Facing very slim pickings for two years running, Rising had much to do to keep Melbourne theatregoers happy. It delivered a bumper program.
A fist-pumping Indigenous musical from Ilbijerri Theatre, Big Name, No Blankets, told the story of the Warumpi Band, the first rock band to sing using Aboriginal language. Expect a film, honestly. It’s the most uplifting, big-hearted, and charismatic First Nations musical since the very first one, Bran Nue Dae, in 1990.
Big Name, No Blankets is a joyful musical, soundtracked by the work of the Warumpi Band.Credit: Brett Boardman
Melbourne audiences have also been waiting for many years to see S. Shakthidharan’s elegant and free-flowing epic, Counting and Cracking, an intergenerational saga following a Tamil family forced to flee their homeland for Sydney.
That it was staged in the Union Theatre at the University of Melbourne confused me, as an alumnus who remembers a pokey, rundown little venue in the Student Union. Audiences take note: it is now a state-of-the-art theatre in a spanking new arts centre, with an ambitious public program overseen by Virginia Lovett, former executive producer at the MTC.
Daniel Kitson’s audience-participation hatefest, Collaborator , was a cathartic experiment. The First Bad Man gave us camp, post-dramatic satire on a book club reading a Miranda July novel. Justin Shoulder’s ANITO was an astonishing piece of illusionistic visual theatre, recreating the evolution of life on Earth, dinosaurs and all.
And if you missed staying up all night at White Night, 8/8/8 Rest gave you the chance at a hallucinatory durational performance deep within the bowels of the Arts Centre.
The beautifully composed Gurr Era Op is like a sea breeze: it blows strong and tastes fresh.Credit: Prudence Upton
The standout international theatre of the festival, the first chapter of Carolina Bianchi’s Cadela Força Trilogy (Bitch Power Trilogy), brought some much-needed Latin American performance into the mix. Yes, the show made headlines for its controversial gambit – Bianchi ingests a date rape drug on stage and falls unconscious – but as an artistic response to rape, this was one of the most fiercely intelligent and daring pieces of performance art I’ve seen.
Not every art form appeared well-served this year. My colleague, dance critic Andrew Fuhrmann, had a mild gripe about an underwhelming program of contemporary dance dominated by the usual suspects, while praising the vibrant Torres Strait Islander dance trio’s Gurr Era Op.
As a veteran festival observer, I’d say this is inevitable. The Melbourne International Arts Festival was always a carousel of complaint, with artistic directors choosing to focus on one discipline at greater depth each year. Theatre finally got a red-hot go at Rising, after two years of being overshadowed by dance. Seems fair.
Loading
What isn’t fair is that the Allan government has failed to lock in funding for Rising in the medium term. Future audiences will pay if bureaucrats continue to dither, as many international acts and local commissions require years of planning to arrive on the festival stage. It’s a silly thing to do, just as our winter arts festival seems to have found its feet and been embraced by the city.
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it every Friday.