ARTS

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Kill Climate Deniers: the play that infiltrated Parliament House
First published in Guardian Australia, September 2016
At midday on 31 August, a silent and subversive music event happened inside Parliament House. Milling among the gaggles of children on school excursion were about 15 unacquainted visitors distinguished by one thing: all wore earphones and walked the same route through the building’s public zones. I was one of them. That morning, as instructed by the artists, I downloaded an album from Bandcamp called ...
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The ‘queering’ of Hobart’s monuments
First published in The Guardian, June 2016
Taped to a wall at Long Gallery in Salamanca Place in Hobart is a 2005 essay by historian Marilyn Lake about Tasmanian monuments. Key sentences are marked in highlighter. “For God and Empire. King and Country.” “There are no statues of women in Tasmania.” ...
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‘The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic’ (review)
First published in the Australian Book Review, June 2016
Were I to mimic the style of Chicago-based music critic Jessica Hopper, we’d be off and running by now, or grappling with a question that had bulleted straight to the topic’s heart. When this anthology’s 42 think-pieces, reviews, and ephemera first appeared in Village Voice, Chicago Reader, SPIN and elsewhere, a few words of context may have preceded each of them. Here, we just have bald beginnings such ...
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Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Monumental (Adelaide Festival)
First published in The Guardian, March 2016
Post-rock is a loudly ponderous, insistently serious kind of music: all brooding soundscapes, apocalyptic themes and long, instrumental songs that are fanned into vast fire-fronts of noise. Everything emotes. Once I thought it to be very important music. But the drama that sucked me in eventually spat me out. At a gig, I found myself furiously agreeing with a guy who yelled “crescendo is cheap!” ...
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King Lear review – fails to sate craving for fury
First published in The Guardian, November 2015
It is King Lear’s unreasonable expectations that drive Shakespeare’s plot. After abdicating in order to “unburden’d crawl toward death” Lear expects the fawning and flattery only power can procure to continue undiminished. It doesn’t, and so his suffering begins. ...
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Broken Heel festival: ‘Even Australia’s founding fathers dressed in drag’
First published in The Guardian, September 2015
As a kid, Anthony Carthew watched Mad Max 2 car chases from his front door. It was 1981 and the crew was staying in the outback town of Broken Hill and filming on Silverton Road where Carthew lived. “We had a property on the edge of town,” he says. “Out the back door, the red dirt went on forever with the saltbush and sunsets.” Now, ...
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Culture and politics merge for Garma Festival
First published in The Guardian, August 2015
Held on an escarpment in north-east Arnhem Land, the Garma festival site is called Gulkula in Yolngu language. Traditionally owned by the Gumatj clan, it overlooks a pandanus and stringybark forest that ends at the Arafura sea. It has long been a place for clans to gather and talk. Garma’s three-day key forum honours that spirit of discussion, causing long-timers to claim it is more ...
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Lawrence English: our relationship with sound is problematic
First published in The Guardian, August 2015
When a rat runs over Lawrence English’s foot, it’s a shock to both of us. For English, because the rat is “the size of a small cat”. For me, because I’m returned to a here and now our conversation has seen me slip from. “I’m interested in the idea of the body as an ear,” English continues. “I want to explore the point at which ...
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Barunga comes bittersweet full circle
First published in Australian Book Review, June 2015
Opposite the outdoor basketball court, the Karungkarni Arts Centre is selling dot paintings by Gurindji woman Biddy Wavehill. Later at the riverside acoustic stage, Peter Garrett steps unexpectedly from the long grass to sing ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ with Paul Kelly – a song about the Wave Hill walk-offs in the 1960s lead by Gurindji man Vincent Lingiari. At the Barunga Festival in ...
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Lore – fusion of Dreamtime & contemporary dance (review)
First published in The Guardian, June 2015
Bangarra dance theatre’s 29th production, Lore, is a double bill featuring Sheoak, by experienced Bangarra choreographer, Frances Rings, and I.B.I.S., a co-creation from Deborah Brown and Waangenga Blanco, two Bangarra dancers making their main stage choreography debut. Without knowing the works’ development challenges – which are presumably many given Bangarra’s commitment to keeping its connection to country and elders fresh – you can’t help but ...