Sunday Arts Magazine

3 Jul 2022

Future. Joy. Club. – Finucane & Smith

Arts, Cabaret, Performing Arts, Sunday Arts Magazine

For the first time in 7 years, Melbourne’s artiste provocateurs Finucane & Smith return to the heart of the city with FUTURE. JOY. CLUB. – a sultry decadent celebration of golden era burlesque and variety vanguard.  Led by gothic glamazon Moira Finucane, The FUTURE. JOY. CLUB. will reside in the lush, mirrored ballroom of Sofitel Melbourne On Collins from 7 July – 7 August 2022. With the very best of Australia’s exquisite and explosive underground stars cherry picked for FUTURE. JOY. CLUB., Finucane & Smith and Sofitel have created a nightclub at the Paris End of Collins Street that you will never want to leave. The hauntingly beautiful voices of indie pop star Sophie Koh, Ngurlama jazz blues legend Lois Olneyand Melbourne’s own transcendent songstress Mama Alto will envelope the club. Glittering boylesque classically trained Indian dancer Govind Pillai, lightning rod burlesque artist Jazida, eyepopping club star Iva Rosebud and Cameroon/Parisian hip hop star Simon Abbe will lay their talents bare within velvety surrounds. Basking in the central glow, shaking and stirring all who stand before her, is chief alchemiser and club host Moira Finucane, whose reputation for seduction and subversion, volcanic performance and redefining burlesque is internationally renowned. “After two years of cancelled lives and wondering why we all look so shite on zoom, we wanted Collins Street meets Constantinople, Coconut Grove meets cutting edge culture, sparkling chandeliers, velvet decor, part lounge – part louche, bristling with artists you just cannot look away from. A show-stopper of showgirls, song, dance and striptease all set to an addictive soundtrack spanning bollywood and hardcore through to the genius Rachel Lewindon on grand piano. FUTURE. JOY. CLUB. is a live spectacle, it’s the sizzle and the steak. We are going to greet you like long lost lovers. I’ll be at the door. This is YOUR club where wild variety meets blood red hearts. Your club where Melbourne comes alive again, and aching hearts mend, laughter shakes the roof, and the future is faced with joy, together,” says co-creator Moira Finucane. Creating a stormfront of debate and engagement around provocation, entertainment and gender; Finucane & Smith have become synonymous with a kind of unleashed cabaret that mashes old style hospitality and entertainment with hyper-visual razor sharp sexuality and intelligence. The company broke the burlesque-as-live-art sound barrier in 2004 with the tearaway success of The Burlesque Hour, which won a swag of awards and beckoned thousands of people to Melbourne’s heart every winter for over a decade.  It went on to tour 15 countries performing to over 600,000 people. Finucane & Smith performed in Cuba in 2015, becoming the first Australian company invited to the Havana Internacional Theatre Festival and winning International Theatre Institute’s International Presentation of the Year. With a thirst for new challenges, Finucane and Smith’s repertoire exploded with drama in China, art vs extinction presentations in USA and Europe and immersive works in museums from Prague to Ljubljana. “Seven years ago we staged Glory Box La Revolucion and flew off to Cuba. We said ‘come and see us, it will be the last of our winter variety spectacles for years’. We didn’t lie.  Who knew what we would all endure. In lockdown we vowed to create a club that would be a love transfusion to Melbourne. Young, old, gay straight, well heeled, high heeled, mothers and mother lovers, queer as f*ck; this is your club. Literally the only place to be this winter,” said Finucane.

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