Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 23rd July 2008
Detractors of the cinematic long take may have been limbering their lungs in preparation for post-curtain huffing and puffing at the South Melbourne Town Hall on Friday night. They needn’t have bothered; for one thing, there was no curtain.
Claudio Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea (L’incoronazione di Poppea), is the sobering yet playful treatment of the events preceding the acsension to the throne of Poppaea Sabina, second wife of Roman Emperor Nero. Though staged by Victorian Opera unabridged and in mean tone – replicating insofar as was musically possible the opera’s 1643 Venice premiere – this production was by no means a period affair. (more…)
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 21st July 2008
If it were up to Mark Woods, all Australian film producers could build a bridge and get over it. As it is, only 64 are registered for 2008.
This figure is still substantial when one considers that at Melbourne International Film Festival’s 37South: Bridging the Gap, the selected filmmakers will battle it out through the canny use of scheduling to secure 20-minute audiences with as many of the 39 local and international film financiers or buyers in attendance as their celluloid hearts may desire. (more…)
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 7th July 2008
Beijing, Berlin, Birmingham, Marseille… Brisbane? If not for the French port city, anyone out of the loop could be forgiven for suspecting that Billboard’s annual Top 5 International Music Hotspots may in fact be compiled alphabetically, and that 2007 was B’s time to shine.
Before the surprise prompts a date with Botox, however, consider this: while the east coast’s self-crowned monarchs, Sydney and Melbourne, bicker over their respective merits and vie for the compliant adoration of the remainder of the populus, their northerly sister has been quietly grooming herself as the one most likely, accumulating citizens like the other two are going out of style. (more…)
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 16th June 2008
The 2008 Biennale of Sydney will be spinning to the theme of Revolutions – Forms That Turn. Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev explains how art makes her world go around.
Even filtered through lengths of fibre-optic cable, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s entire being seems in perpetual motion – of thought, deed and, one imagines, gesture. (more…)
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 10th June 2008
Sydney Film Festival kicked off last week with an Opening Night Gala screening of Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, a lot of red carpet and almost as much bling. Clare Stewart tells us how a spoonful of glam helps the Festival go down.
Sydney Film Festival’s Executive Director Claire Stewart sounds as though she has contingency plans in her pockets and a limber stride in which to take all eventualities. One wonders whether she’s having perpetual flashbacks to the opening night film. More likely is that said film sets the tone for an exceptional year of a now quite literally extraordinary Australian film festival. (more…)
