Sunday Arts Magazine

23 Apr 2017

This Is Eden, National Th, Tim Lennox, Yirramboi, (Not)AdamSteve

Arts, Arts Festival, Dance, Heritage, Indigenous, LGBTIQ, Music, Performing Arts, Photography, Visual Arts

Fiona is co-hosting with David today as Brendan is visiting family interstate. And speaking of family, David’s nephew Monty is sitting in! Neil is panelling. Fiona will do her first special interview segment on Sunday Arts Magazine next week with New York based performance artist Jack Ferver. Fiona is also co-producing another JOY show called The Escape Hour (a journey of food and travel). David reviews the new Joanna Murray-Smith play –Three Little Words – which had its world premiere last night at the MTC. David found it funny, clever and also emotional.  It is about a middle-aged couple who break up and friends of theirs, another couple, who try to reconcile them. David was spellbound for the whole 1 hour 40 mins–4 to 4.5 stars.

There are 5 interviews this week.  Our interviewees  talk about their own journey to where they are now as well as a current event, show or exhibition. Along with inside stories, interesting anecdotes and descriptions.

Special guests this week include:

06:47 to 18:51 mins–Actor/Theatre-maker /Writer Emily Goddard is here to tell us about her new production This Is Eden on from 27 April to 07 May at fortyfivedownstairs. Emily was on Sunday Arts last year talking about Red Stitch’s You Got Older. Emily recounts her amazing theatre training in Paris and then talks about how her writing is influenced by that training involving improv and physical theatre. The idea for this play came from her convict ancestry when she and her mother had toured some of the sites in Tasmania where women had been, including a factory. These women endured terrible hardships (but her ancestor had a good run in comparison). The women used to make up performances that mocked authority to keep themselves sane. Emily combined this idea with the grotesque Bouffon theatre she learnt in Paris. The play is a one woman show with Emily playing a fictional character called Mary Ford who we meet in solitary confinement, on the edge of her sanity. It is directed by Susie Dee. She and Emily had been working on this drama since 2014 and decided from the outset that it wasn’t going to be a clichéd ‘bonnet drama’. They managed to get some heavy duty government organisations to fund the play but it took a lot of doing.  It helped that it is a new Australian play and that it is an important part of our history that is ‘undertold’ and that needs to be told. She intends to take it to Tassie, to the grounds of the Cascade factory if possible.

19:03 to 37:41 mins–Amelia Bartak is CEO of The National Theatre in St Kilda and is here to talk about the historic theatre itself, some of the current shows, and the variety of other things that go on there.  Amelia was invited to work at the theatre for a year, at least, from January this year.  She has a background in fine art photography, arts management and, more recently, working with contemporary performing arts. The National Theatre has a stunning heritage theatre and underneath that has ballet and drama studios where people can study fulltime. Amelia talks about how it’s funded, restoration of the exterior, donors, part-time study, collaboration with theatre organisations, international acts, people who hire the venue, members/stakeholders/longterm supporters, and the possible long term perspective of the theatre.  She then recounts some of the upcoming shows at the National including Coranderrk, Les Mis, Therese Raquin and Ned (a new Australian musical). There are 12 Fulltime staff, 100ish casuals and about 500 students over a year. Amelia suggests ways people can get involved or connect with the National including via email info@nationaltheatre.org.au.  She talks about–looking for INTERNS, archives to sort, a huge costume collection off-site that they hire out, acting/ballet classes for small children, successful graduate students, donations via a webpage, creating scholarships for students.

38:42 to 54:14 mins–Tim Lennox whose official name is Robert Lennox Suggett has been a part of JOY since near the beginning and has been News Director for 22 years where he molded the News Department and trained News Readers to this day. But he also has the most amazing history which is why he is here today. He is from Warrnambool where he was a journalist and he has always been a keen photographer and he now has a photographic exhibition in Warrnambool. Nasho 57: 98 days at Pucka at the Warrnambool Art Gallery 27 April to 12 June. Tim talks about a personal photo essay he produced at 19 years old when he was doing the first phase (January to April 1957) of 2 years part-time National Service (the ‘Nasho’) in the Australian Army.  He got busy after that and didn’t publish them and they just sat there until last year. Tim talks about his amazing life where he was an apprentice pharmacist, a cadet journalist, freelance journalist, a camera ‘stringer’ and an editor of newspapers for particular industries. He also won a National Travelling Scholarship in 1962 which meant he travelled in 1963 & 64 in the USA, UK and a bit of Europe.  He also took many photographs in his travels. Tim’s Nasho 57…exhibition is in Warrnambool because the subjects came from there and surrounding towns. It is an amazing ‘slice of life in a different era’.  He has spoken to his local MP, an Arts Minister and may arrange a tour of Victoria with the exhibition.

55:15 to 1:14:21 mins–Jacob Boehme is Creative director of the inaugural Yirramboi First Nations Arts Festival—a celebration of contemporary First Nations Arts on from 5 to 14 May at many venues around the CBD. There are performance and visual arts with Indigenous & Australian artists as well as international indigenous artists. Jacob was born and raised in Melbourne by an indigenous dad from SA and an Aussie mum with English/Irish heritage. Jacob did theatre as a teenager  and then went to uni where he was told about The National Aboriginal Islander Dance College in Sydney. He went there and learned traditional dances, many other forms of dance and choreography. Jacob touches on how he became Creative director and how he consulted Indigenous Elders to determine the direction of the festival. Yirramboi has 60 events including ones which are free, family-oriented and queer-oriented. There will be 370 artist descending on Melbourne in May from all over Australia as well as USA, Canada, Taiwan, Wales, New Zealand, Pacific Islands and Africa. Yirramboi means ‘tomorrow’ so it’s all about future vision and planning where they want to be. Jacob talks about some of the events including — a full-moon dance party, Paola Bala in conversation with many artists, workshops for kids, a camp Welsh cabaret artist Gareth Chambers, Canadian dance group Native Girl Syndrome, and  a whole of stuff at the Meat Market.

1:14:39 to 1:24:29 mins–Artist Nathan Grixti is from (Not)AdamSteve gay arts studio and is here to talk about 1) this studio’s Launch and an exhibition from 29 April to 20 May at the Café Bear and Scoobs in 1/18 Thompson Rd,North Geelong and 2) an exhibition called Identity, Sexuality and Love on at The Laird in Abbotsford from 15 July to 4 August. It is all Nathan’s artwork. Nathan came up with the studio name to represent what he was doing and also to reclaim it and remove the negative homophobic slur and religious connotations in the saying–‘God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’. Nathan was an arts student and did have some exhibitions when younger but reconnected with arts practice later in life (6 months ago).  He has a mental health background. Life drawing is at the centre of his practice with the theme of gay, bisexual and trans masculine identities and bodies. The (Not)AdamSteve Launch is about launching a website and exhibition as well as the studio.  In his mental health work Nathan put a lot of energy into advocacy and human rights because of some adverse consequences of negative societal attitudes towards LGBTI groups. This area was very ‘word’ oriented so he wanted to represent a positive perspective in imagery and artwork. The café exhibition is more family friendly, having more portraits and a few figurative drawings,  but The Laird will focus more on sexuality, sensuality and love.

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