Performance - News and events

Events | Featured projects | Call for entries | Announcements

Events

The Sapphires - Perth

23 January – 10 February 2010

Presented by Black Swan State Theatre Company in association with Company B Belvoir, this musical by Tony Briggs depicts the four McCrae sisters, Koori singers from rural New South Wales, in 1969. They are spotted by a talent scout, dream of international careers, but find themselves in Vietnam, entertaining the troops. Based on a true story. Black Swan Theatre.

Show Us Your Roots - Canberra

13 February 2010

Show Us Your Roots is a hilarious fast paced poke at multicultural Australia—how the things which appear to differentiate us are invariably the very things which make us the same. In 2010, the Show Us Your Roots comedy line-up includes Glenn Robbins, Hung Le, Dave Callan, Jeff Green and Simon Palomares. Canberra Theatre Centre.

2010 Summer Fun in the City - Melbourne

January–February 2010

The City of Melbourne's events program stages free music events at a variety of venues, featuring a wide range of music, from jazz and folk to reggae and rock. A new event, Summer Covers, aims to bring back memories of past summers with cover bands performing old classics.

Donna Cameron, The Flowering - Brisbane

9–13 February 2010

When 18-year-old Chloe disappears from home, her mother is convinced she is dead. Although she returns the following Spring, Chloe will not tell her mother what happened or where she has been. Many Springs later, Chloe is compelled to reveal what happened, and in so doing the mysteries of the past are finally pieced together. The Flowering, directed by Sue Rider, is a multi-layered, rich-text based performance weaving myth and the universal themes of the mother-child bond and first love, conceived and created in Brisbane. Playwright and actor Donna Cameron is a graduate of the NIDA playwright's studio and winner of the 2002 Glen Eira Literary Awards. Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts.

National Play Festival - Brisbane

15–20 February 2010

The National Play Festival presents performances of more than 20 new plays in one week, and aims to be Australia's premier showcase of current trends in theatre. During mornings, patrons can enjoy light refreshments, and a free Play for Breakfast. Thereafter the showcase presents eight new Australian plays from across the country. Judith Wright Centre.

WOMADelaide 2010 - Adelaide

5–8 March 2010

WOMADelaide presents music, arts and dance from around the world with over 500 artists from 27 countries. These include the Éthiopiques and their star Mahmoud Ahmed with a 10-piece band; Ravi Shankar performing in his 90th year with his daughter, sitar player Anoushka Shankar; Spanish stars Ojos de Brujo; the Yamato, the Drummers of Japan, Dean & Britta's multimedia celebration, dancer Fang-Yi Sheu's LAFA & Artists Dance Company's Single Room, aerial performers Transe Express with their show Mobile Homme; and the macabre music-cabaret piece Dancing on Your Grave. Botanic Park, Adelaide

Chunky Move, Mortal Engine - Melbourne

3–13 March 2010

This is the return of Chunky Move's dance-video-music-laser performance in Australia, winner of the 2008 LPA Helpmann Award for Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production and recipient of an honorary mention at the 2009 International Prix Ars Electronica Awards. Mortal Engine received standing ovations to sold out audiences in Sydney, Edinburgh, Mexico City, Dusseldorf, Salamanca, Philadelphia and New York. Malthouse Theatre.

Hamlet - Brisbane

6 February – 14 March 2010

David Berthold directs this contemporary reinvention of Shakespeare's tragedy in his first production as Artistic Director of La Boite. Hamlet is Shakespeare's cleverest hero, and maybe the sexiest too. We want to be him, be friends with him, or sleep with him. He is son, lover, friend, student, comedian, actor, director, brilliant visionary and expert swordsman. And he's a prince. Yet for all this astonishing variety, he walks the world with us and asks our questions. Roundhouse Theatre.

Four Winds Festival - Bermagui, New South Wales

2–4 April 2010

This music festival will include Italian maestro of the viola da gamba, Paolo Pandolfo, conveying the romance of renaissance Italy and the music reverberating around the ancient squares of Tuscany. Flamenco from Arte Kanela will bring a contemporary latino element picked up by the Flinders quartet when it joins with Karin Schaupp on guitar Melbourne group e21 will sing mediaeval Gregorian chant and songs of place from Australian Indigenous songlines. The Black Arm Band will sing in 13 Indigenous languages. Various locations.

Megan Shorey, Handle With Care - Brisbane

14–17 April 2010

Penned by acclaimed contemporary musical theatre composer and performer Megan Shorey, Handle With Care is a powerful package of four mini musicals rejoicing in both the beauty and the tension of being a woman. Directed by award-winning director Lewis Jones and featuring a stellar all female cast including Leisa Barry-Smith, Penny Farrow, Sarah Knight, Judy Hainsworth, Liz Buchanan, Kathy Burns, Airlie McCormack and Kathryn McIntyre, Handle with Care is a first class ticket to the world inside a woman's head. Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts.

Force Majeure's The Age I'm In - Brisbane

4–5 May 2010

It's not how old you are, but how you are old. Force Majeure's The Age I'm In is a poignant, witty and revealing portrait of how we inhabit the age we're in throughout our lives. Woven together and brought to life by Force Majeure's distinctive dance-theatre language, a diverse selection of Australians aged between fourteen and eighty offer astonishingly personal responses to a range of emotive issues, creating an intimate and warm-hearted snapshot of the aging process. Under director Kate Champion, this performance won the award for Outstanding Performance by a Company at the 2009 Australian Dance Awards. Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts.

Australian Songwriters Conference (ASC) - Ettalong Beach, New South Wales

11–14 June 2010

The ASC is designed to give attendees maximum exposure and networking time with hit songwriters, producers, publishers and industry professionals. The conference offers the opportunity to learn to become a better songwriter, pitch directly to the attending publishers, work with producers in the on-site recording studio, perform original songs to the public in the ASC Open Mics, and network throughout the days and evenings. Ettalong Beach Tourist Resort.

House on Fire by Debra Oswald - Sydney

2–19 June 2010

Written by one of Australia's masters of teen theatre, House on Fire is a new comic play. It is suitable for those aged 12 and over. ATYP Studio 1, The Wharf.

Heart Matters - Hobart and Launceston, Tasmania

23–24 July 2010, 30 July 2010

Launceston-based Tasdance, with 31 players from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, presents new dance works by Graeme Murphy and Chrissie Parrott. Both choreographers use notions of attraction, love, health, connection to family and friends or heartbreak as starting points for their creations, and draw on their own and others' experiences as inspiration. The program premieres a new musical commission by Constantine Koukias (Artistic Director of IHOS Opera) and Carl Vine's latest string quartet, in a new version for string orchestra developed especially for this project. Theatre Royal, Princess Theatre.

Mamma Mia! (musical) - touring Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane

23 October 2009 – 19 September 2010

This is the tenth anniversary of this musical, which incorporates 22 of ABBA's hits including Dancing Queen, I Have a Dream and Voulez-Vous. A daughter's quest to discover the identity of her father brings three men from her mother's past back to the Greek island they visited 20 years before. Various locations.

Featured projects

There are currently no featured projects.

Call for entries

Hilltop Hoods initiative - national

Entries by 22 February 2010

The Hilltop Hoods Initiative will give one emerging Australian hip hop artist a career starting opportunity with a $10,000 grant aimed to fund costs associated with manufacturing and releasing a CD of at least five original songs. Applications are open to emerging Australian hip hop artists who have not released an album commercially. The recipient will be announced on 31 March 2010.

Sound Quality - online

Ongoing

Sound Quality is a program about music that does not need to fit into a genre to be understood and doesn't need the support of peers to sound good. New sounds and genres have found their way on to Radio National through Sound Quality. If you make or market music that needs an airing, sign up and upload to Pool. Tag it sound quality, and it'll be listened to, commented on, and might be used in the program.

Announcements

ARIA Awards 2009

November 2009

The winners of the 2009 ARIA Awards were announced last night, with Empire of the Sun storming the winner's scoreboard and Ladyhawke and AC/DC close behind. Other prestigious winners were a mix of well established artists and debut winners including Josh Pyke, Sarah Blasko, CW Stoneking, The Presets, Hilltop Hoods, Troy Cassar-Daley, The Wiggles and more. The ARIA for Best Male Artist went to R&B singer-songwriter Danial Merriweather for his debut album Love & War, and Sydney-based songstress Sarah Blasko's album, As Day Follows Night, earned her the award for Best Female Artist.

Key online resources

• KULCHA - Multicultural Arts of Western Australia
• MusicAustralia - Australia's Music: Online, in Time
• West Australian Music Industry Association Inc
• Australia Dancing - National Library of Australia
• International Guild of Disabled Artists & Performers (IGODAP)
• The Aussie Bands Music Page
• Jazz Australia
• AusStage: Gateway to the Australian Performing Arts
• Ausdance - Australia's professional dance advocacy organisation

Collection resources and online publications

• Currency Press - Performing Arts Publisher
• MusicFestivalsAustralia.com
• The Music Network
• Parnassus' Den
• Theatre Alive
• Theatre Australia
• The Arts Centre collections
• Fools Paradise - an audio-visual exploration of twelve years of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Institutions and government organisations

• Devising Celebration - a resource for teachers who wish to devise their own celebratory performances and event theatre.
• Music in Australia: A Statistical Overview
• National Networked Facility for Research in Australian Music

Peak bodies and associations

• Music NT
• The Australian Script Centre - collects, catalogues, promotes and distributes unpublished Australian plays.
• Music NSW
• Music Council of Australia

People

• Barry Humphries
• Australian comedy

Featured websites/projects

• Questacon - Strike a Chord