Arts and Culture
2011
Write now for Right Now
Monday, September 5 2011
Law is something that very few people find interesting. Making issues like human rights accessible to the public is a pretty hard brief, but it’s a task University of Melbourne Arts/Law student Andre Dao has taken on as Editor-in-Chief of Right Now.
Interview: Jess Kapuscinski-Evans
Monday, September 5 2011
Adapting and reinterpreting Shakespeare is fraught territory—it is either lauded or panned. There is a certain sense of ownership to his words that initiates a defensive reflex when we hear they are being re-imagined into a new context. Jessica Kapuscinski-Evans is a brave woman in more ways than one in tackling perennial favourite A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There is a fearlessness in her direct gaze as she enthuses about the many and varied additions and edits she has made to the script. Whilst only six months has passed since she started writing, this adaptation has been kicking about for years. This is reflected in the considered complexity of her vision.
Review: Spilt Milk (by Scratch & Sniff)
Monday, September 5 2011
It was a sunny Open Day Sunday with a lot of people and balloons at the University of Melbourne…and I spent it stalking two clowns for half an hour.
Mudfest: Some Background
Monday, September 5 2011
Mudfest has grown to become a biannual highlight on the University of Melbourne events calendar. It has hosted countless student artists and in recent years has incorporated anything from a car covered in candle wax as an installation to people living in a caravan in North Court. It is incredibly diverse, a veritable kaleidoscope of potential. There is very little to reign in your creativity when you have a platform… or once you have a platform… or if you have a platform.
Review: Poetry Double Bill (feat. Bronwyn Lovell and Darren Parker)
Monday, September 5 2011
Bronwyn Lovell’s “Poetic Delights” and Darren Parker’s “Mura Gadi Nengi Bamir Gindanha: Pathways for searching to see far laughing’ couldn’t have been more stylistically different if they tried. The readings were performed in the same room—in Mudclub, with pretty lights and colourful fabrics covering the ceiling—but both put the audience in completely different places.
Top Ten Mudfest Moments
Monday, September 5 2011
1. A teamwork exercise during the first entire Mudteam meeting reveals that a high proportion of Mudfest volunteers are “anal-retentive, obsessive, highly-strung and prone to making lists”.
Shaun William Ryder—XXX: Thirty Years of Bellyaching (Warner)
Monday, August 22 2011
The name Shaun William Ryder might be a mouthful, but it should stick in your head, and not just because he uses it as a lyric in the second track on this career retrospective.
Interview with Jonathan Ware, director and co-writer of Peter Pan and Wendy.
Monday, August 22 2011
We all know the traditional story of Peter Pan, the never-aging boy who lives in Neverland; however, Johnny Ware’s adaptation of Peter Pan and Wendy is in no way “traditional”. I caught up with Jonathan Ware, the creative mind behind International House’s highly anticipated musical, Peter Pan and Wendy.
Review: Mixtape
Monday, August 15 2011
Firstly, I’m a huge fan of mix-tapes. They make me warm and fuzzy with nostalgia of life before iTunes and illegal downloading. It was all about waiting for your favourite song on the radio and perfecting ninja-like reflexes to stop recording before the ads cut in. So when I first heard about Mixtape, a compilation CD of upcoming Australian artists and their mentors from youth music organizations FReeZAcentral and The Push, I hoped that the positive associations wouldn’t be tarnished. They weren’t.
Review: Rain on the Humming Wire
Monday, August 15 2011
The Panics’ fourth album Rain on the Humming Wire is flush with the polished production that distinguished the sound of its predecessor Cruel Guards, and garnered that third album some well-deserved acclaim. Evoking Brit-rock acts such as Manic Street Preachers and Elbow, the Perth five-piece fittingly chose to record in Manchester—and were apparently influenced by the colonial history of the mother country as much as her music.