A celebration of the arts, music and culture, Sydney Festival has become a staple for many Sydneysiders through out their Summer. And just as the festival and temperatures continue to peak, I ventured into Hyde Park to check out US natives Lake Street Dive as they took on the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent. As Sydney sweltered…
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First-time playwright, Nathan Maynard, has created a real gem in The Season, premiering as part of the 2017 Sydney Festival. It’s a great yarn, full of laughter and pride in a culture that has been in the shadows for too long. The Season follows fictional family, the Duncans, on their annual pilgrimage to Dog Island…
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Ahead of the premiere of Institute at the Sydney Festival, the AU speaks with Amit Lahav, Artistic Director of the Gecko Theatre Company, who are bringing the show to Australia from the UK for an exclusive three night run. Can you talk about Institute and it’s meaning; how it came to life? It takes me…
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Kat chats with Dmitris Papaioannou ahead of the Australian premiere of his production, Still Life. Taking influence from the Greek myth of Sisyphus and Camus‘ essay on the same story, the performance takes a look at the human condition and the drive or ‘thirst’ for spirituality. Could you tell us a little about Still Life? About it’s meaning,…
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Which Way Home is a moving, charming tribute to the little things that make up a family. The play is both funny and poignant, delivering smiles and sadness in equal balance, leaving you to contemplate your own parental relationships. Produced by pre-eminent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander theatre company, ILBIJERRI, Which Way Home fits beautifully…
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Szun Waves have an avant-garde pedigree most new bands would envy. The London-based trio is made up of PVT drummer Laurence Pike, experimental jazz-ambient quartet Portico saxophonist Jack Wyllie, and acclaimed producer and modular-synth wizard, Luke Abbott. Following the release of their debut At Sacred Walls, the trio will be performing tomorrow night at Sydney Festival….
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Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is far from a household name, but with some five LPs and an EP under her belt in as many years, the Los Angeles based electronic musician and composer has enjoyed growing underground popularity and now her first tour of Australia – which earlier tonight took her to the St Stephen’s Uniting…
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In a world of political uncertainty, where rhetoric that sits against the values of equality lingers and the seeming equilibrium of the world is driving us all mad, nothing feels more necessary than a perverse drag show enjoying a residency at one of the world’s most prestigious events, the Sydney Festival. Thankfully, Briefs: The Second…
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The physical and comedic talents of a dynamic cast smash through the language barrier in this Russian adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Combined with powerful design and masterful direction, Cheek by Jowl’s production is a treat for theatre fans and a highlight of the 2017 Sydney Festival lineup. Measure for Measure is a Shakespearean…
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Based on the novel The Women in Black, by Madeline St John, Ladies in Black is that all too rare thing: an entirely new Australian musical. There is no mistaking the country in which this show is set – from the home-grown accents to the local suburbs referenced in the text, this is a musical…
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Tomorrow the Sydney Festival officially kicks off – with some events, including the Meriton Festival Village in Hyde Park, launching today. Among the incredible three weeks of entertainment are a slew of totally free arts events and performances. Here are our picks of just a few of them… THE HAIR SALON The Hair Salon is…
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Part of the Meriton Festival Village, which opens tomorrow night (Sydney Festival Eve!) in Hyde Park, is The Village Stage presented by China Southern Airlines. The stage will feature a fantastic – and totally free – music program through the length of the festival, with a curated mix of disco, funk and Latin as part…
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Following their massive 160-stall deep Christmas markets the good folk at Carriageworks have announced that they will be hosting a Chinese New Year market curated by Kylie Kwong in partnership with Sydney Festival. And the renowned chef has gone all out for her part in the market, bringing in over 50 stallholders from Neil Perry’s…
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Three piece band Regurgitator are now in their 22nd year, and clearly not keen to slow down any time soon, recently performing the Velvet Underground & Nico album with Seja and Mindy Meng Wang on the Gunzheng at the NGV for an Andy Warhol exhibition. Ben Ely chats with the AU Review about the performance…
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Canadian composer and turntablist Nicole Lizée comes to the Sydney Festival next year with an unmissable show alongside The Australian Art Orchestra. Already world-renowned for her fusion of pop, rave culture, cult cinema, psychedelia and turntablism, the Montreal artist has worked all over the globe to raptrous acclaim. Her Sydney Festival show Sex, Lynch and Video Games will see Lizée…
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Hakawati is a Sydney Festival show that allows you to be swept away to an Arabian night in Western Sydney. The show is a celebration of food and stories and is inspired by an Arabic tradition where storytelling is combined with breaking bread. This event will have its world premiere at the El- Phoenician restaurant…
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Landing the plum role of Lisa in last year’s world premiere of Ladies in Black was a dream come true for Sarah Morrison, who received critical acclaim for her performance. Now, Morrison is set to reprise the role of the young, starry-eyed school-leaver when the show finally hits Sydney next month. I started by asking…
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Nathan Maynard’s first play, The Season, is making its world premiere next January as part of the Sydney Festival, and the playwright couldn’t be more excited. The ‘season’ of the title refers to the annual mutton-bird harvesting that takes place on remote Big Dog Island, in Tasmania’s Bass Strait. Maynard is a descendant of the…
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Artistic Director of Urban Theatre Projects, Rosie Dennis, is no stranger to delving into the heart of a community for her theatrical inspiration. In the company’s latest work, Home Country staged for the Sydney Festival, Dennis takes audiences on a journey (both figuratively and literally) through a multi-storey carpark in Blacktown. We were naturally intrigued……
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Award-winning Canadian Indigenous performer and playwright, Cliff Cardinal, and Native Earth Performing Arts are bringing the critically-acclaimed one-man show, Huff, to Sydney this January. The piece follows Wind, a First Nation’s boy who escapes his own painful reality by sniffing solvent. Chatting to us from the theatre home of Canada’s VideoCabaret – where he is…
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Carriageworks continue to push the boundaries with its new 2017 season, showing both the flexibility of the space and the commitment to unique works particularly looking at Australian history Highlights of the 2017 Program include the inaugural edition of The National: New Australian Art, the already announced exhibition resulting from a partnership between Carriageworks, Art…
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Sydney Festival returned last month for their huge 40th year anniversary, once again propping up their central hub in the leafy surrounds of Hyde Park, this year presenting a re-brand of sorts as what was once known as Sydney Festival Village now becomes Meriton Festival Village. Not much has changed aside from the name though,…
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A premiere show for the Sydney Festival, In Between Two sees two Australian musicians, TZU’s Joelistics and Sietta’s James Mangohig, overlap their stories as mixed-race Asian Australians in Australia’s hip hop culture. Sharing family photos and tales from their heritage, the two share a basic commonality, however their histories couldn’t be more different. Joelistics happily…
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The Lonely Circus production of Fall Fell Fallen has a twist. It’s not the lone tightroper, and it’s not the experimental music accompaniment. It’s Acrobat Sébastien Le Guen falling. A lot. He doesn’t hurt himself or anything. It’s not exactly for the epic fail crowd, though it does disarm with the same gravitational force. Thankfully,…
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This week’s Sydney Festival performance from Joanna Newsom marked the third time the acclaimed US artist has performed in the iconic Sydney Opera House, and her first time on our shores in five years. Her first ever performance in the Concert Hall was back in 2008, when she performed her second record Ys in full…
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Sydney Festival’s late night programming at their Festival Village in Hyde Park has always been impressive. A mix of paid and free gigs that start close to midnight and remind Sydneysiders of the sort of nightlife and entertainment that this city does so well, yet seems so intent to take away from us. As the…
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One of the most anticipated events of this year’s Sydney Festival was the special screening of the film Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), with a live, mostly improvised score from Mexico’s Antonio Sanchez – the acclaimed jazz drummer who delivered us the original and unique soundtrack from the Oscar winning movie. So what…
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Photo by: Jamie Williams Oh you pretty things. As Hyde Park’s Sydney Festival Village heaved with people paying their last respects to the one and only David Bowie, a little band from New Zealand played a nice venue called the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent. They were The Chills and they played a set that was brimming…
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Photo: Jamie Williams Sydney’s State Theatre was mostly hustle and bustle when Ethiopian-born and Finnish singer-songwriter Mirel Wagner graced the stage solace with an acoustic guitar as she fixed herself to a lone stool. A wealth of applause filled the room as she announced her impending ballads, and the chatter reignited. Wagner fought through hundreds…
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In a time where our discussion is stilted, mediated and increasingly online, community engagement has formed a central aspect of contemporary theatre. The facilities to congregate and share stories are rare, particularly in outer urban areas or those where many cultures co-exist separately. While Reclaim Australia toots it’s white power horn, there’s a deeper issue…
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