsyelledatbands@gmail.com

In a weird coincidence, another acquaintance just dropped into my shop and mentioned that she's joined the ensemble of Rawcus. How strange.

IN OTHER NON-NEWS: I've been going through the hundreds of bookmarks on my computer and have only just realised that some of them completely baffle me. Why have I bookmarked this poor quality version of a song I don't know by a band I've never really paid attention to?

WHAT'S WITH THE CURSE OF THE LOVE SWEATER? There's a superstition among knitters, apparently, that making someone a sweater will lead to them breaking up with you shortly thereafter. I like that this wikipedia entry actually goes into the possible mechanics of these situations, rather than dissing them as fantasy. In fact, the proposed explanations make a bit of sense.

A WHILE AGO I found myself up at 5am researching Baba Yaga for no reason at all except that I couldn't sleep and was thinking "Baba Yaga, what was with her?" I came upon the art of Ivan Bilibin and I love love love it.

Bilibin was a vastly important illustrator who also worked as a stage designer, including with the Ballet Russes. I wonder if the Australian Ballet research project into the BR has anything on him.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN CATS AND/OR THEATRE then you will find this piece very enjoyable. It details the history of theatre cats - in Britain, at least, there was a time when no self-respecting playhouse would be without a moggie prowling the wings and occasionally wandering onto the stage.

IF YOU DO NOT LIKE BOOKS then you will find this piece equally enjoyable. You'll probably find it enjoyable if you do, too. Books can be put to other uses besides reading.

ANT FACT MONDAY

2009-07-27T15:43:00.003+10:00

Today we hand over the reins of Ant Fact Monday to someone who doesn't necessarily want them. Dom Romeo coincidentally posted his own ant-related material today and there's enough in there to keep you hungry ant fanciers sated. (I know Dom and I don't think he'd mind the link). Off you go then.

While you're away I'll ponder his suggestion that "ants must be the animals least conducive to comedy." Possibly true, that.

But I have some work to do.

One Brain

2009-07-23T14:44:00.002+10:00

A few months back I was thinking about posting something on Famous Bald Artistic Geniuses until I realised it was a boring topic and in fact I was boring myself just thinking about it. Today I was sent something that reminded me of one of the people who would have made that ill-fated list had I ever bothered to cobble it together (I think I got as far as Steven Berkoff then went to make some toast).

I've long thought Brian Eno is a bit of a genius, but reading this thing I was set me straight. Not that he hasn't produced some amazing art, but he calls for a rethinking of the term 'genius' and it's replacement with the notion of 'scenius':

"Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius."

When he was programming the Luminous Festival in Sydney recently (which I had mixed thoughts about - a bit unadventurous, but then I didn't actually go...), he elaborated the concept a bit further. You can read a snippet here that sums things up nicely. "Let’s forget the idea of 'genius' for a little while," he says, "... let’s think about the whole ecology of ideas that give rise to good new thoughts and good new work."

Anyway, I got to this by reading a great post at The Technium, which I'd never heard of and which features some really provocative ideas. In fact, I got caught up reading a lot more of the site than I'd intended to. It's definitely worth visiting though - for instance, in discussing 'scenius' The Technium actually lists the specific conditions in which such creative cultures can arise, and notes that they can't be deliberately manufactured as such. This is worth pursuing, since of course the general scenius concept isn't really new, and anyone who knows anything about art history will know that the Great Man theory of history only came about relatively recently.

Go Eno.

Space Whales

2009-07-21T14:09:00.003+10:00

Some forms of animal anthropomorphism make a bit of associative sense - owls wear glasses, roosters are vain, turtles are patient. Frogs playing banjos, as we have discussed, are harder to work out.

But I was just thinking about whales and realised there's an inexplicable subgenre of bad art involving whales in space. It goes along with the banjo-playing frog in terms of weirdness. Perhaps I will start a regular Marine or Amphibian Tropes That Confuse Me series. Probably not.

I guess Space Whales can be explained according to the law of cool, as this site suggests. Space is cool, whales are cool, Space Whales are exponentially more cool than either. It's the same logic behind dinosaurs with lasers or robots who breakdance.

That's all. Back to work.

EXCLUSIVE!

2009-07-15T23:24:00.005+10:00

It takes a lot to rouse me from my sedentary lifestyle, which is largely spent pottering around the rooftop conservatory tending to my elusive black orchids; strumming my banjo absent-mindedly in the once-grand ballroom long overtaken by moths and regret; or browsing the library filled entirely with novels about crime-solving cats.

But it seems that down in the streets there’s some kind of enormous love-fest going on with MIAF as the object of adoration. Yesterday I pointed out what I saw as a shortcoming in the 2009 program, but it so far seems to be the sole voice of dissent, excepting a few comments over at Theatre Notes. I’m certain this will change in the next few days but I may as well continue riffing in the same vein, if only to offer some kind of contrast.

My first criticism was the lack of cultural diversity in this year’s program. Here are another two issues I have, and they’re at the core of incoming director Brett Sheehy’s stated vision for the fest:

Sheehy’s twinned goals are to showcase *every* art form, and to make the festival as exclusive as possible – that is, to ensure that events at MIAF won’t be repeated in Sydney or Brisbane or Adelaide or wherever. I’ll get back to that second point, but firstly…

If the 2009 program isn’t very regionally diverse, it’s not too artistically broad either. It’s silly to promise “every” art form in the festival, since you’re never going to get stand-up comedy or musical theatre or other commercially successful but low-brow forms. But I wouldn’t have minded a bit of circus (beyond Strange Fruit’s opening thing) and I can’t see any puppetry in the program.

Theatrically, funding two MTC shows isn’t casting your net very far, either. I know one’s a Lally Katz piece and no disrespect to her – she’s a friend of mine – but wouldn’t the MTC have put this show (and the Bovell one) on anyway? Is that where MIAF should be throwing its dollars?

Anyway, I take bigger exception to Sheehy’s idea of exclusivity. He had to collaborate with other states in order to get the London Philharmonic out, but he otherwise wants it to be as Melbourne-only as he can. I just love it when that happens – when all of the amazing international bands playing the Big Day Out are barred from doing sideshows, or when artists play in Sydney only and I can’t get there because I don’t have the time or money to take a few days off and fly interstate. It makes me feel valued.

What benefit does Sheehy’s exclusivity offer? For anyone besides MIAF’s coffers, low-cost airlines and Melbourne tourism industry, that is? Does restricting access help artists or audiences in any way at all? I suppose it makes you feel special to have caught something that others will miss out on, the way I feel special whenever I have something someone else doesn’t (money, food, shelter). It’s a worry when art is deliberately restricted for no other reason than to increase its cultural capital – and that’s exactly what’s at stake here. This is culture as commodity.

I’m not disputing the worth of the programmed works: but you know what? I’d like it if people in Adelaide get to see Sasha Waltz or Hofesh Schechter or whatever. That’d be good. Maybe they’d be enriched by it and we would meet up sometime and be able to share the experience.

And maybe if MIAF was more about collaboration rather than competition, the program would be even better – different states could join forces in order to help get those big names out here. At the opening of Balletlab’s Miracle last night (INCREDIBLE GO SEE IT NOW), Australian Ballet boss David McAllister announced a new development between the AB and Balletlab. Balletlab’s Phillip Adams explicitly stated that without this kind of collaboration, he couldn’t do what he does. And what he does is, I think, create the most important and exciting dance in the country.

Australia’s artistic community is founded on collaboration and cross-pollination, mentoring, workshops, development, discussion, accessibility, exchange.

To my knowledge, Mr Sheehy barely even allows interviews.

I scratch my noggin.

If it's all white with you, it's all white with MIAF

2009-07-15T17:11:00.001+10:00

So this year’s Melbourne International Arts Fest program has been launched, and if it’s aaaaaaall white!

Seriously, what the fest? 2009’s program is almost entirely sourced from Anglo Europe, North America and Australia.

The only exceptions I can find are Festival regulars The Black Arm Band (now with Added Jimmy Barnes!); a Japanese multimedia artist collaborating on the three poetry nights at the Planetarium; a Brazilian art movement retrospective; an art installation from six African-born artists; and some music acts aimed at the young folk in the Becks Bar “Rumpus Room”.

This in a festival with hundreds of performances, exhibitions and events over 17 days.

Otherwise:
Theatre: Australia, Belgium, Belgium, England/Germany, Ireland, Australia, Australia.
Dance: Australia/Iceland, Germany, Belgium, Israel/England
Opera: Germany
Film: US, UK (there’s a doco on an ex-Iraqi heavy metal band)
Visual Art: France, Australia/South Africa, Australia, UK, France, UK/USA, US, Australia, UK, Australia, Australia, Australia, Australia, ad nauseum.

Why are non-whiteys pretty much confined to the music section? And apart from the Black Arm Band, they’re all in the Rumpus Room (which sounds just like the MIFF club, and is in the same location, but has an infantilising name). The serious music - there's a heckuva lotta classical - is all Bach and the MSO and some American organist guy whose repertoire will include a piece from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I scratch my noggin, I really do.

TRADITION

2009-07-14T11:27:00.003+10:00

Goodness me - I was always a bit suspicious of the high-falutin' claims that Michael Jackson was a one-of-a-kind pioneer whose contributions to dance bore the stamp of unique genius. This clip (via Monkeys for Helping) only adds to these doubts. Michael Jackson certainly didn't invent the moonwalk. It's rad:

How did MJ keep his balance? That I can tell you in one word!

ANT FACT MONDAY

2009-07-13T16:50:00.002+10:00

This is intruiging but sad. It took me a while to work out what was going on but the eventual reveal turned a kind of beautiful thing into a minor horror. Can atrocities be ant-sized? Does catastrophe escalate through magnitude, or can a small, tiny, 100% replaceable thing's destruction still mean something? You know what they say about how killing a man makes you a murderer but killing a million makes you a conqueror. Or perhaps a scientist.

I am proud that I managed to embed a video from a website entirely in Polish, however.

The next ANT FACT MONDAY will be more upbeat, I promise. Perhaps it will focus on the Yellow Crazy Ant. Do the words "multi-queened super-colony" set your heart a-skipping? If so, remain tuned.

Speaking of which, I still can't believe there are people out there who don't use RSS feeds (such as bloglines.com) which make reading things like this easier. I don't like the idea of people bothering to come here and being disappointed by the lack of ant fact updates. Get a bloglines thing happening and your time on the internet will be so much less wasteful and pointless. Which will still make it fairly wasteful and pointless, but hey, talk to the hand because I just drew an ear on my hand and want to know if I am secretly magically powered.

Good, clean, clear tones

2009-07-08T13:15:00.006+10:00

A while ago I saw the excellent filmic adaptation of J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and one scene in particular held me. The protagonist, David, is trying to write an opera about Lord Byron, and is sitting in the ugly, grey-walled courtyard of a pet shelter. The little homeless dog who has adopted him is sitting nearby, watching. The disgraced David is plucking at a banjo, composing, thinking. Some kids stick their faces over the wall and laugh. They might be laughing at him, or with him, or there might be something else going on.

I left the cinema and bought the book. It's a great book.

The banjo scene is different in the novel.

"Seated at his own desk looking out over an overgrown garden, he marvels at what the little banjo is teaching him... It is not the erotic that is calling to him after all, nor the elegaic, but the comic. He is in the opera neither as Teresa nor as Byron nor even as some blending of the two: he is held in the music itself, in the flat, tinny slap of the banjo strings, the voice that strains to soar away from the ludicrous instrument but is continually reined back in, like a fish on a line.

So this is art, he thinks, and this is how it does its work! How fascinating!"

In a letter to the Editor of "The Cadenza" magazine in August, 1901, some guy called Vess L. Ossman wrote:

"The banjo will live and become more popular every year, even if the whole world takes to golf and other games. Banjo music is to the ear what the sun breaking through the clouds on a dark day is to the eye; and to my mind there is nothing to replace the good, clean, clear tones of the banjo. This in defense of the banjo from one who loves the instrument".

I love the banjo too, now.

BUT: why the association of banjos and frogs? I've never thought about that. It predates Kermit by more than a century, at least. And I know there's a kind of frog known as the banjo frog (because of the banjo-like sound of its croak) but it seems to be native to Australia.

Perhaps I'll never know.

I cannot look away

2009-07-02T13:15:00.005+10:00

Thanks, threethousand, for utterly ruining my life by introducing me to the website of Arthur Kade who, in the entertainment biz, is perhaps "the definition of a new age, a new era for this industry". I know he is this thing because he tells us so.

EVEN LADDERS WANT TO BE NEAR HIM

He also mangles English like nobody's business:

"One of the things that I have always been at anything that I have put my mind to is the best."

That is an incredible sentence, you have to admit.

But what makes Kade so fascinating is his ego, which is so big that it probably has many smaller, satellite egos in orbit around it.

"Today, Arthur Kade took another amazing step towards the end goal of becoming one of the most famous, recognizable and well known actors in the world."

"I understand the mind of the girl better than any man, because I have dated the best of the best, and know when a girl wants me."

"When I got there I was greeted by Jessica Yost (Color Stylist, who I think almost fell over when she saw what I looked like), and she walked me to the studio where my fans awaited."

"I had a tank top on, so you could see the size of my shoulders and arms, and one of the female voice over actresses actually stopped while walking out of the studio, and talked about how great my body was, and I joked to her “It’s Adonis Like, isn’t it?”."

Kade has "travelled the world, played college basketball, modeled for major agencies in New York, and been with some of the most beautiful women in the world". He recently sold his financial planning practice to pursue his dream of becoming a world-famous actor. He moved to Los Angeles, which he has humbly renamed Kade Angeles. And everybody in Kade Angeles, it turns out, knows and admires and understandably wants to have a piece of the Kade. Unfortunately, there's only so much Kade to go around.

HE COULD PROBABLY PLAY SOMEONE WITH ONE LEG = RANGE

Some have surmised that Kade's Zoolanderesque hyper-self-absorption can only be a clever satire, especially because he allows the hundreds of hateful comments that appear after each post. But if that's so I'd prefer to be ignorant and just bask in the godlike radiance of this unique being.

AUGH

2009-06-30T14:12:00.004+10:00

The above comic, which I find very funny, is from Pictures for Sad Children. I recommend it.

When I was a kid I read several racist children's books by Helen Bannerman, whose most famous was probably Little Black Sambo. I'm pretty sure I've seen them re-released in a bookshop not too long ago, which I think is not a good thing. They really were deeply, deeply offensive and I think I even knew that as at a very young age. Of course they're also silly and kitsch and a re-release is probably a supposedly ironic move, but nostalgia for a period when open racism was ok isn't something I can encourage.

Bannerman, who was writing around 1900, also created The Story of Little Kettle-Head which is only slightly racist but also very compelling and eerie. Check it out.

Both of these links come from the blog My First Dictionary, which is quite rather funny.

That's all.

Happy Centenary Born Dancin'

2009-06-24T13:46:00.004+10:00

This is an interesting article. In brief, a study in the US has sought to quantify whether and why female playwrights have a harder time getting their work produced. I'm not totally sure about the results but I'd like to know if the same situation occurs here in Australia.

Anyway, last night I saw my 100th production for 2009 and wished I hadn't. It was the MTC's Man from Mukinupin and I'd actually seen half of it before - I left at interval on opening night because I was deeply and dramatically bored and fell asleep a few times (which would rule out a review anyway). Yesterday I coughed up $70 to watch it again and my earlier suspicions were confirmed. Mukinupin isn't like watching a car crash but is more like looking down in a public bathroom to notice that your shoelace is untied and trailing in an unidentified liquid. Not a disaster, but occasioning a very heavy sigh.

IN OTHER NEWS: This week's Super Dance Style is Jukin (or Jookin or just Foot Work). It originated in Memphis but is getting pretty popular across the US. It pretty much focuses on super fast, complex footwork. Watch them feet.

ANT FACT MONDAY

2009-06-22T15:21:00.003+10:00

Alright you fools, here's your required dose of anty trivia. Although - it must be said - sometimes I wonder why I bother. Not that you don't appreciate it, but I do on sleepless nights wonder if it's not like dishing out gruel to Dickensian urchins only to find that, over time, they have come to love the stuff, to crave it even, and eventually to lose sight of the fact that there may be more to life than this. Am I the prison warden, my ant facts the kind treatment that makes this insufferable jail-time somehow manageable? Such is the internet.

In any case, I am not open to replies. I must simply ladle out my facts and keep my concerns to myself. If anyone should care to produce an Ant Fact Monday theme song, possibly called "Born, I'm Antly Dancin'" then perhaps ('mayhaps'?) I may reconsider this stance ('stants').

SOME FACTS

There's a fungus which turns ants into zombies.

When infected, the ant is compelled to wander away from its colony and attach itself to a plant.

The ant eventually dies and the fungus emerges as a growth from the ant's head which drops spores to the ground.

More ants come across the spores and themselves become infected as zombies.

The cycle of unlife continues.

MORE FACTS

The inventively-named Large Blue Butterfly of northern Europe was until recently near extinction.

Scientists have discovered that the butterfly's disappearance was linked to cruel farming practices.

Farmers in the 1950s killed a lot of rabbits with myxomatosis. As a result, grass grew a little taller, since the rabbits weren't munching on it.

The grass - now longer by less than an inch - cooled the soil below by a degree or two. The local red ant population wasn't keen on the chill and moved away.

But while nobody likes ants, everybody seems to like butterflies.

The Large Blue Butterfly is a bit of a leech on the red ant population, since Blue Butterfly caterpillars have learnt to imitate the sounds of little red ants. The ants look after the caterpillars and nurture them, even while the caterpillars are feasting on the ants. Eventually the grub becomes a beautiful butterfly and takes to the skies.

Someone worked this out and brought cows in to graze on these grasses, and now the ants and the butterflies are back.

CONCLUSION: Ants are stupid but sort of kind. Butterflies, on the other hand, are merciless bastards.

THIS THEME MAY BE CONTINUED IN A FUTURE SERIES ENTITLED "WTF GARDENING or WHAT MY VEGIE PATCH HAS TAUGHT ME ABOUT THE WORLD".

The Pig War

2009-06-17T14:44:00.002+10:00

His garden is not orderly but it is, to his mind, in order. Lyman Cutlar sees the black pig digging its nose into one of the potato beds. It is the size of a port barrel on squat, hairy legs. It is oblivious to his presence. A man stands by the fence laughing.

Cutlar fetches his gun from its resting place above the back door’s lintel and returns to the garden. The pig’s snout has uprooted several dirty potatoes and is scattering them as it eats. The laughing man runs off at the sight of the weapon and Cutlar, red-faced, shoots the swine. Or, he raises his gun and fires at the pig and the man scampers off into the trees.

The pig does not die easily.

Cutlar has killed animals before.

The pig was not his to kill. He is dimly aware that it belongs to the Irishman. He finds the Irishman on the sheep ranch and words are exchanged.

I will give you $10 for your pig.

The pig was not yours to kill. You will give me $100 for the pig.

Your pig was on my land. You must keep your pig out of my potatoes.

It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of the pig.

The Irishman reports Cutlar’s offence. Cutlar, meanwhile, has been unsettled by the nasty affair. He talks to fellow American settlers, one of whom asks to see the gun. Cutlar does not want to produce the weapon.

Cutlar and the Irishman live on an island, but the island is large enough that one can never see it encircled by water. It does not feel isolated, not entirely.

The British across the strait are sending men to arrest Cutlar. The American settlers grow defensive. They call for a blockade. Sixty six American troops arrive on the island to prevent the British arrival.

The British send three warships to the island.

The Americans send cannons and more than five hundred men.

The British send more ships, more guns, more men. Two thousand men. Cutlar has never counted to two thousand. His mind still turns to the gun, to the pig, to the disorderly garden. The British will come tramping through his garden, boots sinking into the soil where the pig and potatoes yesterday lay rotting. The Americans will come to fight them, overturning the earth which has only now begun to settle, be covered with cold dry leaves.

What did he do with the pig and where did those half-chewed potatoes go? What of the laughing man? He no longer remembers, on this island slowly filling with other men from elsewhere.

The men leave the island and the Pig War of 1859 becomes the only war in which the single fallen corpse belonged to a pig.

And Cutlar, staring at his gun on the lintel and the potato patch beyond, realises that he was the only man to fire a shot in this war. Where does that leave him? Will it leave him? Where is the laughing man? Why does he no longer remember, now, in 2009, so many islands away? As he types this the only thing he remembers are his rash words to the Irishman. They are both a long way from understanding pigs and potatoes.

Tom the Loneliest

2009-06-16T22:04:00.003+10:00

Just a quickie for Melbourne theatre types:

This doesn't really look like an image that would sell a show to me, but Tom the Loneliest is definitely worth catching at La Mama. It's by Adelaide's No Strings Attached and is proof that if you bear the theatregoer's cross for long enough you'll be rewarded with some kind of salvation (however temporary). It's sort of somewhere between Black Lung and Ranters; it doesn't exactly have a story or a pin-downable setting but is more a succession of presents that evoke recognisable types, genre situations and comic set-ups. Tom is a loser addicted to porn, Fiji water and calling Maureen at the QuitLine. He lives with Tom, another loser addicted to porn, hating on his neighbour and playing with the lights. More Toms proliferate as the show unfolds, including the brilliantly played Tom the Real Estate Sign (who is exactly that) and a Tom that doesn't even exist. It's junkyard theatre done well, the chaotic set filled with all sorts of detritus, but with the added element of cunning product placement.

That's all I'll say for now. A weird, powerful, consistently funny show. Let me know what you think.

Scientific Concepts Explained Through Dance

2009-06-01T15:27:00.002+10:00

LESSON ONE: EMERGENCE

The following clip (which I discovered through my old housemate and noted diarist Jess) demonstrates the scientific concept of "emergence". Watch it closely, without skipping through it.

Emergence has been in vogue amongst egg-headed types for some time, and is essentially an academic word for "magic". The final note in this video is wrong: it does not take one person to start a party. It takes one person followed by a few others who seem to be taking the piss who are joined by others with perhaps drunken or drug-fuelled enthusiasm. If enough critical mass is achieved, a tipping point may be reached in which piss-taking becomes something entirely other and irony makes a leap into genuine, magical energy.

I found this clip quite annoying at first but by about halfway through was giving it two flailing arms up.

YOU MAY CLOSE YOUR BOOKS NOW.

MITCHELL BUTEL HAIR - UPDATE

2009-05-22T18:38:00.003+10:00

Yesterday I asked Mitchell Butel about the Mystery of Mitchell Butel Hair.

"How embarrassing. When I did Hair a few years ago I got all the dog publicity so I had to do… I think it was called Fresh on Channel Nine. They said can you cook something hippy, you know? I thought: I don’t know, I’m a dreadful cook. Then I thought I’ll make rice paper rolls. It was a disaster and I burnt the tofu. But then they put my recipe online. I think that’s the first thing that comes up when you google my name."

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM WIN.

As you were, readers. You may go back to reading something more important.

At a Jamaican festival in Tokyo

2009-05-13T17:41:00.002+10:00

I've got a lot of work to do at the moment, but this fella gives me hope.

From I Rub Your Brog.

Autumn

2009-05-05T12:28:00.002+10:00

It's autumn!

So clap your chalk hands and let your eyes become boats.

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

Monkey Business

2009-05-01T12:35:00.007+10:00

COMPANY

When I was in Japan last year I took this footage of some Japanese macaques. Such insanely wonderful beings. A week later and 500kms east I spent half a day at a monkey park which contained around 1000 primates from more than 100 species. Some were free-roaming (you could walk around Spider Monkey Island, for example) while others were in pens or cages or open-range fields of various sizes.

This week I arrived at Malthouse Theatre's production of Kafka's Monkey with no expectations and these were duly met. It's a hugely acclaimed production by a very talented English performer Kathryn Hunter, but it really didn't work for me.

It's an adaptation of Kafka's "A Report to an Academy" and it's undoubtedly a show that a lot of people will (and do) like and enjoy and appreciate and take something away from. I'm not writing that in a snide superior way. This is a wholly personal response, you know. I just thought it did a vague injustice to two things: Kafka and monkeys.

Kafka's stories are incredibly difficult to translate into performance, mainly because they're so damn literary. They do things that reinvent the relationships between language and reality, narrative and identity. What I've always loved about his stuff is the way they produce spaces (or places) that are in themselves a sense of character. You can't divorce the narrative voice or interior psychology of each tale from the environments in which they exist, and I have incredibly vivid images of the rooms, doorways, tunnels and streets of his stories. This is why his narratives are so uncanny - to misquote Tommy Pynchon, they're "not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into-"...

Reading Kafka isn't about uncovering the secret at the heart of his writing but of getting progressively folded into it. You get knotted into an increasingly tangled world which is pure language. I'm not sure it's possible to recreate that experience theatrically. I wish I'd seen that Icelandic version of Metamorphosis which played in Tasmania recently - it sounded like a pretty successful attempt. But Kafka's Monkey didn't come close to the mark for me - it's staged in a nearly empty white space (apart from an almost irrelevant lectern and a giant projected photo of a monkey). The performance is very energetic but not evocative of those interior spaces - it's a disentanglement. It has a point and the hour or so is devoted to explaining that point. That so many reviews see that point as an incredibly reductive one - humans and monkeys are pretty similar; or our sense of humanity is pretty tenuous; or who were are is a performance - seems to me a good argument to go read Kafka rather than go to the theatre.

Now: monkeys. To stick with Pynchon, here's another quote:

"Once, the only reason Men kept Dogs was for food. Noting that among Men no crime was quite so abhorr'd as eating the flesh of another human, Dog quickly learned to act as human as possible... so we know how to evoke from you, Man, one day at a time, at least enough Mercy for one more day of Life. Nonetheless, however accomplish'd, our Lives are never settled, - we go on as tail-wagging Scheherazades, ever a step away from the dread Palm Leaf, nightly delaying the Blades of our Masters by telling back to them tales of their humanity."

The monkey of Kafka's Monkey only appears to hold value or interest in the way it tells us tales of our humanity. Hunter's performance really confused me - it's nothing like a monkey's at all. It felt like someone who has never actually seen a monkey trying to act like one. And, even more confusingly, that monkey is acting like a human. In fact, there was no monkey in the performance for me, at all. While a lot of critics have remarked on Hunter's big expressive eyes, simian agility and loose-limbed monkeytude, all of that seemed to me just an interesting human, not at all gesturing towards the primate. The silence of the monkey, for instance, is given no space here. In short, the monkey is just a metaphor for ourselves in this production, and I didn't find any real respect for the animal at all.

John-Paul Hussey's "monkey" trilogy - Chocolate Monkey, Space Munki and Love Monkey come to mind when thinking about Hunter's performance. I only saw the second two of these works and I wasn't that impressed by Space Munki, but Love Monkey was an impressive piece of theatre. The ape isn't a simple metaphor or screen for Hussey. Instead he seems to have cultivated a persona which is "Monkey" and which allows him to weave together his autobiography, fabulist fictions, meta-theatre, parapsychology and Jungian archetypes. He doesn't play a monkey but is a monkey - he doesn't interpret monkeys but labels what he is "monkey". I don't think I'm explaining that very well.

Then there's the Harry Harlow project by James Saunders, Martyn Coutts, Brian Lipson and Kelly Ryall. I saw a development showing of this last year and don't know where it's at now, but it was an intensely affecting work which engaged the human/monkey dynamic without reducing the ape to a mirror of ourselves - in fact, it questioned this very process by focusing on the often terrible experiments conducted by one of the pioneers of child psychology and producing a true sense of the beautiful, complex interior world of the monkey which is not simply an infantilised version of the human. It was also thoroughly theatrical - its narrative progressed in an elliptical, non-rational fashion, and the physicality of performer Saunders was the most visceral evidence of the dance between the civilised man and the animal which underscores Kafka's story.

Maybe it's because I don't think of Kafka as a humanist - when he wrote all those stories from the perspective of monkeys, dogs, bugs and others denied language, he wasn't upholding some essential dignity to Man, but was writing of how humanity is as knotty and inchoate as the rest of existence - inseparable, really. It's not that we're like monkeys at all.

"So vast is our land that no fable could do justice to its vastness, the heavens can scarcely span it -" Kafka, "The Great Wall of China".

What a long and rambling post. On a competely coincidental note, I discovered a band the other day named Gregor Samsa (named, presumably, after the main character in Kafka's "Metamorphosis").

POWERS

2009-04-29T11:20:00.003+10:00

After yesterday's swine flu post, I was understandably excited by the headline on the Age site's front page today:

What new powers has the evolving Swine Flu granted to victims now?

(Also: I am very pleased that this picture is on a page called "All About Latvia." This is "Cūkmens" or "Pig Man". I think more nations should have national half-man/half-pig mascots.)

UPDATE: This is the sound of swine flu. Some dude took the genetic structure of the virus and translated it into ambient music. It's pretty depressing if you leave it playing while you do something else (work, minigolf, PAYG accounting, sitting in the corner of an unfurnished room trying to throw a chisel into a bucket in the opposite corner of the room).

The Dance of Futures Past

2009-04-28T15:45:00.002+10:00

Here's how someone, once, in the 1960s, in Germany, decided that peoples of the future will dance. I'm sure the conversation going on in the foreground is compelling but it's hard to tear your attention away from the people behind them. It's like they've been told to imagine a mating flamingo doing calisthenics on Prozac.

And here's what the future did burp up - ACROBATIC ROCK N ROLL.

I don't think you get this in Australia, but in a lot of Europe, especially former Soviet states, this is a big thing. It's pretty fascinating. You can see the definite rock n roll/lindy hop influences but they're filtered through a very 90s Euro pop dance aesthetic. It's like US cheerleading today but, strangely, more reverential towards the rock n roll dancing that was spawned in the US half a century ago. I don't know why I find it so confuzzling to watch extreme swing/rockabilly dancing performed by people in brightly coloured unitards. But I do.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SWINE FLU

2009-04-28T13:21:00.004+10:00

This swine flu business is nothing new.

The following clip comes from the wonderful John Hodgman, who helpfully points out that the truck driver at the beginning of the clip is obviously drunk.

NO ONE IS TOO FAST FOR SWINE FLU.

While I'm on this topic: why is it that diseases such as swine flu never live up to their name? If you're going to employ such a radical term as "swine flu" why not save it for an infection that turns its victims into half-man/half-pig abberations. Then you can have reconstructed footage such as the one above featuring ordinary people rolling around in the mud, insatiably craving slops and being smarter than dogs? You could even insert a few laughs as some college kids joke about how Stan is such a sweaty hog and smells like bacon - before Stan suddenly reveals trotters instead of hands and begins to oink uncontrollably! I'd pay to see that!

But I guess I'll have to get used to disappointment.

ANT FACT MONDAY: SPECIAL EDITION

2009-04-27T15:43:00.003+10:00

"A VISIT FROM THE QUEEN"

The other week I noticed a little movement on top of my fridge. Upon closer inspection I found this:

After some observation I came to think it might be a queen ant looking for a nest. I'm not really sure though. Perhaps someone out there can help me.

In either case I treated it with the respect royalty deserves. I didn't really want a nest in my kitchen so I took the possible queen out the back and recommended some more attractive real estate options.

ON TO THE FACTS:

The South American Trap-Jaw ant can snap its mandibles at up to 145 miles an hour or 100,000 the force of gravity - the fastest predatory strike in the animal kingdom. The force it generates is 300 times the ant's weight. It can also use the striking mandibles to fling itself up into the air - covering up to 40 centrimetres horizontally. I wish I could do this.

An ant can survive being microwaved. This is because microwaves send out, um, waves, and the ant can sense where the waves are high temperature and where they're low. They just run around the hot bits.

Equilibrioception, the sense of balance we possess to help us tell which way is up, seems to be based on some fluid in the inner ear if my patchy knowledge serves me. I'm pretty sure ants don't have ears, letter alone inner ones. This makes me wonder if they even know which way is up, and how. Maybe it's why they have no problem climbing really high and sometimes upside down.

Also: could an ant get dizzy? I don't think so. Maybe this is related to the same fact (not a fact, obviously, more a supposition).

The Yellow Crazy Ant has one of the best names in the ant phone book.

Ants and butterflies don't get along. Ants will bust the ass of any loser butterfly if it so much as looks at them the wrong way. Make no mistake: Ants are mean mofos with a grudge. But one family of butterflies, the Lycaenidae, have brokered a deal with ants and the two need each other to live. Ants shepherd the butterfly larvae to particular plants that they can feed from, and help raise them to the beautiful, fluttery beings who eat the living shit out of my vegetable garden. In exchange, the caterpillars secrete a boozy juice that gets the ants all hopped up and happy. So in short, ants are willing to lend a hand if it means they can all tie on one and have a knees up at the end of the day.

And that's the end of ANT FACT MONDAY. For today.

Thanks queen!

2009 Barry Nominees

2009-04-19T12:40:00.006+10:00

Well, you heard it here first unless you heard it from someone else.

This year's top gong for Outstanding Comedy at the Melb. Int. Com. Fest. will be going to one of the following acts:

1000 YEARS OF GERMAN HUMOUR

SARAH MILLICAN

WILSON DIXON

TIM MINCHIN

THE PAJAMA MEN

ASHER TRELEAVEN

OTIS LEE CRENSHAW

Having seen all but one of these, I reckon it's a killer list. Given that six different countries are represented there (if you count Jesse Griffin's Kiwi origins), as well as a huge range of comic genres - character comedy, stand-up, musical comedy, absurdism, physical comedy etc. it's also probably the most diverse nominee line-up ever. One week to go.

The Sounds of Comedy

2009-04-14T17:43:00.008+10:00

I really don't have time to write up all the comedy I've been seeing, so here's a quick breakdown on shows I've caught so far organised into music genres.

60s FOLK
Wilson Dixon Rides Again

BIG HAIR MUSIC
Wes Snelling in Kiosk

ADULT CONTEMPORARY/MOR

Mark Watson – All the Thoughts I’ve Had Since I Was Born

VARIETY NIGHT (OBVIOUSLY)
Ali McGregor’s Late-Nite Variety-Nite Night

DYNAMIC TRUMPET PARTY MUSIC
Sam Simmons in The Net Starring Sandra Bullock

DEATH METAL

Nick Sun – UnFucTheAbyss

UNCLASSIFIED

Mother of the Year

PORN MOVIE MUSIC

The Soft Toy Mafia

THIS GUY

Janeane Garofalo

RUSSIAN DRINKING SONGS
Danny McGinlay – Food Dude

NERDCORE HIP HOP
The List Operators

CLASSICAL
Judith Lucy’s Not Getting Any Younger

JAZZ
Jason Byrne – The Byrne Identity
Only because I hate jazz.

NU POLKA
1000 Years of German Humour

INDIEPOP
Josie Long – All the Wonders of the Universe (Shown in Detail)

STONER ROCK
Arj Barker’s Original Style Bits and Pieces

THE BENNY HILL THEME SONG
Steve Coogan

THIS GUY
Des Bishop – Desfunctional

DRUM AND BASS
The Mad Max Remix

VIKING ROCK
Celia Pacquola in Am I Strange?
Only because I love that there is such a thing as Viking Rock, and I loved Pacquola's show.

DISCOFOX
An Evening with Charles Barrington

THE SUPER MARIO THEME
The Delusionists in Bunker 5

ITALODANCE
Club XX

COUNTRY
Beaconsfield the Musical

CELTIC ROCK
Matt Elsbery – Thoughtcrime

UNCLASSIFIED
So You Think You Can Cow

Hope that clears things up for you. This is possibly the laziest post this blog has ever seen.

LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF COMEDY

2009-03-31T15:59:00.003+11:00

And so it begins again. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

"YEAAAAAARGGGGHHHH!!!"

ANT FACT MONDAY

2009-03-30T15:56:00.004+11:00

ATTENTION FELLOW MYRMECOLOGISTS: THIS JUST IN FROM THE HOME OFFICE.

(I have a home office).

One morning last week I woke to find that a whole crazy bunchload of my little ant friends had invaded the kitchen and were hanging around a plate I had forgotten to wash. After I basically lost my shit and howled the secret name of G-d and made a coffee, I determined to put my recent ant experiments to the test. I grabbed a few handfuls of catnip from the garden, tore ‘em up and sprinkled them around the plate and general near-plate area. GUESS WHAT ANT-FACTERS? Within an hour or two the ants racked the heck out of there. Chalk one up for modern science, and no ants were harmed either.

On to today’s facts.

First a quiz: have you been doing your homework? If so, you should be able to work this out. If not: IDIOT! Why do I even bother? You’re wasting my time and you’re wasting your own time and if there’s one thing we can all agree on it’s surely that the internet is not a place we go to waste time.

Here is the quiz.

What’s this?

The correct answer will be provided at the end of today’s lesson.

Did you know that one of the ways ants communicate is by rubbing body parts together to create clicking noises? A bit like The Fonz clicking his fingers and going “Eeeeyyyyy…” Ants are cool.

Ants also “sing” to each other to communicate.

Some other insects can imitate these sounds and sneak into an ant colony, where the ants will take care of them as if the intruder were one of their own! Truly a devilish business, being an ant! Whom do you trust?

"ANSWER: NOT CATERPILLARS. NEVER TRUST CATERPILLARS"

Have you worked out that puzzle I gave you yet? Answer coming up.

A scientist in the UK found that when he recreated the sound of a queen ant and played it to a colony, all of the workers stood to attention and greeted the tiny speakers. I read this in The Guardian, which is where I have stolen most of today’s facts.

Another fact from this article is that some kinds of ants domesticate aphids, “tranquillising them with drugs to keep them docile and ‘milking’ them with their antennae for a sugary honeydew.” That’s amazing. Even The Guardian says that ants are “amazing”.

Now for the cruncher: pencils down! What’s your answer? What is it? Let’s see the picture again.

Did you get it? If you said “a bridge made of ants, their bodies linked together in order to cross some kind of gulf” then you are CORRECT.

OK BYE

MITCHELL BUTEL HAIR

2009-03-25T15:44:00.002+11:00

Mitchell Butel seems like a nice guy. He's a Melbourne actor. I've seen him in a bunch of shows, good and not-so-good. I've never paid particular attention to his hair.

Which might be why the following link MAKES NO SENSE TO ME.

What is the connection between rice paper rolls and 'Mitchell Butel Hair'?

The greatest mystery of our times.

CHEWING GUM

2009-03-20T13:19:00.002+11:00

Geez, the posts here at Born Dancin’ are coming thick and fast, or thin and slow depending on your internet speed and/or perceptual capabilities. Before proceeding, however, I will remind you to go along to Hoipolloi’s Floating if you’re in Melbourne. On till Sunday. It will make your hair shinier and teeth whiter.

Anyway, while engaging in one of my regular investigations into irregular dance styles in Europe, I came across DISCOFOX. Discofox was big in the 70s, especially in more Northern European countries. It came about at roughly the same time disco hit it big in the West, but deserved its own name because it was subtly different. Discofox is obviously an awesome name for anything, but the actual dancing doesn’t live up to the hype. In short, it’s disco toned down so it can be done as a more structured partnered dance, kind of like the simplest forms of ballroom, salsa, slow dancing and swing. As you can see, the result is pretty much the kind of dancing your grandparents do at weddings.

What really interested me, though, is that DISCOFOX NEVER DIED. When disco took a nosedive in the US, discofox kept getting stronger, and has evolved to the point where competitive discofox championships still take place in Germany and Switzerland.

And THESE led me to the most disturbing discovery of all – that competitive disco dancing can be as strange as jumpstyle or tecktonik any of the other Eurodances that the kids are doing.

Here’s a clip from a Swedish competition that terrifies me. It’s like a dozen blonde women were fed handfuls of cocaine, let loose on a highschool gymnasium and told that only their dancing could save the lives of their families. The horrific level of energy on offer here is only matched by the fact that none of the dancers seem at all aware of each other, despite the distinct possibility that one of those high kicks could easily take a person’s head off.

Speaking of high kicks, here’s the greatest action scene I’ve ever witnessed, at least in the genre of “fights in which the hero makes no sense whatsoever”. I do laud a culture which allows used car salesmen to live out their dreams of being in the Matrix, and the first appearance of our protagonist (I use the term loosely) honestly sends shivers down my spine.

THE SMILE! THE SUNNIES! THE LOOSE SHOELACE AND UNBRANDED SNEAKERS!

This is only the second of two action films in which the eating of confectionary takes a prominent position in a fight set-up (the first is Jackie Chan’s super-cool Indiana Jones rip-off Armour of God).

And the pretty average special effects are compensated for by adding a whoosh effect to every single movement our hero does, including waggling his finger.

And to conclude and draw together this sorry and sundry assortment of oddments, I will point out that if I ever saw a dancer pull off the final move this Tamil superman hits us with, I would declare said dancer the winner of life and we can all go home now, goodnight folks.

REASONS

2009-03-19T22:44:00.002+11:00

REASONS YOU SHOULD HURRY UP AND SEE HOIPOLLOI’S FLOATING

The performers are Welsh

They are completely adorable and you will love them

The show is as funny as anything you’ll see in the Comedy Festival

They create the highest level of audience anarchy I may have ever witnessed: audience members talking back, heckling, taking toilet breaks, cracking jokes, talking to each other during the performance. During THEATRE

They make this happen without making any of it seeming intentional

They also tell a cute magical realist story, sort of, about an island off Wales that floated free of the mainland

The story perfectly mirrors the form of the piece, though – both are about connection and disconnection, crossing over, and breaking down not just the fourth wall of theatre but every other wall as well

Like Tristram Shandy, the digressions are kind of the point

There’s an ace bit of super-8 footage featuring a middle-aged man dressed as a turtle

There is also a song about the third-longest town name in the world

There is a man in socks and undies wearing a life-preserver made of oranges

There are lots of lists

You will be asked to close your eyes at one point, and it is worth not peeping (I didn’t)

You will get presents as you leave

You will not want to leave (everyone just hung around after it was over, and the main performer explained that he was still talking only because there were still people in the audience)

You will be happier after leaving than you were on entering. I think that even the deeply resentful audience member who looked very nonplussed at the incessant interruptions to the “narrative” might have finally found some enjoyment from the piece. Anyone less than 100% curmudgeonly will surely do the same (I consider myself about 87% churl, personally)

They are Welsh, as previously mentioned

You will love them, as previously mentioned

I think this show has already made my top ten list for 2009 and I don’t even make top ten lists. In short, this show is the kind of thing I like beyond words. Think the spirit of Elbow Room’s There, the controlled chaos of Black Lung, the charisma of the best Brit comics, the fabulism of Lally Katz, the media-muck of NYID, the silliness of the Melbourne Junkyard set and the shows I always invent in my head while watching other shows I’m not enjoying so much.

I enjoyed this a lot.

Cool Holiday

2009-03-19T15:44:00.003+11:00

BEGIN

There would be no one pretending to be asleep on stage. Would be no more use of suicide as a device for narrative closure. No more use of real meat for some supposedly visceral effect. There would be an understanding that black curtains and walls are not the depthless black you find when you wake in the night and grope for some visual handhold on reality but are kind of dull grey and ugly and might be best used when the affective atmosphere you’re trying to create is dull grey and ugly.

There might be fewer metaphors used for “treading water in a sea of seeming” [Roberto Bolano, 2666], for not saying what wants to be said just to appear more lyrical. Or, at least, metaphors would be allowed some ambivalence. A flock of cawing blackbirds might suggest life; a mirror might not reflect anything much; an expanse of water might be calm and navigable and just a bunch of value-neutral H2O. Or else: no more.

There would be no pre-recorded music. There will be a moratorium on all guitar use for ten years, just to see what happens. There would be no programmes, possibly no reviews. Nobody would laugh just because someone on stage laughs. There would be greater attention paid to hair, and there would be more stories about cats riding bicycles. There would never be audience interaction. There would be less swearing, or perhaps more.

There would be fewer calls for dialogue about the arts, which is just talk. There would be more stupid statements made about the arts. You would, at one point, be gently taken by the hand and led away from the rest of the audience past a heavy set of drapes, down a dimly lit corridor to a small room where a bird in a cage eyes you evilly, and where you find yourself told something you had been secretly thinking the day before but had forgotten. No one would believe that this happened.

You would get the sense that performers were frequently lying to you, or talking about you backstage. They would build a cairn of stones and place a small plastic effigy of you on its top, and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Things would be things again.

English has mostly lost touch with the irrealis mood, the grammatical structures which allow a speaker to utter something while simultaneously connoting the possibility that said utterance is false. Everything that occurs is not a fact but a potentiality. Maybe what we see has not, did not or will not happen. “Maybe” isn’t an example of irrealism, but it’s the best I can do. Claw back some of the subtleties of the subjunctive and the cohortative in order to produce an ambient linguistic grey-zone in which a straightforward realist painting becomes smeared across the canvas.

Get Your Dance Pants On

2009-03-10T17:00:00.003+11:00

I was at the Golden Plains music festival on the weekend and some friends were telling me how they woke up to a pretty bizarre sight. A bunch of guys in their 30s/40s were dressed in nothing but helmets and high-vis constructions vests and were rolling down the upright tray of a tipper truck onto a huge pile of mattresses. Someone said “hey, that sounds a lot like Chunky Move’s new show”.

Then someone else said “I thought Mortal Engine was like some ballerinas got lost at a doof”. And someone else said “I thought it was great at first, but it was a bit of a one-trick pony”. And someone else said “were the dancers on rollerskates?” and all agreed that it would have been better if they were.

Mortal Engine’s a good show and pretty stunning visually, but it doesn’t make huge advances on the pioneering of Glow. The light/dark projection system is spectacular; I wasn’t totally sure what the dancers were doing half the time, though. If I saw a piece of straight theatre and said that the set was a killer but I missed most of what the actors got up to, I don’t think it would be much of a recommendation.

As an aside: when I recently saw Red Stitch’s Yellow Moon, during the applause I said to a friend “I really love that light-bulb they used”. He took that as the most damning appraisal of a show he’d ever heard, but I didn’t mean it that way. I quite liked Yellow Moon. It was an awesome light-bulb, however.

I guess Mortal Engine is kind of making a point about the increasing interdependence of the body and immaterial technologies, to the point where they’re inseparable, but I think the concept doesn’t go far enough beyond that.

On the other hand, Russell Dumas’ Huit a Huit is terribly minimal. Dancers in all blacks perform abstract routines in the empty upstairs studio of Dancehouse. They might be improvising, I’m not sure. Some of the paired pieces had lovely phrases but I struggled to connect much with what was going on, and the program notes were very theoretical and academic and not very illuminating. I put it in the category of dance for dancers, which is a very large genre and very important, but sometimes misses me completely.

Also: here’s The Time Machine performed by LEGO.

A FEW THINGS

2009-03-04T21:51:00.006+11:00

I just flew in from Adelaide and boy are my arms tired (FROM FENDING OFF DRUNK KILLERS SERIOUSLY) so I'll keep it short. Adelaide Fringe wrap-up coming soon.

OUT OF LIGHT

Go see Sandy Parker's new work if you have the slightest interest in contemporary dance in Melbourne. I've never been a fan of her stuff but this is brilliant. I remember the very first dance show that suddenly clicked with me, about 10-12 years ago, and since then there've been only a handful that have conjured up that same feeling. Each time I remember why I maintain this weirdo love of great choreography. Balletlab's Brindabella did it, Stephanie Lake's Love is the Cause was another, and Out of Light just made the roster. It's on until Saturday at Gasworks.

WILLIAM SHATNER'S GONZO BALLET

I have no idea why the Milkwaukee Ballet decided to produce a piece based on William Shatner's nutso album Has Been, but this clip of a piece inspired by his cover of Pulp's "Common People" intrigues me.

http://usat.gannett.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/gannett-usatoday-206-pub01-live/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=immersiveproduction&maven_referralObject=1029370913

CABBAGE PATCH DANCE

And finally, I have been remiss in my God-appointed mission to educate the masses in popular dance styles. You're all worded up on tecktonik and jump-style but if you want to regress a bit you should really bone up on your cabbage patch dance. This meek gent provides a good start. I can't embed the video but come on, you people know how to click.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSfKxrJVIvc

Ant Fact Monday: Special Edition

2009-02-23T19:38:00.003+11:00

Today's Ant Fact Monday features special guest Molly.

"SUP."

On the weekend, by sheer happenstance, I read a theory that catnip works as a repellant for ants. Since I have a catnip bush (Bush? Bushell? Shrub? Plantation? Manufactory? Infestation? Threnody? Articulation? Quidnunc? Moire? Exegesis?) I decided to put this hypothesis to the test. At the time I hadn't planned to use the word happenstance, and I already regret the error.

CATNIP IT IS THEN

Here are a few pieces of catnip. I began by sourcing a few local ants who looked unemployed (hence their colloquial title as "the actors of the insect world") and came upon this little character whose headshot does her no justice. But I suppose justice is a precious commodity in these troubled times.

"I CALL HER LEONARD"

I began by placing a leaf of catnip near Leonard and she scurried off in an erratic manner. This certainly confirmed the notion of "repulsion". Science is hardly made by such simple observations, however, and so I expanded the experiment by placing several leaves in an area around Leonard, forming a kind of obstacle course or episode of the television show "Wipeout" which she would then negotiate. Once again, Leonard confirmed our early postulate by heading away from the catnip on all sides and hurriedly finding a space through which to escape this maze of greenery.

Adhering to proper procedure, I created a control group by replicating the obstacle course for other ants using dried leaves as the barriers. They did not respond in an overly excited fashion, unlike Leonard, who was acting like she had ants in her pants, which is an inappropriate metaphor when applied to an actual ant.

And so it seems that ants really are turned off by catnip, which Molly describes as "freakin heaven on a mulch 'nother shot ta gubby".

On the other paw, a few minutes later I noticed another ant walking all over a catnip leaf which totally screwed everything up.

The only thing of which I can be sure: Molly is (probably) not an ant.

What a stunning sky we had this evening.

"... we talk all the time about the end of the world, but it is much easier for us to imagine the end of the world than a small change in the political system. Life on earth maybe will end, but somehow capitalism will go on." --Slavoj Zizek

Fire.

2009-02-06T16:15:00.002+11:00

This is a sad story. It’s not a happy or funny story (sad stories can be funny, too). But it’s true which might count for something, though it rarely does around here.

Mrs B. used to be a model, a pretty successful one I think, but when I knew her she was maybe in her 50s or late 40s. I was 17 or 18 and knew her through her daughter, whom I went out with for a long time. I really liked both of them. They were very fierce and argumentative and astute.

Mrs B. had three dogs, I think. I only really remember two – a huge black shaggy thing with a kind face and a smaller mutt whose back legs had been twisted and ruined at some point, and who dragged herself around happily using her front paws. She would follow the other dogs as they ran through the dark house, her useless back legs always keeping her well behind, but not seeming to dampen her enthusiasm.

Mrs B. lived in a long, narrow terrace in Elsternwick. The front two rooms were bedrooms but she slept on a couch in the big lounge room at the house’s rear. I remember that room pretty well. There was a big 4- or 5-foot fishtank filled with tropical fish. There were lots of couches and a messy adjoining kitchen where Mrs B. would sometimes have a huge vat of soup on the boil for days at a time, flavours filling the house. Mrs B. was an artist, I should mention, and her home reflected that. She was also an émigré from Europe somewhere, maybe Germany, and had maybe even fled World War II. I think she had.

In that big, low, shadowy back room my girlfriend and I once spent a Christmas Eve with Mrs B and some of her friends. One was a red-faced old contrarian whose first words as I entered the room were “you’re a commie pinko!” This was confusing but he then drunkenly fell backwards off his chair into a Christmas tree’s embrace and was unable to extricate himself for a good ten minutes.

Mrs B. had a strange collection of friends like that, young and old, sometimes utterly at odds with her personality and lifestyle. She might have been the only person I’ve ever met who really fit the label Bohemian, which doesn’t have much currency any more.

Once there was a fire in my girlfriend’s bedroom after a blanket was kicked onto a bar heater. No real damage was done, but Mrs B. thought it was pretty funny.

There was another fire, later. Mrs B. woke on her couch in the back room to find herself surrounded by flames licking up the walls and curling around the curtains. Smoke was everywhere and she, half-asleep, managed to fight her way down the long corridor to the front door, which was locked. She threw herself through the front bedroom window and ran, soot-stained and half-dressed, to a neighbour’s house. It took a while for anyone to respond to her screaming.

I walked through the charred house the next day. The glass of the fishtank had evaporated, as if it had never existed. Parts of walls would fall off as I passed.

I saw the photo albums of Mrs B’s friends past and present. The albums survived but each image had become streaked and warped from the heat so that faces dripped down the page like Francis Bacon images. Nobody’s image survived the fire.

And the dogs. The two big dogs managed to leap the front window sill and emerge from the heat, but the little chubby cripple was trapped inside by the locked door and her ragged legs. The other dogs howled for her escape but she never made it.

Anyway, that’s all there is to that story. Like I said, it’s not a happy or funny story.

I saw Malthouse Theatre’s Woyzeck the other night. It’s neither happy nor funny. Tim Rodgers is compelling to watch and Bojana Novakovic comes closest to producing real emotion in the piece. Socratis Otto really underwhelmed me – I’ve never seen him before and he didn’t really make much of an impression (unlike Rodgers, who had a showman’s panache and a wild, intuitive acting style). The music, too, is some of the best I’ve seen in a theatrical context. Novakovic’s “Don’t Look At Me” number was the high point of the thing.

I think the show itself doesn’t work on certain affective levels. I didn’t care at all for the journey of Woyzeck and thought that the production’s spectacular elements worked against its central character’s struggles rather than in concert with them. But I don’t mind all of this too much. It’s director Michael Kantor perhaps doing best what he tries to do – this isn’t a show for students of classical realism but is an interpretation which will be most appealing to those who are familiar with the play, its history and its position within a canon. It doesn’t make the piece relevant to our times, or extract an essential core which makes the play “timeless”. In fact, it doesn’t seem to have a core at all. Kantor’s aesthetic seems to me centrifugal rather than centripetal (which is how I would characterise Bell Shakespeare, for instance). Kantor pushes outwards from a work’s centre, rather than spiralling in. This creates an energy that is about constant release, no arrival, only escape.

Some theatregoers want to find a home, others to leave it.

Poor Men

2009-02-04T16:24:00.003+11:00

Often at night I lie awake thinking of the ways I have squandered what little I once possessed by way of “potential”. What happened to that bright-eyed and shiny child I once was, whose stolen dreams for the future he gripped tightly with both hands? Have I become nothing but a dispenser of ant-related facts, when all I wanted was to make a difference? Now, on those dark evenings, it sometimes seems I can actually hear my failures and regrets scraping and snuffling at my bedroom door, begging admittance, also meowing. I put them out of my mind.

But it is without regret that I can recommend Jean Claude Van Damme’s new film JCVD. It’s not a fantastic flick by any means but Van Damme puts in a performance I would throw an Oscar at in a second. I was even moved to tears at one point (you’ll know which if you see the film). It’s the kind of flick you’re best heading into without any knowledge, except to say that it’s about JCVD himself and his position as a former B-grade movie superstar who fell from grace – hard – through drug addiction, numerous divorces, tax evasion and simply ending up the kind of joke that most action heroes become. Here we finally see him as the broken, confused, proud and desperate human he probably is. There’s a six minute monologue at the film’s heart which sees him assessing his life, and it’s one of the finest moments in cinema in recent history. The film is part self-parody, part self-valorisation and wholly redemptive. Check it out – like I say, not brilliant overall but JCVD is unforgettable. He’s either a brilliant actor or just brilliantly honest. Maybe both.

On the other hand, MTC’s Poor Boy is so mixed up and jumbled that I wouldn’t recommend it for much beyond the beautiful theatre it launched (the Sumner at the MTC’s new home). I agree with most of the reviews so far – the music has little to do with the drama, and the drama itself is often forced or awkward. But beyond that, what really got my ghostly goat was the incredibly earnest level of Importance to the whole thing. The metaphors and symbolic connections sailed gently through plotholes the size of a yacht, and genuine emotion was sacrificed for join-the-dots allusions. For instance, a character named Sol (almost everyone’s name seemed laden with significance) lost his boat the Neptune (God of water and horses, right) seven years ago (which is also when his son was born and another guy died on a zebra crossing wearing a zebra mask). Now, every time he appears on stage he is tying knots in a length of rope. Ok, I’m all for actors having their Bits of Business to liven up a scene. But it wasn’t just the fact that Sol’s entire life seemed to be taken up by tying knots. As a friend pointed out later, he didn’t even have a boat! But beyond all this was the problem that tying knots was so obviously a metaphor for the knots in his soul or something. Yes.

Anyway, it wasn’t a terrible play but it was made up of plot elements we’ve seen before shoved together in a way that didn’t gel. The soundtrack didn’t fit, the magical elements were at odds with the realism, and the overall design overshadowed the piece itself. It’s like those places that promote Kranskys filled with mozzarella and stuff, which makes me wonder who really wants a pile of cheese crud lumping up their weiner. There are probably a few different good shows in Poor Boy, but they need to stop hanging out together so much.

I should say, though, that I really liked Guy Pearce's singing voice.

ANT FACT MONDAY

2009-02-02T20:40:00.005+11:00

ALRIGHT YOU CURS. Since your inexplicable need for ant-related facts cannot be sated through recourse to other avenues of investigation I will do my best to quell the fires of your burning curiosity. Quell them good.

THIS IS NOT AN ANT.

But I have found that the clip above puts me into a state of hypnogogia, the transitional phase between waking and sleeping, and conjures up many thoughts on the position of ants in relation to us. By speeding up a baby's play it kind of ends up looking like an ant does to me. I don't really get what it's doing but it seems to follow some kind of animal logic that I would try to explain through chaos theory if I thought you would understand and also if I knew what that was.

Anyway, nobody really knows how ants work or exactly why they do things the way they do. They know a lot about them, but not the whole story. They're as mysterious as any other form of life (or non-life I suppose) when you get down to brass tacks.

Here are some other anty tidbits:

If ants bother you, you can put some sugar outside and they'll hang out there. It's like building a wine bar in an increasingly gentrified neighbourhood - it won't eliminate the pests but will give them somewhere to congregate away from you. The sugar is cheaper though.

Some ants can't bite or sting but can spray a certain kind of acid. Birds will place these ants in their feathers so that the acid will repel parasites.

Ants aren't like flies or bees - they're not particularly annoying. The only annoying thing about them is their tenacity. They don't give up and you generally can't stop them. The other potentially annoying thing is that if you stare at them, they can appear very confusing since their motives are hard to define. See the baby above.

Some kinds of ants are used as living pantries by the members of their colony. They're fed with honeydew and beefed up until they can't move. Then they just store the stuff for others to feed from. This is very creepy.

AND THAT'S ANT FACT MONDAY.

Which is powered by this week's theme: the fundamental wonder and mystery of existence and how good it is that it is this way.

Also: Why is this handrail so small?

Also: hey do I know you?

Happy Obama Day

2009-01-21T11:01:00.002+11:00

HEY EVERYONE. It's a good day. First off I want to thank all of you for deciding to visit this here website on such an HISTORIC DAY when you perhaps might have better things to do maybe and indeed THANK YOU to returning visitors who have spent other days (momentous or otherwise) visiting this here website when you could have been doing other things such as learning a new language, tending to a vegetable garden, pondering your own life or the lives of others or watching the film The Lives of Others. Also:

THANK GOODNESS for writing. That was a good invention. As was music. Here is a clip of Pete Seeger and some other people singing a nice song which while not literally addressed to me (it's not my land after all) is still moderately cheering.

I thought the best part was at 2.01 when a hairy and overjoyed George Lucas suddenly appeared, but then it got better when a very beatific-looking Obama himself did a bit of the head-nod-dance at 3.29. And goshdarnit, I'd swear that the guy at 4.17 is the Montgomery Flea Market guy.

Together, surely, THESE THREE MEN DEFINE OUR TIMES.

Seeger's hat is also charming.

Around.

2009-01-15T13:56:00.003+11:00

our feet abandon us

and taste the earth

with their tiny roots

which next morning

we tear out painfully

from I Would Like to Describe - Zbigniew Herbert

That is All.

AND SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS

2008-12-25T11:47:00.004+11:00

"REPRAZENT"

Yesterday I went to church. I haven't done that for a long time. Not that I don't like churches (I do) but I'm not exactly what you'd call the religious type. I don't mind if you believe in your magical man who lives in the sky and sees everything you do, any more than I mind if you believe in a magical man who lives at the North Pole and has similar powers of perception. Your choice.

But what got me about this church service (apart from the priest leading everyone in singing Happy Birthday to Jesus - I kid ye not) was the little kid in front of me who was watching a movie on his Dad's iPhone. What the devil? In my day you had to suffer through the thing like everybody else and there was no way little baby Jesus was letting anyone get away with watching TV during his Special Time. I guess things have changed.

In Caracas it's a Christmas custom to rollerskate to church on the Big Day. That's so awesome I'm tempted to move to Venezuela and become a devout believer just so's I can partake in such a brilliant Xmas tradition. Also, the convention of abbreviating the word to Xmas is nothing to do with the secularisation of the holiday, as people told me growing up, but stems back to the Eastern Orthodox habit of representing Jesus' name with an X or similar. No disrespecting the Lord there.

Here's a handy family tree illustrating the genealogy of Santa. Any chart that includes Jagermeister, Al Jolson and yowies is fine by me.

Here is a scary-looking Santa.

All Santa brought me this year was a couple of broken ribs which makes it hard to laugh, so I'm being even more Scroogey and frowny than usual. But for cheer's sake, here's the smooth voice and latent alcoholism of Don Ho singing Tiny Bubbles for your ecumenical festive enjoyment. Here's to the golden moon, here's to the silver sea!

Where I'm At (or Have Been)

2008-12-10T00:58:00.004+11:00

People have been saying (in my head) Born Dancin', FTW? What happened to Ant Fact Monday? And the other crap?

My answer is brief.

Also, on top of my awesome synth-pop fantasy adventures I have been moving house, writing a PhD, holding down a job and highkicking ninjas for a week or more. Without an internet connection, which admittedly wasn't a prob for the ninja problem. But these compounded problems have, according to my chiropractor, compacted my spine by a centimetre and a half (all fixed now). Please excuse my absence, and don't take it personally.

The joy of dance will return soon.

ALL OF YOU, STOP MAKING ART!

2008-11-25T17:20:00.003+11:00

I MEAN IT! Stop right now.

There is enough art already and we just don't need any more to add to the pile. I know some of you will have objections.

But it’s just instinctual, I’m naturally creative.

Civilisation is founded on the suppression of certain supposedly “natural” instincts; furthermore, as conscious beings we have the ability to choose which of our instincts we follow. Own your consciousness – choose not to create.

I come from a family of artists.

You are still seeking the approval of your parents and have introjected their expectations of you. This superego thing is controlling your life.

I think all acts of creation have value.

You have idealistic notions of art which suggest that you haven’t been in contact with much of it.

I am a recognised artist whose works have been praised.

You are a narcissist whose self-worth is dependent on others.

It’s my livelihood.

You are a capitalist who implicitly supports a system which encourages class division.

I want something that will endure when I am gone.

You have a fear of death which only be maintained by the production of art which, in any form, is susceptible to decay, degradation or disappearance into history’s ash.

Art is what separates us from the animals.

You have a fear of animals. Go to the zoo or out into the country to confront this fear (but please don’t paint the animals or anything).

I want to give voice to the oppressed, to those silenced by our society.

You want to further that oppression by speaking for others.

Art is a spiritual/life-affirming/personal growth experience.

You want to avoid real life. Try volunteer work.

I just love art.

Borrow other people’s art.

My art could change the world.

You have a messiah complex. Don’t project your hopes onto art, just change the world yourself.

I spent a lot of money on an art degree.

You were never, ever going to make that money back.

My parents spent a lot of money on an art degree.

You are not responsible for your parents’ poor financial decisions. Don’t make the same mistakes they did.

The arts are a vital aspect of our economy.

Art shortages only make existing art more valuable.

The arts are a vital aspect of our culture.

You have a fear of other cultures.

The arts allow us to pass on valuable lessons to our children.

Speak to children. Become a teacher. Not an art teacher.

I can’t do anything else.

That’s a decent reason I suppose.

I want to create something that demonstrates my thoughts and feelings about the world.

You feel that nobody listens to you and that your opinions are somehow unique. Start a blog.

I want to make something that will bring pleasure/joy to others.

Don’t ignore currently available sources of pleasure/joy. Get a job in advertising to promote these sources.

Art is empowering.

So is a sound understanding of the cultural structures which engender disempowerment.

I’ll never know if I’m a great artist unless I give it shot.

Just assume you are and never allow yourself to be proven wrong.

SO JUST STOP OK THANK YOU.

ANT FACT MONDAY

2008-11-24T14:51:00.003+11:00

There have been a series of scurrilous rumours circulating around the internet suggesting that ANT FACT MONDAY will not be making its much anticipated return. Well let me scotch those rumours right now. That’s right, scotch ‘em. Wrap them in a (faux-)meat paste, smother them in breadcrumbs and whack them in the deep-fryer.

ACTUAL SCOTCH EGGS ACTUALLY PHOTOGRAPHED BY ME IN 2005 SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND’S WEST.

Now let us proceed with vim and vigour since I am aware you are all time poor and I do not wish to contribute to your temporal poverty.

ANT FACT MONDAY

Ants have no lungs. They are small enough that the air which moves through them is enough to provide the oxygen they require.

Some kinds of ants can use the earth’s magnetic field to determine their location in relation to home.

Some species of ant can join up to form bridges over water. I have seen a documentary showing this process and it is fascinating.

There is a trail of ants who pass by my window every day during the daylight hours but not at night. Some ants in desert climates only travel at night, however, since the day is too hot for them.

No ants have ever come into my current house to forage for food, although a couple have come in the window by getting lost. I put them back onto the window sill and they carry on.

I’ve followed this trail of ants and it travels throughout my neighbourhood every day and goes away at night. It’s a long trail. I don’t know why they don’t come into the house.

Ants can tell their colony-mates by their distinct smell, but if an ant wanders off for too long it loses the smell. I don’t know what happens then, or if they can now join another colony because they are scentless.

Some indigenous groups in Northern Queensland have traditionally used the vitamin-rich green ant for medicinal purposes. I was once offered a green ant by an old lady so I could taste it. I didn’t want to kill the ant so she held it carefully and told me to lick it. I closed my eyes when I did so and ended up licking the old lady’s knuckle, which was weird. It tasted like a soft walnut. The ant tasted like a lime.

AND THUS ENDS TODAY’S FAIRLY ANECDOTAL ANT FACT MONDAY…

OR SHOULD THAT BE “ANT-ECDOTAL?”

Perhaps!

As you can see, with this exciting new enterprise at Born Dancin’, there are now even fewer reasons to bother visiting other sites on the internet!

A Smattering of Responses

2008-11-21T16:16:00.004+11:00

THE WOMEN OF TROY

I did not like this piece. I mean, if you meet someone who “liked” it I’d suggest taking a few slow steps back while eyeing the exits. It’s not meant to be liked. But I didn’t appreciate it either. I thought it was exploitative torture porn. Like the Hostel or Saw films, but presented under the aegis of Greek tragedy and with the stamp of Barrie Kosky to make it ok to watch. It was a catalogue of horrors and a sensory assault on the audience. Deafening gunshots going off around the audience unexpectedly – and often – and degraded, brutalised women and children being murdered and raped and photographed. Ok, it’s in the script, it really happened, etc. but Kosky’s appropriation of imagery from Abu Ghraib and other contemporary sites of human depravity are gratuitous and, worse, wonderfully imaginative. The violence is artfully realised and even aestheticised at times.

The monstrosities of Abu Ghraib were made so much worse by the way they were recorded, and I’ve got a lot of thoughts about the complicity involved in viewing any of those images. Seeing violence makes the witness a part of the event, and staging it therefore carries with it a great burden of responsibility. In another context, Tommy Pynchon has written that “when we speak of ‘seriousness’ in fiction ultimately we are talking about an attitude toward death--how characters may act in its presence, for example, or how they handle it when it isn't so immediate.” I guess my problem is that The Women of Troy is to me no more meaningful or “serious” than a gross-out horror film, but at least Hostel challenges its audience by not pretending to be other than it is. I don’t know what this production is pretending to be. But I did not like it.

AVAST

I liked this piece. When I was a professional rapper (c. 1997-2001) I learnt a lot about the relationship between spontaneous freestyling and pre-planned preparedness, and the Black Lung guys have this down pat. It’s like a post-Apocalyptic Moby Dick scripted by Takashi Miike. It’s complete anarchy, which can only be achieved through incredibly tight control. Someone who worked with Tim Etchells/Forced Entertainment recently told me that Etchells’ apparently chaotic works (like Bloody Mess) are the result of his being a complete fascist as a director. Which makes sense.

Here’s an awesome clip from the Wombles.

I haven’t seen Avast II: The Welshman Cometh but I’m up for it tomorrow night so I might report back then.

COLLAPSE

As theatre this new piece from Red Cabbage is a bit undercooked but as an installation experience it’s freaking incredible. It’s HUGE.

HUGE.

And it involves a boat trip, more post-apocalyptic imagery and some of the best set design you’ll ever see. Imagine a Hayloft piece mashed up with the vastness of Peepshow Inc’s Mysteries of the Convent and a bit of Herbertson/Cobham’s Sunstruck.

It’s vision of a bleak future veers well away from the Mad Max-style post-apoc imagery and instead tends toward the austere, sublime decay of Tarkovsky’s Stalker (closest comparison I could think of here). The audience travels on a long, meandering journey, and while our attention wasn’t controlled in the sophisticated way Mysteries of the Convent managed to achieve, Collapse is more interested in establishing multiple occurrences simultaneously (Greenaway is noted in the program as an influence in this regard). The result is that there’s not really a strong narrative to follow, but the cumulative effect of passing through increasingly astonishing set-pieces is stunning. Highly recommended – its good points more than make up for any shortcomings.

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN COW

I really wanted to Cow. When I heard the title of this piece I was already sold, but when I read that an audience member would be given the opportunity to dress as a giant cow and receive on-the-spot directorial instructions from Margaret Cameron and Aphids’ David Young I signed up toot sweet. My girlfriend wasn’t so sold and it took a bit of convincing to get her along, but half an hour later she was wearing a massive cow costume, sunglasses and oversized headphones doing a naaaasty dance to the Flashdance theme in front of a decent audience. I felt a bit guilty. We were hearing a meditative eastern tune, after all, so it kind of looked as if she had gone mad and been possessed by the spirit of some erotic bovine deity. But it was luck-of-the-draw – four audience members were picked from a hat and suited up for the challenge. And everyone involved had a pretty good time. The piece itself needs some development, but it’s a work in progress so that’ll happen. I’m not entirely sure of the point but the show’s backbone seems to be an exploration of the relationships between audience and performer. I’ll be there next milking session.

Hmmm. I’ve seen a bunch of other things lately but am running out of steam. I’m really just waiting on a phone call regarding an EXCITING NEW ADVENTURE. Hint: giant clockwork cats, the Warren Beatty movie Shampoo, bluegrass music and an underground collective of grifters known as “the Knucklebone Boys”. Also: I have accepted that I will never in this life be able to “call in an airstrike” as sometimes happens in movies.

THIS IS WHAT IS CALLED A "RAILROAD WATCH".

ANT FACT MONDAY

2008-11-17T15:41:00.004+11:00

OK EVERYBODY.

I know a lot of people have been clamouring at the gates demanding to know what happened to ANT FACT MONDAY.

The answer is complex but I will attempt to put this shit simply: this internet website blog has never had a thing called ANT FACT MONDAY and, furthermore, I have never referred (personally or professionally) to a thing called ANT FACT MONDAY.

Nevertheless, I will bow to the will of the people (cf. democracy) and institute a regularly occurring thing called ANT FACT MONDAY which will include MILDLY INTERESTING ANT FACTS.

First up today:

ANTS: WHAT ARE SOME FACTS?

Ants have elbowed antennae.

Ants may be the only things beside humans to teach each other interactively - not by imitation but through instruction and feedback but not whiteboards.

Ants make up around 15% of the TOTAL biomass of animal life on the planet. That's heaps.

When ants find a bunch of food, they leave little pheromone markers along the route leading to it so other ants can come along too. That's why they travel along in lines like little highways.

Also, when they're going to and fro on their little highways, they stop and nudge each other on the nose for some reason. I know they don't actually have noses, but they definitely stop for a millisecond and butt heads. Maybe they're giving each other high fives or kisses or just saying hi. I am deeply curious about this phenomenon.

AND THUS ENDS ANT FACT MONDAY FOR THIS MONDAY.

More facts next Monday probably.

Wicked Rail Slide

2008-11-12T15:46:00.000+11:00

THIS IS ALL

2008-11-07T13:10:00.009+11:00

THE LOWER DEPTHS

I spent the first half of this production deeply perplexed. I'm a big fan of Gogol but couldn't work out where he found the time to write this sprawling play. I mean when he first hit the Western radar in 1977 it was deep in the Cold War where he managed to form an alliance with M that was to be strained but kept relatively civil in ensuing decades. He must have been working 24/7 when Hugo Drax built his space station and by 1983 he was having to bust General Orlov's ass for his crazy world-domination scheming.

He even put up with Pola Ivanova's bungling and was open-minded enough to award an Order of Lenin medal to a British spy. In short, he was a busy guy. So how did he manage to pump out a big play like this?

"IT'S A CALLING"

Then I realised that I was mixing my Gogols!

"SAY WHAT?"

I should have been thinking of the Russian author Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol! And he didn't even write The Lower Depths, Maxim Gorky did! The one from Gorky Park!

Oh boy was I embarrassed.

"AS WELL YOU SHOULD BE lol"

I have a bit of a problem with Russian theatre. Not the recent stuff, just the classics. Actually, I suppose I have a problem with classics in general. I don't enjoy watching Chekhov but then I don't enjoy watching Brecht or Ibsen or Shakespeare either. There are exceptions - Hayloft's Platonov was great and I'm looking forward to Titus - but that's because the texts aren't handled with kid gloves in those cases.

I don't think Ariette Taylor's production of The Lower Depths handles the script too cautiously either, and it's a first-rate piece. The acting is outstanding and the design is beautiful (even if half the audience can't see one particular part of the space because it's behind them for some reason). I'm just not into Russian social realism of the early twentieth century. If I want to see people in blankets with hacking coughs struggling against institutionalised oppression and questioning the meaning of life I'll talk to people on Melbourne's streets. I like theatre that deals with that, not a La Boheme kind of romanticised impoverished past.

Then again, the classics are classics for a reason and this is a very good production of one of them. And I do think it's pretty ace that Gorky took on the name (not his real name) because it literally means "bitter". I left this show at interval, though, not through any fault of the production itself but just through my own inability to engage with the text. And I'm still dealing with the time, years ago, when I struggled through Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Praised as it may be, that brick of a novel felt like a month of being whacked in the Gogols with a 1 kilo book.

PLAY:GROUND

Last night I went to Play:Ground in the Carlton Gardens. It’s a Master of Theatre Practice project about child soldiers. It is largely performed by children. As the program notes, though, it is also not suitable for children. I got there late, was up the back and didn’t have much of a clue as to what was happening so I’ll go again tonight. One of the cast bios is as follows: “i am six. i like to run. i have a dog. my dog’s name is nelly. i live near the city. if i was in war, i would hide.”

SCATTERED TACKS

I also whipped up to The Village in Edinburgh Gardens afterwards to catch Scattered Tacks again. Brilliant stuff. It’s on again tonight at 8pm I believe.

THAT IS ALL

Melbourne International Arts Festival (4)

2008-10-28T22:27:00.003+11:00

APPETITE

Why has (nearly) every review of this show been served up with a big mug of haterade? Seriously, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't the pre-digested airline food of Boeing Boeing. It wasn't even the stinky belch that was Scarlett O'Hara at the Crimson Parrot. So it was kind of undercooked and the ingredients didn't gel, but everyone's acting like someone served them a fart sandwich and called it Lean Cuisine.

Some pros: I thought the dancers did a great job of acting. Carlee Mellow was especially surprising - she was one of the dancers who suffered in the spoken word section of Axeman Lullaby, and in Appetite she created a credible, sympathetic character.

Contrary to everyone else I thought Sally Seltmann's music was effective, even if it was a bit heavy-handed. And I'm pretty sure it would have made a difference if she had been able to play live, as planned.

Some cons: the scenario itself was pedestrian (I'd say bourgeois but calling anything bourgeois is itself pretty bourgeois). I don't care about people having middle-class crises at dinner parties, mainly because I don't get invited to dinner parties and have to have my emotional meltdowns in normal places like public transport and theatre foyers.

And most of all: was that a real suckling pig on stage? Were they real lobsters? I seriously want to know. I've seen a lot of dead animals in theatres in the past few years (not a metaphor) and I think people slamming the aesthetic shortcomings of a show like Appetite are asking the right question about the wrong thing. As Coetzee puts it: "is this truly the best that human beings are capable of?" He's not talking about theatre.

SAMUEL BECKETT: ENDGAME 1958-2008

Sup-OIB!

THAT NIGHT FOLLOWS DAY

'you tell us stories about kids with stupid parents.

Kids with parents that don't understand
Kids with parents who can't see magic,
or kids with parents who don't know that certain relatives are creatures in disguise'

Adults were laughing during this show, which really unnerved me. 16 Flemish kids in a fake school gym were yelling at the audience: "You feed us", "You bathe us", "You whisper when you think we can’t hear". The entire performance follows this accusative format - you do this, you do that. We care about children. So we tell them lies. We hand them our prejudices and fears and hopes.

Adults were laughing during this show because the spoken text - projected on a blackboard in English translation - was pretty funny. It wasn't so funny if you actually watched the performers, who were angry, made constant direct eye contact with audience members and delivered their lines with overpowering passion. I later heard that the script had been written without much input from the actors since, you know, kids would have just come up with stuff about rainbows and playstations or something. This is second-hand info but it's pretty disappointing if true, and defeats the whole point of the piece.

My sister interviewed one of the performers (Ineke) for her documentary Eleven and was told that her (the actor's) favourite part was the one dealing with all the bad stuff.

'That Grandad can't stop drinking
That Aunt Ellie has a big mouth
That Grant is a tearaway
That Joan has dyed hair
That Frankie wears a wig
That Jennie has a terrible cancer
That Jamie does not wash
That Rosie looks ridiculous in that dress
That John is making a total fool of himself over Tina and that everyone knows it, and that everyone is talking about it.

Another poem:
Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.

Then again. Kids aren’t empty vessels who suck up the lies they’re told. They know, sometimes. Sometimes not. Either way, I suppose the real reason I related to this show so much is that it tapped into something a lot of people feel – we are lied to, and misrepresented, and given ridiculously conflicting messages. Maybe this show isn’t about age at all. Or maybe adulthood is about accepting this situation. I still say 'grown-up' instead of 'adult' which suggests I probably haven't grown up at all.

Melbourne International Arts Festival (3)

2008-10-22T15:12:00.004+11:00

IF I SING TO YOU

Deborah Hay has done it again! The renowned US choreographer is back up to her old tricks in this hilarious, madcap romp that veers between outrageous satire and chin-stroking lecture like an out-of-control dune buggy piloted by a blindfolded hula girl being attacked by pigeons. There's dinosaur suits, animated store dummies, a melancholy interlude featuring the captain from the Flight Centre commercials and cranberries - so many cranberries! Plus it's all set to the driving beat of Imagination's 1982 disco hit Just An Illusion.

Wait a minute! That's not If I Sing To You! It would be great, sure, but so is If I Sing To You. Problem is, I can't really think of a way of describing this show without making it sound boring (or at least boring to me). Huge empty stage, six dancers doing Deb Hay stuff, often not doing much at all. It's brilliant and I felt glad I finally got to see the choreographer's work first hand. Still, if you were a newcomer to performance it would probably be the sort of thing to turn you off for life. So thick, so dense, so ethereal and snow-flakey that even the act of watching it causes it to begin to crumble. So imagine what describing it on this here blog would do to it!

I did have a bit during the performance where I began thinking of a performance that includes the audience being taken on an airplane. How rad would that be? You unsuspectingly turn up to Tullamarine and part of the performance is on the plane and then some of it occurs at your destination and then back again. A bit of an IRAA piece. I do know that there is a work coming up that includes a section on a boat (a real boat) in Williamstown. That'll have to do for now.

An aside: here is a video of Bjork explaining how her television works (sort of). It is wonderful. "You shouldn't let poets lie to you."

Another aside: here are some reimagined book covers. Excellent.

The Children's Choice Awards are a great MIAF initiative. A bunch of kids are attending and reviewing the MIAF program. Go to the blog where they're keeping a running commentary. It's great. It also had me thinking once again about how critics, audiences and artists are always so eager to a) talk about kids and b) talk about the need for "dialogue" and "discussion" in the arts world but almost never listen to children. Children's voices are far more interesting than most adults as they're not filled with cliches and increasingly empty terms (see "dialogue" and "discussion"). This was what I was thinking about during the whole Bill Henson dialogue/discussion.

21:100:100

This sound installation at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces is worth checking out if you've got a free minute (or 1000 free minutes). It's 100 sets of headphones playing 100 different works ranging from familiar avant-artists (Sonic Youth, Chicks on Speed, Sun O)))) to really, really out-there stuff (Japanese artist Junko's extended a cappella screaming track). A lot of the pieces come from Japan, Germany, Australia or the US, not surprisingly, but the range overall is huge. That's probably the only problem - there must be thousands of hours of sound in this one space, so your experience will be a bit of a chance operation game. It's beautifully presented, though, and the one-way mirror onto Gertrude St means you can stare at passing Fitzroy traffic while listening to some amazing sounds.

Melbourne International Arts Festival (2)

2008-10-20T11:46:00.003+11:00

EL AUTOMOVIL GRIS

I was at the hairdresser the other day demanding the restoration of my coiff's practiced disarray (as opposed to the actual, lazy disarray which has now returned) and was part of an fascinating exchange between my hair guy and his 17-year-old assistant. Said assistant was raving on about Guitar Hero, the console game where you play a plastic guitar and try to replicate the playing of classic rock or pop or metal or whatever. It’s incredibly hard.

Hair Guy: All that effort - why don't you just learn the guitar?
Assistant: Because you can't win points playing a normal guitar. And you can't beat people online with a normal guitar.

Wha? I felt old. Still, it had me thinking – music as point-scoring competition seems strange, but isn’t the real point she was making about how Guitar Hero is a social activity? A game whose relevance is between its players, not located in any one of them?

It also had me thinking about the collision of art forms/media: music and TV and computer games and the internet. Which leads us to El Automovil Gris.

I was transfixed for the 90 minutes of this show, often laughing out loud. Quite a few people around me were having nanna naps. It’s not for everyone.

The Mexican group Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes have made a mash-up of a Mexican silent film from 1919, modern digital technology, the antiquated Japanese art of the Benshi and contemporary live performance. Benshi were performers who gave live audio accompaniment to silent films in late Meiji/early Taisho Japan, giving voice to characters, adding narration, and sometimes wandering off into original interpretive regions (singing songs, reciting poems etc).

Here, the original film gets proper treatment from the only remaining Benshi in Japan, who initially speaks in Japanese. I couldn’t understand her but the textures of the voices she used were just great, giving the sense of what was going on on-screen. They were also often hilarious, ridiculous in the way that modern anime voices frequently are.

Eventually things broadened – more performers, subtitles which increasingly went off-track, dance or song routines, the narration and subtitling bringing in opera, absurd comedy, nonsense languages, animal noises. I found it brilliant, but then silent film is something I’ve been trained to appreciate, and it can be pretty tough going. I see it like dance in a way – you need to switch yourself into a different mode of viewing. Anyway, two thumbs up from me.

ENGLAND

I wish I’d seen Tim Crouch’s ENGLAND before his an oak tree. I enjoyed it a lot more – the second half at least. There are some common elements to both.

Crouch sure likes to smile. If there were smiling competitions somewhere in the world (there probably are) he’d be like the Michael Phelps of grinning. Depending on your mood, he can come across as expansive and welcoming or really, really smarmy. That worked fine for an oak tree since he was playing a shabby pub hypnotist, but I found it grating here.

In ENGLAND Crouch and collaborator Hannah Ringham play two art gallery guides, leading us around the Ian Potter NGV and occasionally referring to the space and the art but not that much. The piece is more concerned with delivering a non-linear narrative about a person with a bad heart and a boyfriend. Crouch and Ringham both play this person, delivering an overlapping monologue that does a good job of fracturing the character’s identity (one character, two performers) but doesn’t really have much to do with the environment. The boyfriend (we hear a LOT about him) is an art dealer. Crouch and Ringham say “LOOK!” repeatedly, since that’s the title of the exhibition we’re in and presumably a gesture towards making the piece site-specific. I suppose it’s also meant to have extra levels of meaning – pointing out how we look without really seeing the truth of others – but I’d love to see how the show would have worked in a past exhibition such as “Spirit of Football”.

The second half of the thing takes us to a different space and time – a year later – where the narrator now confronts the wife of the man who saved his life. It’s a waaaay richer sequence, which amps up the drama unexpectedly. It also made me wish the first half was that strong. It’s also when people stop smiling, which is nice. I don’t know where the hell The Boyfriend went, though.

ENGLAND is really about the notion of transplantation - medical transplants, cultural transplants, the transplantation of art and history and cultures. My experience of transplants as a theme has largely been confined to movies where some innocent gets lumped with the hands of a murderer or the heart of a baboon or something, which rarely qualifies as high art. I'm still hankering to see a film about the guy who gets hair-plugs and starts having visions of stables and groomers and an insatiable desire for oats. Everyone starts admiring his flanks and he develops a fetish for dragging people around the city in a cart and defecating on Swanston St. Eventually he discovers that his new rug came from a destroyed horse named Pinkles and he has to bust open the animal abuse case that led to Pinkle's death before the horse's spirit can move on. I'd probably call it The Mane Man or Mounting Tension or My Rug Was Once A Horse or something equally catchy.

As is, though, ENGLAND isn’t that catchy until it’s halfway done. It’s almost a spoken-word piece, and could work just as well as a radio play. The themes are interesting, the performances a bit static. Like I say, I found the second half pretty thought-provoking, but it takes a while to get anywhere that you especially care to be. Ultimately, the piece suggests the uselessness of art in a very impactful way but that’s one of the most dangerous themes for an artist to play with. In effect, it highlights the uselessness of the first half of the piece. So, yeah, ok.

SUNSTRUCK

What a sensational experience – this is the sort of dance that goes straight past the analytical, verbal parts of your brain to tickle the primal lizardy bits hanging around from the (really) olden days. Watching it, I felt a bit like the apes at the start of 2001, confronted by this alien, sublime THING that would evolve me if I got too close.

Not evolve like this (thanks Defamer):

Which is beautiful and cruel. More like this:

Helen Herbertson and Ben Cobham have made one of those rare dance works that words simply can’t do justice to. Any description will reduce the piece. It’s a wonderful synergy of design and choreography that emphasises different experiences of time and the moment, both meticulously planned and utterly open to spontaneity. That’s all I’ll say.

CORRIDOR

Lucy Guerin’s works often have “communication” as an explicit or implicit theme, but her choreography isn’t dialectical in the way that, say, Two Faced Bastard was. It’s not about finding the conflict between two opposing forces and exploring that tension to reach a third space (the Full Stage of Two Faced). It’s more about physical possibility as its own end, with ideas like communication simply the spur to these movements.

I don’t think Corridor should be read for what it ‘says’, then, simply what it does. There’s some fantastic movement here, and an intriguing through-line which explores how movement itself moves between bodies. The six dancers are given commands in a variety of ways – spoken commands through mp3 players, whispered to one another, through microphones, written on walls etc.

The whole thing takes place on a long strip, with audience seated one row deep on either side. It’s akin to a tennis match, as you continually swivel to follow dancers in either direction. In a fantastic early sequence the preformers “pass” movements, where each copies another dancer’s motions in a kind of daisy-chain or Chinese whispers way. The difference between each dancer’s form becomes an act of translation, in which something is both lost and gained as the same choreography echoes through six very different figures. I didn’t at first realise that people at either end were aping one another, though, since it was impossible to see both at once. There was a lot of this in the show – slowly realising exactly what was occurring, obfuscated by the limitations of your own perception.

Melbourne International Arts Festival (1)

2008-10-14T15:34:00.002+11:00

an oak tree

Theatre is hypnosis. I'll go with that. It seems to be one of the implications of an oak tree. It's a productive way of thinking about the piece, anyway.

Two things about hypnosis. Firstly: someone being hypnotised needs to be willing. It's like a contract. The subject needs to make a decision, to sign the contract, to invest something in the exchange. It's similar to the suspension of disbelief a theatregoer must actively consent to. You can't *trick* a subject of hypnosis or an audience member without them giving you permission at a certain (even subconscious) level.

Secondly: public hypnosis - the gaudy TV "act like a chicken" stuff is different. Here, the permission usually comes as a result of being in the spotlight, being watched and judged by a crowd, and being part of a crowd too. There's an element of fear involved, and it takes an incredible amount of...something... to be the person who decides to break the illusion, to be the one person who refuses to play the game. In public hypnosis, to be the sole person not acting like a chicken is tantamount to speaking out loudly during an MTC show, or climbing onto the stage to question the proceedings.

So: an oak tree seemed to be playing on these ideas, but does so in such an incredibly controlled, restrained way that I felt vaguely disgusted at certain points. Tim Crouch has a masterful, iron-clad grip on its unfolding and - frankly - I didn't give him permission. I didn't trust him enough to allow him to dictate my response, and he seemed to be playing with his audience in precisely that way. From his first appearance he worked the crowd like the consummate showman, eliciting laughs not for doing anything entertaining but for mimicking the forms of performance which we've been trained to laugh at - his beaming smile, his self-deprecation, his pretenses at liveness and spontaneity. The audience becomes a Pavlovian dog.

And his "second actor" - a different local actor each night who arrives with no knowledge of the script or performer - is a hand puppet. I saw Kim Gygnell, a hugely experienced and wise stage performer, being fed lines and told how to respond to cues, commanded around the space and pretty much denied the use of his own talents. There was even a point at which Crouch had to correct him - twice! - for going off-script by reacting to a cue in a way that didn't fit Crouch's version of the show. Why is an actor being put in this position?

In a sense, an oak tree is about the power of suggestion and our control over our responses to the world we encounter, but Crouch as puppetmaster drains all of the liveness from the show and so brilliantly becomes the master hypnotist that there's no risk, no chance, and ultimately nothing at stake. The apparent drama (of a hypnotist confronted by the father of a child he killed while driving) was the biggest problem for me: I didn't sign that contract, I didn't suspend that disbelief, and so I didn't care.

At an early point in the show, Crouch as hypnotist-character tells us he's looking for volunteers from the audience to come up and be put under. A moment later Crouch-as-Crouch-character tells us that we are not really allowed to come up on stage, because we are playing an audience at a hypnotist's show. And so we stayed in our seats, acting like chickens. That's theatre.

Desert Island Dances

Wendy Houstoun's a beautiful dancer who plays with her audience by withholding a lot of that for most of this solo piece. It's a slow, quiet minimal rumination on the movements she's been given over her life so far, choreographed and otherwise. There's a lot of talking to the audience, seemingly off-the-cuff thoughts on whatever comes to mind, though in reality there's a particular structure and considered progression to the work. It's quite challenging in its reticence - in the way talk fills a void without necessarily giving it substance. It's certainly not a piece for lovers of pure dance, given that there isn't a huge amount of actual dancing going on. In fact, it's only near the end, when she repeats earlier movements and credits them to their originators, that I noticed how much more choreography had been going on in understated, non-showy ways. It's an interesting show, but not one of great magic and wonder. I'm looking forward to Houstoun's Happy Hour as a contrast to this piece.

The Big Game

The only thing sweeter than the smell of success is the acrid stench of failure, especially in the form of a little kid who has just lost a competitive game in front of hundreds of strangers. That's The Big Game, really, in which six kids pulled from the audience compete on a giant boardgame as hordes watch and cheer them on. A dice is rolled and they advance around the space, landing on spots that dictate activities (races, dances, drawing, pulling faces etc). Their success of failure is determined by three clowning Game Masters in an apparently arbitrary fashion, and the first to finish a complete circuit wins.

Which means we're left with five losers. I don't mean to get all Montessori on you here, but I couldn't help but be bemused by the principles of competition and judgement at play in this show. I've heard somewhere that The Big Game was partly meant to explore the way that chance and outside forces play such a large part in our life, and I agree that "winning" isn't always about ability or determination. Life is full of disappointments that are beyond our control. But geez, can't we give the kids a few more years before they have to face that?

I know kids play at competitive games all the time and that losing is a common experience. I suppose it was just the face of that kid I watched lose and walk off the board clearly upset. Maybe I was that kid once, and god forbid that little goober ever ends up anything like me! LOL!

Two-Faced Bastard

The frustration at the heart of Chunky Move's new show is deliberate, provocative and well-intentioned - the audience is split in half, each side watching one side of a curtain through which performers move. One half begins by watching an abstract dance performed by Stephanie Lake, the other witnesses a forum on performance by Brian Lipson, Vincent Crowley, Antony Hamilton, Byron Perry, Lee Searle and Michelle Heaven. Gradually the two worlds overlap as performers move between the spaces, and of course you're constantly aware that you're missing out on half of the activity going on.

There's a much bigger philosophical argument embedded in this structure and it's both intellectually fascinating and experientially frustrating - but at the same time, what you are watching is almost always wonderful in its own right. My side was the more talky side with some absolutely stunning performances from Hamilton especially, but knowing that there is an elsewhere - a place where something better *might* be happening - put me in a thrilling bind. What if *this* is better? What if *that* is? And could I ever know anyway? Great work, great work.

Exercises in Happiness

A simple premise executed well. The two artists of Panther have filled an ARI-style gallery space with a bunch of exercises for attendees to carry out, rating their happiness levels along the way. A spot of gardening, piddling around on an electric guitar, having a conversation over trifle, that kind of thing. It's an easy-breezy affair that I enjoyed thoroughly, and had me thinking in a gentle, distracted way about my moment-by-moment responses to all kinds of experiences - I loved the gardening until I actually began to do it, and worried that I was killing some flowers I was attempting to plant.

My only complaint here (and it's not really a complaint) is that it could have been bigger - there are maybe 20 or so exercises and I spent about an hour and a half there, but I would gladly have spent a whole day in a space the size of the Exhibition Buildings, wandering among hundreds and hundreds of little, everyday activities. So yeah, this is clearly a good piece.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (Wrap Up)

2008-10-13T23:13:00.004+11:00

It's over! I suck! I didn't even get close to 80 shows! I noticed that my tally in regard to my goal was reasonably close to the Golden Ratio of the ancients however and feel the warm glow of classical approval. It's like Euclid is resting a fuzzy hand on my shoulder and muttering encouraging words through his tzatziki-flecked beard.

"MATHEMATICALLY APPROVED"

The Fringe award winners were a unanimously deserving bunch:

Best Special Event: Fringe Garden

Best Performance: Rawcus Theatre Company and Restless Dance Company for The Heart of Another is a Dark Forest

Best Dance/Movement: Kate Stanley and Fiona Bryant for Max

Best Circus: Strangers in the Light

Best Comedy: Celia Pacquola for Am I Strange

Best Cabaret: Jacob Diefenbach for Jason Diefenbach 'Master of Disguise'

Best Music: Rowan Vince for VIR 2008

Best Visual Arts: Claire Mooney, Mary Newsome, Patrick Pound, Heather Shimmen and Masato Takasaka for Postcards

Best School Holiday Program Award: Curious Legends and Company Gongoma for Mermaids Daughter

Best Venue: Bella Union, Trades Hall

Melbourne International Arts Festival Award: Jodie Ahrens for Deceased Estate

VicHealth Community Cultural Development Award: Fringe Garden

The Melbourne Dramatists Award for New Writing: Alison Mann for Tabula Rasa

The Melbourne Airport Award for Outstanding Newcomer: Felicity Ward's Ugly As A Child Variety Show

The Adelaide Fringe Festival Awards: Elbow Room for There (performance); Ahmarnya Price for Just Me And Yoko Ono (visual arts)

Auspicious Arts Award for Best Emerging Producer: Richard Higgins and Matt Kelly for The List Operators

Gasworks Award: Michelle Slater and Phillip Haddad for Rhythm and Runners

Linden Award for an outstanding visual artist: Antonia Goodfellow for Empyrean

The Falls Festival Award: Brydie Dyson, Set Designer of Darlington Garage Presents

The 2008 Wilin Centre Award for Indigenous Fringe Artist of the Year: Nikki Ashby for Deaf Can Dance

The Circus Oz / ACAPTA Award: Farhad Ahadi (Circus Trick Tease)

The Village Award: Skye Gellmann, Terri Cat Silvertree and Alex Gellmann for Scattered Tacks

Fringe Furniture People’s Choice Award: Yoshio Takagi for Molentje

Fringe Dwellers People’s Choice Award: Circus Trick Tease

And now, dagnabbit if I'm not glad the festival is over and I can get back to a placid, non-festival existence of quiet contemplation and cheese eating.

AWWW CRAP.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (9)

2008-10-11T12:08:00.000+11:00

SKETCHES OF BLOOD

The old pond
A frog jumps in -
Plop!

CLUB XX

A welcome slice of post-post-feminist comedy that sets its targets on the double standards, stereotyping and embedded expectations still put to Australian women in a period where many still don't want to identify themselves with the F word. The other F - funny - is here in abundance, which is a bonus. The two performers have a real confidence in handling their material, which is mostly sketch- and character-based. I think I would have liked to see a few moments that broke out of this format into a more direct style of address - not a "this is what where doing here" thing but something to frame the overall collection of acts and vary the tone a bit. Some great stuff here in any case.

CIRCUS TRICK TEASE

The most impressive thing about this circus three-hander was the way it looked so easy - it doesn't scream "I'm doing amazing things!" like many circus acts. It just does them. They're still pretty amazing, though. It's a kind-of adults-only affair with lots of hilarious, tongue-in-cheek polysexual perversity thrown in. It's not dirty or obscene, though, just ridiculously sexualised in a silly, free-floating way. The three performers are massively talented; I think they could still use a little more outside direction in order to sharpen their characters and relationships. The acts themselves are top stuff, though.

TWO LITTLE SPIELS

I only caught the second spiel in this double bill from members of the Caravan of Love. Entitled "a preamble", it's a solo from Eva Johansen who, may I say, is a damn fine singer. It's one of those loose, deliberately awkward bits of comic meta-theatre that sees Johansen fussing about, constantly getting distracted, playing out little digressions and so on in the build-up to the actual beginning of the show - which, of course, is where the real performance ends. We've seen this conceit heaps of times but Johansen presents enough solid comedy and theatrical nous to inject a lot of vigour into proceedings. My only real quibble is that the framing device - and Johansen's constant reassurances that "this isn't the show" - are sort of unnecessary. It's clear from the title alone what's going on, and the actual content is enough to hold up the show without making it any more explicit.

DANCE-A-THON 6000

This dance marathon/high school social/variety extravaganza was packed from the get-go, which meant some punters had to queue for a while to get in. It was worth it, though - more than a hundred dancers performed, from a tap troupe of older women to a local ballet outfit from Darebin (I think) to the ironic 80s kitsch of the Real Hot Bitches. Plus punters wore numbers pinned to their clothes which allowed them to be assessed by roaming judges (the ten best had an on-stage dance off near the end) and a good time was had by all. I was especially pleased to see a bona fide spontaneous dance battle suddenly occur next to me, and soon a huge ring had formed as more joined in the fray - breakdancers, circus folk, flouro spandexed RHBs, the Hall & Oates dancer from Dave Quirk's show, and - most mystifying of all - a pair of boys who came out of nowhere and completely cleaned up the competitors. They were maybe 12, 14 at most, and they were matching everyone who stepped up to challenge. I have no idea what the hell these kids were doing there. But good on 'em.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (8)

2008-10-09T15:11:00.001+11:00

LEAGUE OF SIDESHOW SUPERSTARS IV

This was in-yer-face sideshow stuff that quite a few people had trouble watching - you know, someone staple-gunning flowers to their torso, hanging weights from hooks in their chest, that kind of stuff. The performers all seemed like nice and happy people, though, not hideous monsters. I didn't really pay full attention throughout because I'd only wandered into the show by accident. The crowd who'd turned up on purpose were having a ball, on the other hand.

FELICITY WARD'S UGLY AS A CHILD VARIETY SHOW

I was watching the Sideshow Superstars when I ran into my little sister. While staring at a contortionist popping his arm out of joint for whatever reason, I idly wondered aloud "when does a person realise that they can dislocate their limbs?"

"I don't know," she said. "When does a person realise that they don't like being electrocuted in front of an audience?" Cos that's what had just happened to her. I felt a bit bad for sending her along to Felicity Ward's show then, but I swear I didn't know the act included electrocuting my sister for comic purposes. The show was otherwise very funny, said sis.

I agree. Felicity Ward's great and will go places fast. For the most part the performer, and not the audience, is the target of the comedy - ugly as a child, and poor and picked-on too. There are some hilarious and occasionally sad anecdotes, including a brilliant method of preparing Weet-Bix as devised by her scrimping mum. Ward has a sharp, snappy stage presence and veers off on enjoyable tangents without losing control of her material. There's been a bit of a buzz around her for a little while and if you miss her this time around, she'll probably be everywhere by the time the Comedy Fest rolls out next year.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS WERE

This is a decent number by Harley Breen inspired by the tales of mystery and imagination which inspired him as a child - usually stories of mythical creatures and strange lands. It begins with some lengthy but effective scenes more theatrical than stand-up: a Tom Waits song, a radio-play performed with fellow comic Oliver Clark, a Yeti story told by an old codger. The latter half is more straight, with Breen talking about where his fascination with story-telling comes from, and discussing the fantastic world of his own he invented when he was about 8. It consisted of 30-100 tiny robots only he could see... when he was in the toilet - sitting down, of course, because number ones would mean they could see his bits. His stories sometimes taper off, and the show hasn't really got an ending at all yet, but this is a fun warm-up for what could be a great Comedy Fest show.

MAX

Also ostensibly inspired by the classic "Where the Wild Things Are", but far less obviously. Actually, I'm not sure how the book came into this dance work. I do know that it uses the techniques taught by DEBORAH FRICKIN HAY. If that name means nothing to you, you probably won't get much from this show. If it does - DEBORAH FRICKIN HAY! It's an immensely difficult task to try to do Hay, and I think this short piece (20 mins) succeeds very well. It's challenging and extremely complex, but so is Hay's work. I spoke to her a few weeks ago and there was so much of the conversation that a) had me really excited and b) had me knowing I could never print it anywhere.

For example: "Well, for instance the very basic question that everyone I work with works with is ‘What if now is here?’ So that’s huge. It’s impossible to realise. It’s just a question that’s very exciting to contemplate but impossible to … you can’t answer it, because it’s already gone, but it’s so big that it’s so enjoyable to notice, the potential for it. And it’s such a healthy thing for a performer. What if now is here? Instead of the whole history of performing dance, so much of it is wanting to be some place or having to be in some place or some moment, the sense of aggrandisement and hierarchy in the tradition, but what if now IS here? So it’s sort of an example. And then you have to say what is ‘here’? And what is ‘now’?"

So. Hay isn't easy. And MAX is tough. But fun. And contains some astonishing dancing. And little old ladies tottering around in heels and serving tea. And long moments of stillness. And whole-body choreography. And

PINNED

PINNED is very much a work-in-progress - blurring autobiography with image theatre and live music, it contains some amazing sequences and strong themes that haven't yet gelled into a whole. It follows Fleur Dean's voyage to Seychelles where she met a real zombie, and that in itself is an amazing story. There are other moments of sinister sexual threat, potentially self-destructive foolhardiness, uncanny puppetry. These things don't always work together (or productively in contrast) but after some more development this promises to be a chilling, thoughtful piece.

Beaconsfield: The Musical
This isn't a review - I haven't seen Beaconsfield and doubt I can. Why not? Because it's only on three nights! In a 40-seat venue!

Hang on, is this the same Beaconsfield: the Musical that had all the media (except SBS) in an uproar yesterday and saw online commenters and talk-back radio nags rabbiting on about how disgraceful it was that some Fringey type was making a living from other people's misery? Yes, that's the one! The show with only 120 seats available for its entire run! Do a little math and you can tell that this was never going to be a money-making enterprise.

The focus of the satire is in fact the media circus which emerged around the Beaconsfield mining disaster, not the miners themselves, so it's really really funny that the same media has made a mountain out of this little molehill. Today Tonight wanted an interview, as did media from as far afield as Western Australia and New Zealand.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Herald-Sun, of all places, today gave the show a near-rave review, stating that it was totally respectful to all involved, and even Richard Carleton would have laughed at the song based around his death.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (7)

2008-10-06T22:54:00.002+11:00

THERE

I went in knowing nothing about this show and I hope you do too – it’s my next MUST-SEE shout out and it’s so surprising and invigorating that the only response is involuntary laughter, not because what you’re seeing is funny (although it frequently is) but because it’s so damn ingenious, intelligent and courageous. It’s (sort of) an ontological comedy about encounters with the worlds beyond the frame of our horizon – beginning very small, each sequence involves a sudden new attainment of consciousness in some sense which has the effect of a rapid zoom out… imagine staring at a small, lonely figure of rich detail, then realising it is part of a fascinating painted scene, then discovering the scene is just one part of a complex, Bosch-like painting, then seeing the painting amidst an entire gallery of works, then situating the gallery in a teeming city, then pulling back to see the planet upon which the city perches… you get the idea. This is an incredibly rewarding work. And like I said, it’s very, very funny.

NOTHING EXTRAORDINARY EVER HAPPENS IN TOOWOOMBA. (EVER).

There were a few tears in the audience after this gorgeous little solo performance ended. It’s hard not to like unless you’re terribly jaded and cynical. It’s a monologue by Sarah Collins which mythologises her hometown of Toowoomba in a recognisable way – the program notes name-check Muriel’s Wedding and Napoleon Dynamite but it’s not hard to spot the references. It follows a young boy named Kevin-John Vickery, whose main offence in life is ordinariness. He’s a typical comic outsider you’re supposed to empathise with and Collins does a great job building up the various characters who populate his world, from the remedial class teacher who hates her charges while feeling guilty about this resentment to K-J’s mother, perpetually shocked by her own very existence. It’s a very generous work with a beautiful script, though a few of the more obvious moments of whimsy could have been restrained a little. Certainly a very promising, feel-good production that should put Collins on the radar.

WILDE

The problem in “adapting” Oscar Wilde’s written works is that few performers can outdo the strengths of his texts themselves – this is a considered, creative rendition of three of Wilde’s short stories that doesn’t quite meet its goals, but is worth a look for the more literary types amongst you (I’m sure there are a few). The three performers have plenty going for them and handle the tales deftly and this is a heavily directed piece that remixes the original texts with a narrative that sees pivotal objects from each waiting at a train station for their moment of departure. The problem is that the stories of each, when they eventually appear, are just great – and you just want to get to them during the creative faffing around that borders each piece. Not that these moments aren’t well rendered; it’s just that the stories themselves overshadow the new material. Still, this is a strong work with a compelling cast that is probably worth catching by serious theatre folk.

TRUMAN JOSEPH’S NATURE BOX

This free-ish 10 minute series of lectures is one of those nifty Fringe breaks – each night sees a different topic incompetently handled by a comedian clearly unable to serve up much wisdom in his particular area of expertise, and the results are simple but enjoyable comedy. The lecture I attended – entitled “Sex and the Single Simian” was gentle fun, and the whole point of the exercise is to laugh at the ineptness of the speaker rather than anything else. If you’re at the Fringe Hub you can catch a performance between shows for a gold-coin donation, and at that price you certainly won’t be disappointed.

PHANTASMAGORIA

This movement piece is pretty gross. It’s like dance choreographed by David Cronenberg. There’s a dude up the back wailing on his axe like Ry Cooder while the performer manipulates his body into unimaginable shapes, isolating twitching muscle-groups in the hazy glow of purple and orange spotlights and causing his body to ripple in ways that defy comprehension. He’s bald, ripped and most hairless, and as he skitters around covered in sweat and dripping spit and snot he conjures up the image of a cave-dwelling organism that has never seen sunlight. It’s very powerful, in a confronting way, but the lack of levity or context makes for a hard viewing experience. It’s a lot like Angus Cerini’s work without the sense of humour or self-awareness – a post-human nightmare that’s hard to forget, but equally hard to embrace.

AN ACTOR PREPARES

There are moments of brilliant imagery in this piece which don’t add up to a satisfying whole – blending music and song with a monologue concerning an artist-turned-suicide-bomber, writer/performer James Adler never really produces the insight needed to have his audience understanding the motivations of an actor who ends up killing his onlookers as a political protest. The work leaps across genres, from cabaret to ridiculous pirate tale to sincere explication, but the result is muddled by this pastiche approach. It’s not a bad work by any means, but it’s still a process rather than a finished product.

SET LIST

The Set List crew are a musical impro act who produce their material from audience suggestions – each performance takes on a different genre of music to both satirise and pay homage to the form. My luck meant I turned up to the day of JAZZ! And as anyone knows, me and JAZZ! aren’t on speaking terms. Impro is a tough game, and I’ve always felt impro in both comedy and jazz is a bit of a macho game: “I can make magic happen on the spot! Just watch me! I do this ALL THE TIME!” Luckily the show turned out to be the manageable trad jazz I can handle and some decent blues and gospel numbers. It’s not the best impro I’ve seen, but at 4.30 on a Saturday this is a pleasing way to pass an hour. The audience were certainly willing to throw out suggestions, and I’d easily consider heading along to the next (non-JAZZ!) outing.

SHOWS YOU’VE MISSED

SAMMY J'S 50 YEAR SHOW
I’ll be back in 5 years, without a doubt. A charming, ambitious concept that turned out better than I’d expected.

KILL THE ENGINE
Great little dance piece – ten minutes long – from a performer with an endearing shyness who nevertheless had the guts to create a solo dance for the Fringe. Hard not to like.

THE LONELY INSTRUMENT
CWA meets Angela Carter. Interesting, but needs further work. Great sound design and strong performances, but the scope of the piece hasn’t been fully realised yet.

NZAMBI NZAMBI
Ha ha ha. Stupid, stupid zombie short from Tasmania that had plenty of good-bad moments. Doesn’t take itself at all seriously, and ends up with plenty of laughs as a result.

DEAF CAN DANCE – THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE
A worthy ambition that hasn’t found its feet so far – the company will be worth watching as it develops the distinctive choreographic style hinted at here.

WEB
Dance piece employing performers with and without disabilities – slow beginning, but at least a handful of truly powerful moments. Not at the Back to Back/Rawcus level at all, but as this company develops there should be some excellent work appearing.

FRINGE GARDEN
Who would have thought I’d spend at least an hour hanging with Vietnamese gardeners from a commission flat in Richmond? Not me. This was awesome fun, though, and will hopefully return next year.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (6)

2008-10-03T15:13:00.003+10:00

I tried to catch Love Letter at Bar Open last night but there were timetabling issues so I had to scoot before it began. It looked promising. Also, a bee had gotten into the upstairs space and one of the performers was allergic to bee stings so a helpful bartender had nicked off to get some insect repellent and flyspray and stuff, which was very considerate. I'll try to see the show later on.

THE LIST OPERATORS

These two guys are already firmly on the "to watch" lists and tear through an excellent hour of witty comedy here. Richard Higgins and Matt Kelly play the eponymous fellows who make lists of things. Pretty simple premise done very well - think "Countries it is ok to be racist about" or "10 Alternative Ways to Start the Show". The list thing is a nice hook that sometimes disappears from view before swimming back into sight unexpectedly, and both guys have great comic timing as well as an obvious understanding of the character dynamics of two-man comedy, Kelly playing the loveable idiot to Higgins' clever bastard. Definitely recommended.

THE LAST BUCKET OF WATER

During the curtain call for this show, Adam McKenzie called out "Go see lots of Fringe! It's an amazing year!" That was pretty heart-warming, hearing performers support others in a general "see everything!" way. This is a fun little number, too - the three comics (McKenzie, Robby Lloyd and Tegan Higginbotham) play themselves in charge of the last bucket of water left in an unspecified future (muddled even more when they keep playing on the fact that they're actually just doing a Fringe show in the North Melbourne Town Hall). It all starts out in a pretty nerdalicious way, with video sequences and gags that require some knowledge of Lost to understand, but the performers are at their best when they go off-script - which is pretty often. McKenzie especially shines in this, and with two relative "straight men" to play off he serves up some hefty belly laughs. The overall concept isn't stunning, but this is a clear crowd-pleaser from beginning to end.

HAMMER-PANTS-A-PALOOZA

I had to check this out for the name alone and the brief while I was there was worth it. It was a vaguely hip-hoppy night of comedy and dancing and stuff at the Fringe Club, and I caught Nazeem Hussain from Fear of a Brown Planet (I think he was MCing the night) as well as Julz & Dragonfly (Elbow Room) and the krumping guys from Urban AfterShock (I think they're called DC Crew, but I could be wrong). I was especially impressed to see that this last group were proper krumpers - between choreographed ensemble bits to the likes of the Jackson 5 and Grease, they pulled out freestyle solo routines that were completely different to the performances I saw at Urban AfterShock. I wish I could have stuck around longer, but hey. I'm on a schedule.

Meanwhile, with a big night ahead, here's a bit of a musical interlude as we hit mid-Fringe. It's a piece of Italo Disco trash that made me feel like I should be strapped to my chair with my eyes forced open a la Clockwork Orange. Callous murder? Check. Sudden Fat Baby? Inexplicable Tron-Skull? Migraine-Inducing Montages Featuring Spaghetti and The Pope? Triple check. It has to be seen to be believed and don't skip through it. Den Harrow, whoever you are, I salute you with a trembling, post-traumatic paw.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (5)

2008-10-02T01:00:00.002+10:00

SCATTERED TACKS

The three performers here are circus-trained but to call this a circus show would be an injustice. It’s performance art of the most compelling sort and when twenty minutes in I uncrossed my legs the relatively loud rustle produced made me realise that nobody in the audience had so much as taken a breath until now. My show-buddy’s watch was audible throughout the show.

This is one of those reinventing-the-genre pieces that are hardly ever witnessed, and I can’t commend it highly enough. Performed in almost total darkness for the most part – an eye-opening bit of house-lights-up aside – it’s simply stunning. I’d heard high praise about the show before I attended, including an overheard conversation on Brunswick St today in which a punter raved about the show to two friends – and the reports proved worthy. If any show this Fringe is going to stop your heart, this is it. I mean that in a “seek medical advice if symptoms persist” way.

MYSTERIES OF THE CONVENT 08

‘Site-specific’ is an over-used term these days – any show is site-specific, in a way. This production shows how it’s done. A subtle narrative is developed during a tour of the Abbotsford Convent in which performance, puppetry, live music and history lessons are interwoven to produce a tapestry that leaves its audience marvelling. It’s a slow-build, but worth it, and the performances are top-notch. As the audience is guided through a vast, historically laden complex, attention is commanded in a deft way that never seems heavy-handed. It’s a melancholy refrain that haunts the mind for some time.

THE TALKING VAGINA

This is a proudly stupid show that puts laughs well ahead of anything else, and mostly delivers on that front. It follows a woman with a talking vagina and wanders off into all sorts of unexpected territory. It’s one of those shows where you’re not sure if you’re laughing with or at the proceedings, but there’s a strong sense that it’s revelling in its own wrongness. Given a week it should mature into the kind of sharp, confident piece it promises to be – one for the cool kids who enjoy not knowing if they’re supposed to be laughing or not. Not so much for those who want their responses prompted by the production itself. Because lord knows, it’s a freaking weird piece of theatre.

LAST TUESDAY SOCIETY

BLINKERS

Here’s an unexpectedly sweet Kiwi dramedy that practically screams “QUIRKY” like a late-night ad for an Exhibition Centre run-out sale on quirkiness. The two-hander revolves around the meeting of two neighbours – as opposite a pair as you could imagine. Amy seems to have been raised by alcoholic wolves, nettle-haired and wild-eyed and able to speak only in whisky-fuelled rockstar rantings. Downstairs, pole-arsed Monty is a socks-and-sandals kind of fella maintaining an unhealthy obsession with horses. Their eventual meeting is too slow coming, but ends up more than the painfully whimsical steeplechase fall I’d expected, and the final moments of this show really got me, especially a beautifully fragile song that comes from nowhere. The two performers are clearly well-trained and while it’s not thigh-slapping stuff, it’s a gently affecting piece that deserves kudos.

FRINGE TRIVIA

Hmmm. I don’t know if this counts as a ‘show’ – I don’t even know if there’s an official name for this event but I ended up there and had a cracking good time. For the past six years Fringe has hosted a trivia night where arts-related organisations square up a table of their finest brains to see who has the real chops in the smarts department. That’s a ridiculous sentence and may help explain why we ended up around the middle of the leaderboard. Still, MIAF came last for the first time ever. Host Alan Lovett was brilliant, and the guest for his music round was Andrew McLelland in top form doing beatbox/a cappella renditions of vaguely familiar tunes. The Comedy Festival team won by a mile, which didn’t surprise me, and RRR came in an honourable second. Good times, good times.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (4)

2008-10-01T12:53:00.000+10:00

WAR LOUNGE

This is my first MUST-SEE Fringe recommendation for anyone serious about theatre, performance or art in Melbourne. It’s an astonishingly accomplished and mature collaboration that can’t really be categorised, and any description would just be a spoiler. It’s also one of those rare moments where I wondered “how do I not know of these people already?” Oh well, you’ll be hearing from them in the future.

WILL WORK FOR FOOD/LET'S TALK TO THE SPIRITS YES NO MAYBE PERHAPS WHY NOT?

Last time I laced up the boots for a round in the ring with Nick Sun, he rope-a-doped me with a solid hour of anti-comedy in which many chairs were thrown in my general direction. I mean that literally: he was throwing chairs. Sun hit the big-time when he was just a teen, and after a couple of years of being feted as the Best Comedy Around he seemed to turn on the hand that fed him and reject the whole guy-telling-jokes-for-money thing by delivering increasingly challenging shows. By "challenging" I mean Sun hidden behind a couch apologising into a microphone for the debacle that was his show. For an hour.

Well bless my nippers, bless them all day long.

The Sun has risen once again. This new show is just as chaotic and anarchic as his last outing, but rather than being anti-everything it seems to create a strange sense of community in its audience. I say community, you might say cult. Either way, it's a weirdly positive experience that even Sun himself seemed surprised by on opening night.

It's still a dark show, but only in the literal sense. Sun turned the lights so low that the room was barely visible. The premise is simple: comedy doesn't pay, so he's doing a show based on the barter system. Bring food, clothes, whatever to pay for your ticket. Most importantly, feel free to offer a couch for Sun to sleep on for the night - he mentioned that he wanted to keep a log of the various strangers that paid for the show with basic lodgings, but I don't know if Melbourne audiences are yet ready to give a guy a room in exchange for making them laugh.

I thought most audience members would bring booze or crap food and that Sun might die from malnutrition, so I ended up offering some Mega B Vitamins I picked up on the way to the show. How this led to a moment in which three strangers on all fours ate vitamins from a cushion in the centre of the darkened room while Sun channelled the spirit of Megabe (brother of Mugabe) over an ambient soundtrack is a bit beyond me. The audience also shared a few bottles of wine people had brung along, some chocolate, and Sun read a bit from a book he was given. A heaps good show.

DAVID QUIRK – KATHLEEN GRACE

I first saw this show at this year’s Comedy Fest and was more than happy to check it out again. It’s a solid hour of exceedingly dark stand-up delivered by a genuinely likeable guy who isn’t out to offend, just really wants to think hard about some very taboo topics. It’ll likely shock, but in a positive way, and there’s a brilliant piece of Hall & Oates used to turn the mood around at one particular point – in fact, this bit is very clever manipulation of his audience, as is the final moment of the show. Quirk comes across as loose and spontaneous in his delivery, but I’m beginning to realise that he’s very much in control of his material and the way his audience respond to it.

SEAMSTRESS

This is a lovely little series of five solo dance pieces responding to costume and clothing. It’s held in the Thread Den in North Melbourne, an indie boutique which holds sewing classes and showcases unknown fashioneers, which makes it the perfect spot for a show like this. It’s quirky, funny, sometimes a bit chilling but mostly enjoyable. There’s a real freshness to the performers and the pieces don’t outstay their welcome. Given the coolness of the whole project and the tiny space, though, it was bound to be a sellout from the outset.

URBAN AFTERSHOCK PROJECT

This was a one-off dance/music extravaganza featuring about 60 performers wowing a very appreciative audience. I wish the audience had been bigger, but they were certainly vocal in their enjoyment. In fact I think everyone left this show with a massive grin on their dial. Hard not to enjoy a dance battle between traditional Ethiopian dancers and self-choreographed krumping kids, or a team of teens pulling off slightly awkward RnB routines with no hint of self-consciousness. I think the event was mostly organised by Azmarino from Melbourne band Diafrix, and he deserves a massive amount of respect for getting it off the ground.

FULL TILT: THE TALK SHOW

Azmarino was also one of the guests at this one-off – a panel discussion about the state of Australian hip-hop mixed in with performances from MCs, a b-boy and a DJ. The speakers came from all kinds of backgrounds and the one thing uniting them was an intense passion about the topics discussed, from hip-hop and indigenous Australians to the poor media coverage of the scene’s diversity. DJ Peril, who has been in the business for 25 years, brought up the way commercial radio restricts playlists to only two or three labels, and Azmarino made a compelling case about the latent racism involved in newspaper reportage on hip-hop in Australia. The overall consensus seemed to be that scattered communities need to work together to raise the genre’s profile, rather than treating each other as competition, and Peril’s call for a return to the days when hip-hop was a big party – rather than a business – seemed to sum it up pretty well.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (3)

2008-09-29T14:53:00.002+10:00

THE HEART OF ANOTHER IS A DARK FOREST

Everyone knows I love Rawcus’ work and most other people who’ve seen them do too. This is their collaboration with Adelaide’s Restless Dance Theatre and the two are just about the best companies around, for sure. I’ve written about this show at length elsewhere and will do so again so I won’t get into the details here. In short, I didn’t have as much of an emotional reaction to this production as I did to previous ones but it was a much more intellectually provocative show. It’s over now, so bad luck. I think it will tour to Adelaide next year, maybe.

Just like I did yesterday. For real. I can’t believe I squeezed an interstate trip into my 80 show schedule. What a moron.

ALL ABOARD THE FIZZY TRAIN

Someone told me they weren’t seeing this show because it looked like an kids’ party show. I suppose it sort of is, but only in the best, best possible way. It’s three smart young ladies boldly venturing into difficult territory – think Mighty Boosh-style post-surrealism with junkyard theatre homemade props. I only make the Boosh comparison because it’s the closest thing I can think of to the tune of Fizzy Train’s narrative (which of course never makes mention of any fizzy train). Wildly digressive, self-referential, sometimes very clever and sometimes consciously stupid. Actually, a lot like Pig Island too now that I think of it so there’s another comparison for ya. Like Pig Island’s Simply Fancy, Fizzy Train follows a quest – this time it’s a girl sent by her iron to save his son (played by a smaller iron) and so on and so forth. Also like Simply Fancy, the plot here is just something to hang a great show on. The trio play it straight, which is what makes it work, and they’ve got some super-sharp comic skills. Even when they’re not being laugh-out-loud funny, they seem very likeable, in that Josie Long/Lawrence Leung kind of way. Wooshers, now the comparisons won’t stop. Borders on the twee if you’re only into the dark stuff, but for anyone else this is a highlight of the fest.

ZOETROPE

Short (as in ten minutes short) little piece of dance/physical theatre/installation/something on at the Fringe Hub – a fiver will get you into a tiny picket-fence-hemmed pen around which two performers play out a series of scenes. There’s a roaring 20s flapper-vibe to the thing, but the actual scenarios range from jumping rope to shooting up. I’ve seen this twice and I’m still not entirely sure what the thread connecting the different sequences are, but a friend suggested that it’s a physical connection – ie the links are movement-based rather than depending on a more abstract logic. Quite a few centre on the way people have gotten their kicks over the ages, but I think that was me making connections which were incidental. Anyway, very cute show that, given the location, duration and cost, should be seen by everyone.

POLYESTER BLENDERS

Community choirs aren’t really for me. Are the Polyester Blenders technically a community choir? Beats the pee out of me. They’re a choir, maybe 40 strong or so, and they do a cappella versions of songs like “Just Can’t Get Enough”. I guess they do them competently, but like I say, the whole genre isn’t for me. ‘Tis what it is, really.

HITLERHOFF

There are few things in this universe more

POWERFUL STARE OF IAN MCKELLEN

And that’s my review. I would like to discuss this show with others. It’s very good that way.

HALFWAY ACROSS THE RIVER

This is a play - like a play play. It's very serious and has people acting and is about important themes. Emily survived a car crash that she wasn't supposed to (I don't know what that means but when her sister put it to her that way, I thought it was a little harsh). A few months after the near-death experience she feels like a walking corpse and has trouble communicating with her friends and family. She doesn't eat and can't leave the house. We know these things because people keep telling us. Actually, they keep telling Emily (see sister's comment above) which is what we in the Biz call over-explication. There's a lot of telling rather than showing in this show. And I always worry a little when a character says "Listen to yourself! You sound like a bad soap opera!" This usually ends up as unintentionally ironic. The cast give this script a good bash but it's not really my cup, given the very serious way everything is handled. It might appeal to those looking for some straight up capital-D Drama, though.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (2)

2008-09-26T17:22:00.002+10:00

TEAM LOKO - HUMAN GRAFFITI

I have no idea where this Team Loko outfit has come from. I don't know how to describe what they do, either - kind of breakdancing circus gymnastic stunts. They’re a bunch of buffed up guys and girls who do some really amazing physical stuff on a purpose-built scaffold in Fed Square. They’re eye-bogglingly fit – think push-ups without your feet touching the ground – and there’s no way you could failed to be awed by at least a good handful of their routines. They’re also pretty cool, and really seem to enjoy what they’re doing rather than being all proud and show-offy about it. It’s free.

TRACE ELEMENTS - DROP AND ROLL

This thing made me want to be able to go back to the early 90s when you could say “you the man!” or “you the bomb!” with impunity and regardless of whether the subject was in fact male and/or a bomb. Not that it’s dated or retro, but it reminded me of that era since that was when I was coming across a bunch of new performance styles I’d never seen before, and didn’t quite know what to make of, but found really exciting.

Drop and Roll is parkour, and if you’ve seen any action movie in the last five years you’ll have seen a bit of that. If you don’t know what it is, google it. Trace Elements are apparently Australia’s best exponents of the French sport/art/something, which is all about reimagining our relationship to the urban space, the efficient body, velocity and so on. It’s not as immediately impressive as Human Graffiti (they share the same space) but that’s mainly because I – and most people, I guess – don’t yet have the vocabulary to understand everything that’s going on here. There’s a whole philosophy behind parkour (and its offshoot, free-running) that’s worth looking up. In the meantime, check this show out – it’s still really strong stuff. It’s also free.

POINT OF SEPARATION

This dance piece started half an hour after the stated starting time but was only about 15 minutes long and was – yes – free, so things kind of even out I suppose. It’s pure, abstract dance performed by three dancers, choreographed by someone else. If you like pure, abstract dance you’ll enjoy this – it’s a good, bite-sized fix, kind of like a Milky Way, and like I said it’s FREE. If abstract dance isn’t already your thing, it probably won’t convert you. Some people just don’t dig Milky Ways. It’s by Myrtle Tree dance company, who I think are new.

ADAM VINCENT - ADAMVILLE

Shock comedy sucks. It's easy and it's rarely funny. When Adam Vincent mentioned that he'd be talking about mostly 'wrong' stuff, I began to silently mouth the code phrase that slams the door of my mental panic room ("Fleamarket. Montgomery. It's Just Like. A Mini-mall.") This gig turned out to be brilliant, however, because Vincent is intelligent and handsome and well-intentioned and wears a very smart suit. He covers some seriously tricky territory and on an off-night this could turn out badly. But he won the house from the get-go in this early outing, and had me laughing hard at material that - in the wrong hands - would have had me heading for the door. I was well impressed. It's free, too, and as good as some of the top-priced Comedy Festival acts. Highly recommended, folks.

Around the Fringe in 80 Shows (1)

2008-09-25T14:30:00.002+10:00

So I made a calendar of 83 shows I thought I could get to at this year’s Melbourne Fringe (launched yesterday). I mentioned this to a friend and he said “Hey, it’s like Around the Fringe in 80 Shows”. Oh, I think you dropped something. WAIT, IS THAT A GAUNTLET? I accept the challenge. I’ll try to write up 80 capsule reviews here in the next three weeks.

THRILL! at the SIZZLING NEW ART I encounter!!!
MARVEL! at the pointless AMBITION of my task!!!
GASP! as my writing becomes increasingly erratic and HYSTERICAL!!!!
SKIM! the reviews for the BEST BITS!!!

And so:

RHYTHM AND RUNNERS

This tap-dance/hip-hop encounter is jaw-droppingly good in a So You Think You Can Dance way (I mean both the Australian AND US versions!) Short story: if you know where the following clip comes from you MUST see this show.

That’s right – I don’t make comparisons to Step Up 2: The Streets lightly, you know. In the world of dance movies with an imperative affirmation in the title (see the original Step Up, Bring It On, Stick It, Stomp the Yard, or the INCREDIBLE-in-a-bad-way Make It Happen) Step Up 2 is at the top of the tree.

Rhythm and Runners is up there too. If you enjoy high-energy, wide-appeal dance, you’ll love this. It’s not contemporary dance as you’d expect, though for the dance-literate there are innovations in here. For everyone else, there’s a bit where a performer does a tap slide across the floor then drops down INTO THE SPLITS WHILE STILL SLIDING AND THEN SLIDES BETWEEN THE LEGS OF FOUR PEOPLE WHILE STILL DOING THE SPLITS before snapping back up into a standing position. Even if you know nothing about dance, that is totally awesome.

JUSTINE SLESS - NORTH BY NORTHEAST

When I saw a preview of this show – a preview, note (end disclaimer) – I thought I might be watching someone performing in front of an audience for the first time ever. It turns out she’s been doing comedy for a couple of years, and in a couple more I think she might have a good act down. At the moment it’s very patchy and she has a habit of constantly highlighting her own shortcomings. What’s odd is that this is an ok show if you don’t treat it as “comedy” – just as one woman reminiscing about stuff that happened in her life. There doesn’t seem to be a strong thread linking things, and often they’re not particularly funny, just, you know, there. She does seem likeable, though, and you want encourage her at the end. She’s just not there yet.

The funniest part of the night – and I had a good ol’ LOL at this point – was when Sless had a book of bad poems she'd written as a teenager. You can imagine the sort. She gave them to an audience member and asked her to read one out loud at random. It was nicely emo and angsty and we laughed at it a bit, and the whole idea of letting your teenaged self be humiliated by someone else was a great touch.

Then the woman in the audience reading goes "awww, you've signed it with a kiss!"

And Sless says "what?"

And the woman says "See, you've written a little X at the bottom."

Beat.

Audience member: "That or you can't sign your name."

ZIIIIING!!!

NIGHT OF THE DEVIL ZOMBIES

This interactive zombie experience is an hour of fun – audiences are locked in a large room while a zombie outbreak spreads across the city outside. It’s at the tongue-in-cheek, cheesy end of the horror scale rather than the gross-out nightmare stuff, and it helps when the audience gets involved whole-heartedly. In fact, I sort of wanted more of that – less dialogue and more shocks and running around, but I still enjoyed the result. The performances are silly, which isn’t so bad considering it’s a schlock zombie show. It’s all for a good cause too.

THE ANTECHAMBER

This is a hugely ambitious piece of experimental theatre that doesn’t quite achieve its intentions – or maybe it does. I think the problem is in the choice of actors, who don’t seem to really get what writer/director Tony Reck is aiming for – that or he hasn’t quite sorted out the difficulties the work inherently presents. It’s an Aussie hardboiled story of menace and drugs and murder given a serious David Lynch roughing-up, so it appears that Reck is trying to create an uncanny, nightmarish experience where reality and the interior landscape can’t be separated. The performers either over- or under-act, though, which kind of adds to the weirdness of the proceedings, but there’s enough of a narrative that you’re grasping for more. Which is kind of the point, I think, but this is definitely the show intended for those who want to be challenged on an intellectual level and left to make sense of it yourself. It’s not that you’re thinking “what the hell is going on?”, so much as “why is it being presented this way?” Dissatisfaction is an interesting artistic goal with a history of its own, but this piece isn’t going to be for everyone.

An Entabled Moment

2008-09-17T23:12:00.004+10:00

Last night I was walking home through the park after a play. It was late-dark. I saw a police car driving down my street with lights flashing. A figure was sprinting away on a side street and as the police car reached the corner the figure slowed to a non-conspicuous amble and disappeared down an alley. The paddy wagon turned into the park and drove slowly.

I followed the police car into the park.

Walking through the park I saw discarded clothes – hoodies and parkas lying on benches. The police car had stopped somewhere up ahead and I saw a cluster of angry figures yelling at each other. I heard a helicopter overhead. Back on my street another three police cars had arrived and were heading towards me. Somewhere beyond them was a man running. I probably shouldn’t have entered the darkest area of the park. I went home and locked the back door for the first time in a year.

Today I was sitting in the back park – the other one behind my house – and it was sunny and aggressively kind. I saw an envelope flying 100 feet above the ground a long way away. It was fluttering well above tree-level in the front park and I got up to find it. I made a beeline through the streets to the park I’d run from the night previously and stood looking for the white paper dancing in the breeze. Who was this letter for? Where had it gone? I never found it, and probably looked like a fool standing in the middle of the park staring at the sky.
I did find a cool white stone which I took home. It might make a good paperweight, which is a saddening waypoint in anything’s existence.

Some of your letters will never reach their destination. Our finitude defines us.

What will you say? A living man spoke these lines? He sharpened a quill with his small pen knife to scribe these things in sloe or lampblack? At some reckonable and entabled moment? He is coming to steal my eyes. To seal my mouth with dirt.

Handy Tip

2008-09-10T22:09:00.005+10:00

Hey everyone, I just thought I'd drop one of those handy life tips on ya that you know I'm always good for. One of those little things you pick up along the way, you know? Like using a capful of vinegar to get out stubborn stains or not wearing shoes to bed.

So anyway: if you're walking along the street and someone just stops you on the street and says to you "hey, what did you think of that new Red Stitch play Red Sky Morning by Tom Holloway?" and you're thinking "what the f*** is this person talking to me about at this moment?" and they're staring at you expectantly waiting for an answer and things are maybe getting a bit awkward (maybe not?) but you want to say something because this person may have some kind of control over a funding body in your area of work, then here's what you can do:

You say "well I read that Born Dancin' used the term PLAY OF THE YEAR."

Also, if you are somehow involved in this play you can use the words "PLAY OF THE YEAR" attributed to my regular earthling name as these words might appear in print at some point in the future somewhere surrounded on either side by other words.

Just a handy tip!

Next week: Glove Box Essentials!

Word

2008-09-09T20:01:00.006+10:00

Today I saw a man walking through the park with a steaming mug of coffee or some other hot drink which produces steam. I was sitting there and he walked right on past me and out of sight. It reminded me of the time a guy got on the tram with a large bowl of tasty-looking risotto. Not a take-away container - an honest-to-goodness ceramic bowl probably worth about twenty bucks from House or a bit less from IKEA. This was a home-cooked meal somebody had made which was now being eaten on public transport.

In both instances, what gave me a faraway stare (which could easily be confused for some kind of petit mal) was wondering about the A to B trajectories of these people. They're not like the woman who sometimes sits in the park with a mug of cocoa and then takes her empty vessel back home. She's just having a break. The man with the mug was going somewhere. He left a point where it was possible to make a nice blue mug of hot something and was going somewhere that would accommodate a fellow turning up with said drink. The risotto experience is more to the point - if I made a nice big bowl of risotto here at home, I can't imagine taking it on a tram anywhere. I could catch a tram a few stops to a friend's house, but then I'd be standing there with a big dirty bowl and no excuses. I kind of wish I was the sort of person to make a nice meal and then walk through the streets eating it, safe in the knowledge that my destination had a sink.

This post is going nowhere, so here's something else.

I was thinking today about a day I had not so long ago where I said one word. 24 hours, and I only said one word.

It was after I'd arrived in Handa city in Japan. Handa isn't really a city. It's more like Doncaster. I had to spend a few days there on my own.

Handa's claim to fame is that certain streets smell like vinegar due to the centuries-old vinegar factories which still operate in the area. As I was walking the streets of Handa I suddenly thought "hey, there's that vinegar smell they go on about in the local tourism websites" and knew this was probably a thought I would never have anywhere else in the world. Handa hasn't got a lot going for it.

One day in Handa I decided to walk up a hill. It was a pretty steep hill lined with nondescript houses and the occasional shop. After about half an hour of walking I found myself in a park and in the park I found a monkey enclosure. This wasn't a zoo. It was a local park, smaller than a Melbourne city block, but for some reason there was a big cage with a couple of monkeys hanging around scratching themselves. Next door was a series of pens housing bored-looking ducks and a flamingo. That was all. It was a nice park, otherwise.

Then I kept walking along through the streets at the top of this hill. The houses were pretty and many had big carp kites to celebrate Children's Day. At one point a very old woman rode past on a bike and said "konichiwa". I said "konichiwa".

That was the only word I said that day.

The Things I Have Seen

2008-09-08T15:40:00.003+10:00

I have seen 101 live performances this year, not including music (and film, obviously, which is not live except in a sense that is too boring to discuss here).

That's heaps.

[edited to add this wonderful companion piece to the above:]

In the hour or two since writing this post, I've realised that there have been shows that I honestly would have liked to review by simply posting one of these videos.