Sometimes Melbourne: MIAF 2017

Showing posts with label MIAF 2017. Show all posts

21 December 2017

What I loved in 2017: the best of Melbourne theatre

I can finally share this. I chose them before the "loveds" and before other final judging of the year and I am always thrilled when I see the same shows on lists and memories.

The Sometimes Melbourne popular winner this year – the absolutely most-loved show of the year – is easily Hannah Gadsby's Nanette.

Hannah Gadsby

We're still talking about it. (What Melbourne Loved parts 1–10) I haven't stopped talking about it. But go to Twitter and search for Hannah's name to see just how much this show has meant to people. It shared a truth that needed to be shared, even when it's not the same truth for everyone.

I'm still caught between looking at it as a piece of exquisite writing that takes stand up, turns it on itself and creates something new and vital that's everything that stand-up comedy isn't, and wanting Hannah to never perform it again.

Wild Bore also got a lot of well-deserved love (even if I wasn't cunty enough to be quoted) and those of us who saw Taylor Mac know that we may never recover.

Surprisingly, the shows we're most looking forward to are at the MTC! And it's not because we're becoming dull but because we're going to see Patricia Cornelius's new work The House of Bernarda Alba and Stephen Nicolazzo directing Abigail's Party. And Jean Tong's Hungry Ghosts.

Outstanding Artists 2017

WRITING

Katy Warner for Spencer, Lab Kelpie

Spencer, Lab Kelpie. Lyall Brooks, Jamieson Caldwell, Fiona Harris, Jane Clifton. Photo by Pier Carthew

Special mentions

Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn for Stories for the Starlit Sky at MICF

Stella Reid, Jane Yonge, Oliver Morse and Thomas Lambert for The Basement Tapes at Melbourne Fringe

DESIGN

Dale Ferguson (set and costume), Paul Jackson (lighting) and J David Franzke (sound) for Away, Malthouse

Away, Malthouse. Photo by Pia Johnson

Special mentions

Christina Logan Bell for The Japanese Princess by Lyric Opera

Dann Barber (set and costume), Rob Sowinski and Bryn Cullen (lighting) for Angels in America, Cameron Lukey and Dirty Pretty Theatre in association with fortyfivedownstairs

Angels in America, fortyfivedownstairs

PERFORMANCE

Kate Mulvany as Richard III in Richard III, Bell Shakespeare

Richard III, Bell Shakespeare. Kate Mulvany and Meredith Penman. Photo by Prudence Upton

Special mentions

Melita Jurisic as Genevieve in John, Melbourne Theatre Company

The cast of Black Rider, Malthouse and Victorian Opera at Melbourne Festival

The cast of Trainspotting Live at MICF

DIRECTION

Matthew Lutton for Away, Malthouse, and Black Rider, Malthouse and Victorian Opera at Melbourne Festival

Black Rider, Malthouse and Victorian Opera. Photo by Pia Johnson

Special mentions

Sarah Goodes for John, Melbourne Theatre Company

Bridget Balodis for Desert 6.29pm, Red Stitch Actors Theatre

EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS

Little Ones Theatre
Stephen Nicolazzo , Eugyeene Teh, Katie Sfetkidis and everyone who works with them

Stephen, Eugyeene and Katie. Little Ones Theatre

The Happy Prince at La Mama, The Moors for Red Stitch, and Merciless Gods at Northcote Town Hall and Griffin (Sydney). It's been a pretty amazing year for them and the team's first show for 2018 is Abigail's Party at MTC and the company's The Nightingale and the Rose, the second in their Oscar Wilde Trilogy, is at Theatre Works in June. CAN NOT WAIT.

The Happy Prince. Janine Watson and Catherine Davies. Photo by Pia Johnson

Outstanding Productions 2017

CABARET

Clittery Glittery by Fringe Wives Club (Rowena Hutson, Victoria Falconer-Pritchard and Tessa Waters) at MICF.

Clittery Glittery. Victoria Falconer-Pritchard, Tessa Waters and Rowena Hutson.

Special mention
Betty Grumble: Sex Clown Saves The World at Melbourne Fringe

COMMERCIAL SHOW

John, Melbourne Theatre Company

MUSICAL

The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon

Special mention

Romeo Is Not The Only Fruit by Jean Tong at Poppyseed Festival.
If this doesn't get some development and second season, there is something wrong.

24/12 Update: All is good because it has a season at Malthouse in March. Book here.

Romeo Is Not The Only Fruit. Margot Tanjutco and Louisa Wall

COMEDY

Nautilus by Trygve Wakenshaw at MICF

Trygve Wakenshaw

Special mentions

Monkey See, Monkey Do by Richard Gadd at MICF

The Travelling Sisters at MICF

OPERA

La Voix Humaine by BK Opera at Melbourne Fringe

LIVE ART

The Maze by Kasey Gambling at Melbourne Fringe

BEST OF THE BEST

Joan by The Rabble

Joan. The Rabble. Dana Miltins. Photo by David Paterson

The Book of Mormon

Black Rider, Malthouse and Victorian Opera at Melbourne Festival

Betty Grumble: Love and Anger at the Butterfly Club

Betty Grumble: Love and Anger

MY FAVOURITE SHOWS OF 2017

This year, I saw two shows that I have thought about every day since. Every day.

I've spent ages trying to separate these two and it's impossible. There wasn't a moment when anything came near to the experience of seeing Nanette, until Taylor Mac started talking about the homophobic shaming of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and finished 23 hours later dressed in a glittery, pink vulva and I couldn't stop crying.

Nanette by Hannah Gadsby at MICF and Arts Centre Melbourne

Hannah Gadsby. It's such a great pic that it can be here again.

and

A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Taylor Mac, Pomegranate Arts and Nature's Darlings at Melbourne Festival


Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker.

I'm told that I expect too much of theatre. "People just want to be entertained". As Hannah said in the early version of Nanette, we have animal videos for that.

Maybe art can't change the world, but it can change people. I've seen the impact of both of these works. Both have changed how I see myself, my friends, my community and my world. Both have strengthened and created communities.

Hannah, in jeans and a jacket by herself, and Taylor, in most of the world's bright and shiny and the support of many equally-fabulous cast and crew, are incomparable – but both are their absolute real selves on stage and their work comes from the same place.

Hannah talks about the impact of being shamed by society, community, friends and family, and ultimately yourself. She talks about the insidious power of shame and her work finds the heavy hidden shame that sits in so many of us, even if we didn't know it was there.

She shares how people, especially women, put themselves down when they talk, write, perform, exist. We kick ourselves, so that you don't have to kick and reject us first.

Taylor knows communities and people who know shame, who have hidden their authentic selves out of safety or fear. Judy's work confronts the utter absurdity of this shame and creates a world where shame doesn't exist. People living at the edges of society are placed in its centre – and loved and celebrated. I had never seen a work place women, especially queer women, so in the centre of the world.

I have seen people change from seeing these shows. I saw a lot of anger, but I also saw smiles I have never seen and tears that let go of years of pain. They are the most humane pieces of theatre I have experienced.

And I'm going to keep wanting more of the same.

I don't know if Taylor and Hannah have seen each other's shows, but this HAS TO HAPPEN.

2016
2015

2014
2013

2007

More 2017 lists. (I'll add them in as I find them)

Time Out's 2017 Top Ten by Rose Johnstone and Tim Byrne
Keith Gow's Favourite Theatre of 2017
The Music's Melbourne's Best Theatre of 2017 by Maxim Boon
My Melbourne Arts Top 10 Shows of 2017 by Myron My
Arts Hub's The Best of Performing Arts in 2017, including Richard Watts's 10 Outstanding Shows
Music Theatre Year in Review by Simon Parris
The Age's 2017 by Cameron Woodhead

20 December 2017

What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 10

Today is the last day of the loveds and the SM Best Of 2017 will be published tomorrow. In part 10, Andi talks about being an audience member this year, Rohan talks about music theatre and I find the moments that made me so glad that I didn't stay home and watch TV.

Andi Snelling
Actor

Andi Snelling

Favourite moments in 2017
2017 has been a unique theatre year for me. I haven’t been on stage the entire year (due to illness), which is the longest time I’ve been off the boards since I was four years old. It’s been a mixture of silent longing and inspiring observation. It’s the first time I’ve really sat back in the hum of the audience and truly taken art in as a temporarily non-practising artist. Three shows in particular grabbed my heart and pumped it for me.

My absolute favourite show was Trygve Wakenshaw’s Nautilus, which I saw in The Spiegeltent at MICF. His buckle-bodied spoof on all humanity’s absurdity had me snort-laughing and light-bulbing equally. I recall him so expertly setting the audience up with fond attachment to an established character or concept, then with great glee and trickery, smashing it before our eyes. His cheeky way of standing beside himself (sometimes literally) in order to highlight our hypocrisy, our injustice and our hope was mimed genius. As a fellow lover of physical expression, I was so uplifted by Trygve’s performance that I wanted to cartwheel myself straight into a rehearsal room right then and there and start conjuring the world with my body.

Another powerhouse show for me was Angel by Henry Naylor performed by Avital Lvova, at Holden Street Theatres at Adelaide Fringe. This was deadly theatre: a one-woman action blockbuster that had you holding your breath and begging for mercy as if you were its sniper heroine scrambling through the charred streets of Mosel. She gave a knockout performance and despite the stage being dressed only with a keg, I swore I could see, taste and feel the bullets flying in that way you do at a 3D cinema, dodging the not-really-there objects. Tears are springing up in my eyes just recalling the tragedy.

I can’t talk about theatre in 2017 without mentioning Wild Bore at the Malthouse Theatre. Of course I loved it. I laughed hard and took my brain to the gym. It was meta theatre that out-meta’ed itself and left you with visual metaphors which only your most trippy of dreams would normally be capable of. I loved how it stretched an idea well beyond its elasticity, then snapped it back in ways you didn't see coming. Witnessing Adrienne Truscott, Zoe Coombes-Marr and Ursula Martinez truly doing exactly what the fuck they wanted to be doing was super empowering. To their credit, they held themselves just as accountable as they did their critics. And all for a very apparent reason.

Other special performance moments for me include: seeing Sinead O’Connor sing half of "Nothing Compares" only to stop and declare, “I am now done with this song”, and the feminist punch-fest Hot Brown Honey that had me dancing and roaring in my seat as if I were back in my early 20s at a student protest.

Looking forward to in 2018
Who knows what 2018 will hold, but I feel great anticipation…

SM: I'd like to see Andi back on stage next year. Illness sucks. To do that, she needs some help. You can help here.

Rohan Shearn
Arts publisher and writer
Australian Arts Review

Rohan Shearn

Favourite moments in 2017
Once again, we were spoilt for choice this year as the commercial and independent sector delivered a mixed bag of delights.

The Book of Mormon kicked off the year in a riotous display of politically incorrect joy at the Princess Theatre, closely followed by Aladdin at Her Majesty’s Theatre, which was not only spectacular,but featured two outstanding performances: former Hi-5er Ainsley Melham as Aladdin, and Michael James Scott as the Genie.

Two Australian musicals made my favourites:
Ladies in Black – the musical adaptation of Madeleine St John’s popular 1993 novel, The Women in Black, made a welcome return to Melbourne; this time at the Regent Theatre.
Muriel’s Wedding – the musical adaptation of the classic Australian film made its premiere at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in Sydney, featuring Maggie McKenna in her professional debut as Muriel Heslop. Both shows were directed by Simon Phillips.

My Fair Lady dazzled audiences at the Regent Theatre in the Dame Julie Andrews recreated 1950s classic by Lerner and Loewe featuring Anna O’Byrne as Eliza Doolittle, Charles Edwards as Professor Higgins and Reg Livermore as Alfred P Doolittle; and The Production Company surprised us all and with its production of Brigadoon, also by Lerner and Loewe.

Not to be outdone, StageArt presented their best production to date with David Bryan and Joe DiPietro’s four-time 2010 Tony Award-winning Memphis The Musical; and Music Theatre Melbourne delivered a highly charged, sentimental production of Paris – A Rock Odyssey by the late Jon English.

However, it is Taylor Mac and the A 24-Decade History of Popular Music who will leave a lasting legacy on all of those who attended judy's 2017 Melbourne Festival performances.

Looking forward to in 2018
Dream Lover – The Bobby Darin Musical, opening at Arts Centre Melbourne later this month featuring the ever consummate David Campbell.

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert returning to the Regent Theatre as part of its 10th anniversary outing in late January.

The critically acclaimed American Idiot rocking the Comedy Theatre from late February.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical featuring the stunning Esther Hannaford at Her Majesty’s Theatre in February; Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London Palladium production of The Wizard of Oz heading at Regent in May; and Mamma Mia! heads at the Princess Theatre in July.

Look out for Virginia Gay’s star-turn as Calamity Jane at Arts Centre Melbourne in March; Maury Yeston’s Nine makes a welcome return to Melbourne courtesy of StageArt in October; and I hope we will get to see Hayes Theatre Co’s production of Stephen Sondheim Assassins, the previously mentioned Muriel’s Wedding, and Evita sometime in 2018 or in 2019.

SM: If I want gossip (and I do,) Rohan is my first stop. I'd be so bored in intervals if he wasn't there to drink a glass of fizz with.

Anne-Marie Peard
Arts writer


The moment I hit peak cat women. A photo of a photo of me and my cats (still have one of them) at the Gotokuji cat temple a couple of train rides out of Tokyo.

My Best Of 2017 will be published tomorrow.

Favourite moments in 2017
The first "Hello" in The Book of Mormon and knowing that it was going to be everything and more.

The Rabble's Joan when the women fell into the squares of light.

Malthouse's Away when the world changed.

Following Moira Finucane around the NGV in The Intimate 8.

Squealing at a flying condom in Trainspotting.

The costumes in Glittery Clittery.

Laughing myself sick at Trygve Wakensahaw's Nautilus. He was a chicken and a cat and a sheep! I had no idea I was all about mime; I had no idea mime could be so damning.

Still feeling physically ill during the last scenes of Awakening.

Mary Helen Sassman and Emma Valente committing like no one has ever committed before in The Rabble's one-off Sick, Sick.

Realising that I wasn't going to get a return ticket to Takarazuka Revue (The Scarlet Pimpernel) in Tokyo and a stranger giving me a ticket. She didn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese, but she knew how happy I was to get that ticket and she has theatre karma for life. If you're going to Japan, book for them when you book your flight. It's an all-female company and I still don't know if it's the queerest (including Taylor Mac) or the straightest company I've ever seen.

Betty Grumble making pussy prints in Love and Anger.

Being given a photo in an orange envelope at A Requiem for Cambodia.

Just before Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music began, I wondered if it could ever be what I imagined it could be. It was so much more.
Trying to sing and cry in the last hour of Taylor Mac.
~~Most~~ All of the hours in between those moments.

The moment Hannah Gadsby turned Nanette onto itself and the bottom falling out of my heart.

Looking forward to in 2018
I'll start with Hir, Abigail's Party and The House of Bernarda Alba.

part 9
part 8
part 7
part 6
part 5
part 4
part 3
part 2
part 1
2016
2014
2013
2012

03 November 2017

Links to the Taylor Mac reviews

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2017
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music
Taylor Mac, Pomegranate Arts and Nature's Darlings
Forum Theatre
www.festival.melbourne

Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

It's been two weeks and we're still talking about Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.

A friend said it was like the week after Christmas when you're a child: a week where you're drifting and not sure what to do because the best day is over.

Taylor Mac in Melbourne. Photo by Sarah Walker

More reviews have been published and, if reviewers talking to each other on Facebook is anything to go by, we're still in the post-show haze of tears, glitter and determination to make that world we lived in for 24 hours, the world that we live in.

Machine Dazzle & Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

I keep remembering bits I'd forgotten – the Alphabet song with a determined "zed", singing "Love will tear us apart", an audience member talking about the club Connections in Perth – and wondering how 24 hours of work could be so consistently astonishing.

Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

Our go-to critic adjectives feel inadequate; they can't describe the complexity and what it's like to have your heart and brain squeezed in the ways you've dreamed of.

It was like falling in love – that warm swirl of adrenalin, hope and confidence that lets you know that you're flippin' awesome – without any of the fear and doubt.

Photo by Sarah Walker

And those smiles. Hundreds of people smiling the smile that's usually reserved for "I've been fucked so well that you couldn't wipe the smile off my face if I were run over by a bus right now."

Photo by Sarah Walker

Smiles from people who have all felt like the freak in the room. Smiles from people who have hidden who they are because it's easier or safer.

I was slow dancing with a stranger at The Wrap closing party and had to stop (only for a moment) and say "look around this room".

Tigger & Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

Here are the media reactions. If I've missed some, message me and I'll link them in. (And any excuse for some more of Sarah Walker's photos and Machine Dazzle's costumes.)

Rose Johnson in Time Out.

Maxim Boon in The Music.

Cameron Woodhead in The Age.

Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

Steph Harmon in Guardian.

Chris Boyd in The Australian.

Richard Watts in Arts Hub.

Bradley Storer in Theatre Press.

Sarah Walker (who took the amazing photos) on her blog.

Me, here. I, II, III, IV.

Machine Dazzle & Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

Chapters and The Inauguration

Melbourne Critique

Chapter 1: Opera Chaser (and Herald Sun)

Chapter III: Herald Sun

Australian Stage

Limelight

The Conversation

Matt Ray & Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

And I have a new batch of #QueerGrannySquares ready for anyone who wants one.

24 October 2017

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Taylor Mac, Chapter IV & Manifesting Pussy

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2017
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Chapter IV: 1957–present
Taylor Mac, Pomegranate Arts and Nature's Darlings
13 October 2017
Forum Theatre
www.festival.melbourne

Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

Is it really time to wash off the Taylor Mac glitter and go back to real life?

Every so often a work changes how we see and make theatre. We are now post–A 24-Decade History of Popular Music and we're going to see its influence on our stages for a very long time.

Every so often a work changes how we see our world and we're going to see its influence in our lives for a very long time.

Taylor Mac, Steffanie Christi'an Mosley. Photo by Sarah Walker

Taylor describes the 24-hour experience as a "radical faerie realness ritual sacrifice" and adds that the audience is the sacrifice. Back in Chapter I, we had no idea of how much of ourselves we were going to willingly sacrifice or how much we had to let go of.

James Tigger! Ferguson. Photo by Sarah Walker

I'm still struggling to find the words that come close to describing the joy and absolute fucking happiness that this work has created. And the uncontrollable tears – that start again as soon as I try to explain and understand why I'm still crying.

When the Forum fire curtain lifted, we were heading to the 1960s – the decade many of us were born. Taylor descended from the gods reprising his rock "Turn! Turn! Turn!" (Matt Ray's musical arrangements deserve their own multi-page review). Looking Jacqui Kennedy–esque with polka dots, soup cans and a USA-flag dress (Machine Dazzle's costume designs also deserve pages), judy was harnessed to matching polka-dot pop-art angel wings, which Machine had made the day before. With finger guns and "BANG", they were a tribute to the Art Deco angel on the fire curtain and a response to gun control – something the political right got right in Australia.

Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

And it was time for us white people to flee back to the suburbs at the sides of the room and embarrassingly express our white guilt to the point that we finally dump it and start understanding and sharing our fucking power.

I knew Chapter IV was going to be something else, but I had no idea.

Chanon Judson, James Welsby. Photo by Sarah Walker

I started crying at Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall". I think this was before Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam", when I knew I needed to get to the bar and fill up my water bottle and marvel at the waterproof blue mascara I bought in Tokyo and never thought I'd wear.

Taylor Mac, Viva DeConcini. Photo by Sarah Walker

As I wasn't on a media ticket, I didn't take notes, I turned off my devices and drank gin – leaving Chapter IV a magnificent blur of tears, rock, glitter and joy. (But please read Cameron in The Age and Steph in the Guardian.)

There was Daniel and I squealing at "show tops".

There was the Cold War giant inflatable USA and USSR cocks floating around the audience.

Photo by Sarah Walker

There was slow dancing with Katie at the queer prom to destroy the credibility of a homophobic singer.

Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

There was hugging Richard during "Purple Rain" – and only now remembering that it was a section about back room sex parties. But it was the late1980s: a time when friends were dying from AIDS. Taylor was wearing a head piece of skulls screaming in clouds and a coat made of cassette tapes, we'd already sung "Oh Superman", and I didn't know if I wasn't coping or if it was the most powerful hour of my life.

And I couldn't imagine how my heart was going to melt as we made our way to the present with a manifestation of pussy.

Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

Bitch and Animal's "Pussy Manifesto" (look it up; I want it in search engines rather than an easy click) – "Let Pussy manifest and let freedom sing!".

The Womb. Photo by Sarah Walker

Lesbians moved only onto the stage, with beers and a barbeque. Lesbians were front and centre. Without jokes, without question. Women were celebrated. Pussy (I'm even saying "pussy" and I was such a "cunt" reclaimer) was celebrated. For a couple of hours, pussy was central to our world.

Stop reading and try to replace every reference to cock and male power in your world with pussy. Now take away every bit of language that uses women, pussy and cunt as an insult and a reference to weakness. For the last hours of this show, that world existed.

Taylor Mac. Photo by Sarah Walker

(I nearly didn't wear my #pussyhat when we were making things in Chapter 1, but the company manager said "Yes" when I suggested it. I'll also be saying "Yes!" a lot more from now on.)

Machine Dazzle, Taylor Mac, Matt Ray. Photo by Sarah Walker

For 24 hours, we'd been part of seeing how communities are built from marginalised, ignored and shamed people being torn apart. We'd been sacrificed, we sacrificed others and everyone who was there became a community where otherness didn't exist.

At the company's In Conversation on Saturday, Taylor said, "Manifest the world that we want by creating the world we want."

We were so involved and so safe that I want to see it all again tomorrow, even if just to see the contributions of the 32 people who came with the company and every other artist who is a part of this experience (their names are in the program). But I suspect I'd be just as involved.

Photo by Sarah Walker

For the last hour Taylor wore a dress made from a giant vulva and sang his own work. The band were gone – one left every hour for the last 24 hours. We sang along and I have never cried so much in a thearte.

I washed most of the glitter off – the glitter I put on in the Forum bathrooms with other women who also hadn't worn glitter since we were in our 20s – and am back in day-to-day life, with a pile of work waiting for me.

Photo by Sarah Walker

What's left to say when I experienced the theatre experience I've been waiting my life for?

But perhaps life is going to be different. I'm still going to roll my eyes at dull theatre, but I'm going to:

Spend less time alone. Maybe with the new friends I made at this show.
Talk more with people I don't know.
Dance in public.
Wear all the high heels I have in my cupboard.
Wear more blue mascara.
Sing "Purple Rain".

Machine Dazzle, Matt Ray. Photo by Sarah Walker

PS. Can we have a 24-hour long recording, please?

23 October 2017

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: A Requiem for Cambodia: Bangsokol

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2017
A Requiem for Cambodia: Bangsokol
Cambodia Living Arts, Asia TOPA
14 October 2017
Hamer Hall
www.festival.melbourne/2017

Photo by Tey Tak Keng

A Requiem for Cambodia: Bangsokol is for the two million who died or were killed during the Khmer Rouge genocide.

At the end of this performance, the audience are given a small orange envelope. It holds a photo. Mine is a black and white image of a young woman and man at the steps of a traditional Cambodian house on stilts. Their combination of Western and Cambodian clothes and their semi-formal pose says 1970s.

I don't know anything more except that they didn't survive the 1970s.

I visited Cambodia in 2010. I fell in love with the country and the people I met and it took me a few days to realise what was so obvious that it was hard to see it: there weren't many people older than I was.

Photo by Tey Tak Keng

Bangsokol is created by two artists who survived the regime: artist and film maker Rithy Pahn and composer Him Sophy. Sopy says: "My generation in Cambodia experienced war – I lost my family, I saw people killed. I don't want this again, for anyone."

With a western chamber orchestra and chorus with Khmer music, this astonishingly beautiful work combines a requiem for the dead and lost with the Buddhist bangsokol funeral ritual for spirits to find peace.

It creates humanity and hope out of horror that is possibly unimaginable to anyone who hasn't experienced it, and it passes hope and tradition onto the next generation.

I've put my photo of the people I don't know in a frame.

The Khmer Rouge took thousands of photos of people imprisoned and tortured and killed at the S 21 prison in Phnom Pehn, which is now the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide. Some of these photos were used in Bangsokol. For thousands, the only photographic record of their existence is of them in hell.

To be given photos of Cambodians from those generations when they were happy is a treasured gift.

22 October 2017

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Taylor Mac, Chapter III

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2017
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Chapter III: 1896–1956
Taylor Mac, Pomegranate Arts and Nature's Darlings
13 October 2017
Forum Theatre
www.festival.melbourne

Last chance to be a part of thus magnificent experience is TONIGHT at The Wrap.