Year: 2009

PERFORMANCE SPACE present MONUMENTAL, ROS WARBY at Carriageworks. “MONUMENTAL is Roz Warby’s critically acclaimed solo dance work, developed in collaboration with her long standing artistic team, designer Margie Medlin and composer Helen Mountford. It premiered at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in October 2006 and received the Age Critics Commendation Award, Greenroom Awards for Best Female Dancer and Best Composition, and the Robert Helpmann Award for Best Female Dancer in a Ballet or Dance Work.” On a screen are projected pre-existing vintage film images of bird life intermixed with motion graphics of the dancer herself. Accompanied by a beautifully apt…

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian MARDI GRAS 2009 logo stands beside the FOCUS THEATRE logo at the top of the program. BE WARNED then, that, these two plays, as performance pieces, have a very specific audience target in mind. Both plays are examples of extreme verbal voyeurism. Both plays have what seems to be a recent Hallmark of Focus Theatre performances, a de rigueur requirement of including “male striptease” and full frontal nakedness, a titillating element of soft porn. (Witness BLOWING WHISTLES and it’s soft porn memories.) I guess if Channel 9 can score audience targets with similar tactics in…

  Company B presents BAGHDAD WEDDING written by Hassan Abdulrazzak at the Belvoir St Theatre. BAGHDAD WEDING is Hassan Abdulrazzak’s first play and it was first performed at Soho Theatre, London, in June 2007. Mr Abdulrazzak holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and works as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College. He has, since this play, also worked for the Royal Court in translation of an Israeli play (603 by Imad Farajin) and is on attachment with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). I mention Mr Abdulrazzak’s background because part of the fascination of this text and production, for…

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA: Tour One DAWN UPSHAW at Angel Place, Sydney. Attending music is a pleasure for my own spoilt self. It is outside my expertise but it is part of my diet in the Arts. So let me plagiarise from the program notes. “Dawn Upshaw is simply one of those performers that anyone serious about the state of music today must see. Combining intelligence, artistry and a seriously gorgeous voice, everything she sings turns to gold. The music she’s chosen spans the globe and crosses cultures: from folksong to the works of an Eastern European Jewish composer whose Argentine…

Alison Croggon has posted a very exciting review of WAR OF THE ROSES including her thoughts on the existence of the Actors Company. It’s a great read. CLICK HERE TO READ ALISON CROGGON’S THEATRE NOTES

Alison Croggon has posted a detailed response to WAR OF THE ROSES and comments on the existence of the Actors Company in the last three years. CLICK HERE to http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2009/02/review-war-of-roses.html