Sunday Arts Magazine

11 Oct 2015

Music as Storytelling, Australian Surrealism, Strange Fruit

Arts, Music, Performing Arts, TV & Film, Visual Arts

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Inaugural 2 hour show today, starting an hour earlier i.e.3pm and going till 5pm. For any newcomers, David describes the show as aryty-farty with a sense of humour and that they cover all forms of arts and have a variety of guests coming in. He advises any artists wanting to be on the show to go to the website and use the email address there.
David and Daniel discuss Australian films and the Adelaide Arts Festival and at the end of the show David briefly talks about Adele and her new album coming out in November.

Special guests today are:

(14:22 to 30:13 mins) Mary Lou Jelbart — the artistic director of fortyfivedownstairs is here to talk about CANZONE – Music as Storytelling a show they have on as part of the Melbourne Arts Festival. It is a beautiful combination of art and music–both inspired by Venetian composer Monteverdi (1567-1643). An exhibition of giant artworks from Melbourne artist Angela Cavalieri are displayed (until 24th October) and in the same space will be musical performances from a contemporary interpretation of Monteverdi’s music (Variations)by Press Play and a classical rendering (Cantations) by harpsichordist Jonathan O’Donnell and Madrigal singers. 13-15 October and 20-22 October at 3 or 5pm. Mary Lou talks about how the show came about, the ideal space of fortyfivedownstairs as well as its its role, and why the shows are on in the daytime.

(30:57 to 68:22 mins) Simon Maidment is Curator of Contemporary Art at NGV and Elena Taylor is Curator of the Historical Australian Collection at NGV. They’re in to talk about an exhibition that has just started—Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes—from 9th October 2015 to 31st January 2016 at NGV Australia at Federation Square. This is a major paid Summer show and explores historical and contemporary relationships to surrealism in Australia. David has seen the exhibition and was most impressed by the volume of work shown. There are over 80 artists and about 230 artworks. Simon and Elena talk about surrealism in relation to politicism, Freud, trauma of the World Wars, challenging societal oppression, the relevance of old works to today, the wry humour and playfulness, absurdity, darkness and beauty and role in shaping the culture. Our guest also talks about their backgrounds, the NGV itself, NGV publications and their own art preferences.

(68:30 to 87:08 mins) Trev and Angie are from Strange Fruit, a Melbourne-based international company that are celebrating their 21st anniversary. Even so not many Melbournians know about them! Their shows are FREE and are a mixture of aerial, dance, acting, circus, clowning and telling a story. They perform on top of 5-metre high flexible poles which sway and rotate. They are harnessed to the pole by their thighs. They virtually ‘mime’ to tell a story with sharp, direct movements that linger. They are larger than life and have bright theatrical costumes. Strange Fruit have performed in 54 different countries and many times, in Big events. They’ll be doing free shows at Foxtel Festival Hub on 17th and 24th October and have a segment in a Festival show called Limbo which has many different performers on from 9th October to 1st November in the Spiegeltent.