Wrecked | Life Out Loud Storytelling
Last weekend I went to Brisbane’s hottest storytelling group, Life Out Loud Storytelling, for a night of storytelling fun. The night’s theme was wrecked: stories about rust and ruin, which was quite frankly what had drawn me to the event in the first place. I’ve been to many storytelling cabaret-esque themed nights when the theme has been very airy fairy, so it was quite nourishing to the soul to have a theme that had some grit to it.
Fertile Ground | Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith
The dancers invite, cajole and even pleade with the audience to take part in the construction of the world at multiple times throughout the performance. With besser blocks involved, you can be guaranteed this isn’t your average audience participation. The interpreter guides us at times, showing us how we can contribute to the world being build around us. Not all audience members took up the offer play a part in the performance, but none of us could deny we had a role to play throughout. The wordless offers from the performers are deliberate, at times earnest or exhausted. We are invited help to build the world around us, or let others do the work, but we have to decide our role.
People of Colours | Naavikaran and Grace Edward
People of Colours is an important performance that has been created by BIPOC performers and creatives behind the scenes, allowing them a stage where they can express themselves and speak on various issues that impact marginalised voices and people of colour.
DISTURBO | Bare Legs Circus
DISTURBO is a striking exploration of self-revelation and relationship, of queer embodiment and emancipation. I am going to throw it into the ring of New Circus, an uncategorizable cacophony of circus skills, drag, kitsch, acrodance, movement, storytelling, music, mime, and physical theatre.
Three | ADC
The pas de deux of the wind between Lonii Garnons-Williams and Tyrel Dulvarie was truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Garnons-Williams had me in mind of a fae spirit, halfway between playful and vengeful. Dulvarie was harried before the tempest as men are wont to dance on the command of elves. They captured wind so exquisitely, the timing and lightness was superb. I could see every eddy, every tiny zephyr, and the kinaesthetic response between the two was flawless.
Anatomy of a Suicide | Metro Arts and BC Productions Qld
The script weaves in and out of sync whilst three storylines are unravelling at once. Where does one look? How do they link? Who is that character now? This show forces you to stay focused, alert, overwhelmed and silenced whilst each character explores their own tension, grief and loss.
The Time is Now | La Boite's Young Artist Company
The Time Is Now features ten storytellers from different ethnic backgrounds and ages, with the youngest being a ripe old age of twelve (nearly thirteen) and the oldest, eighteen. The work was built around the UN Declaration of a Child’s Rights, with each performer making their own amendment to it. These amendments include each child having freedom of expression, the right to be safe, the right to have ice-cream and the right to be a bad ass Queen.
In the Dark | Big Fork Theatre
Being almost completely pitch black, it gave the presentation a live podcast vibe or even something reminiscent of an old-time comedy radio show. Not being able to see much also allowed the audience to use their imagination, which made it feel more immersive.
Corpus Null | AXIS
Corpus Null opened strong. A lone walker approached the audience, slow, barely moving at all. One by one, bodies emerged, running in figure eights, crashing into the walker’s line of sight, as if hit by an electric shock over and over again. It conjured up images of the daily grind, being lost among the chaos of the unrelenting rat race. I was distressed and captivated.
Get Her Outta Here | Broccolini Productions
Get Her Outta Here is a quirky show created and performed by Isabella Broccolini at Sideshow as part of Anywhere Festival. It is a monologue that lasts for about 40 minutes that will make you rack your brain to find meanings and connections. You have to go in there with an open mind because there is nothing straight about this show.
Coterie Cabaret
Wow, wow, wow! What a shit hot and sexy show! Coterie Cabaret Creative Directors Anna Johnston and Emily Stockwell have struck gold with their debut show, Coterie Cabaret, producing a gasp-inducing, laugh-out-loud, sexy, international quality show that celebrates kink and sex-positivity in all the best ways. Starring some of Brissy’s finest circus, dance and cabaret performers, Coterie Cabaret is a stellar night out that hits all the right spots and leaves the audience begging for more.
Pink Martini Pop-up Cabaret | Evoke Dance & Theatre Company
Showcasing a range of dance styles including salsa, tango, samba, the cancan, contemporary, jazz and even a conga line, gorgeous costuming and backed by a stellar eight piece band, the cabaret hit all the right places. As someone who got swept up in learning Latin dance years back, it made for great night of nostalgia, leaving me smiling and humming along. The local audience seemed to agreed, as they clapped and stamped their feet throughout.
Dear Adults | Virag Dombay and Harry Fritsch
Dear Adults is a verbatim piece performed by children that explores different dynamics they have with adults and provides a stage for their questions and concerns to be heard. It’s the kind of show that I wished I would’ve had access to as a child, especially with growing up in a rural town and the difficulties that arose there. To be able to have those honest discussions with the adults in my life is something I yearned for when I was younger and still do to some extent.
101 Ways to Stare At A Wall | Sharmila Nezovic
Sharmila Nezovic is a thinker. An artist who layers ideas on inspirations and metaphors, who intersperses themes from across her lifetime of artmaking into curious installations. A one-time event, 101 Ways to Stare at a Wall is simultaneously a critique of our over-urbanised lives, hemmed in by the endless cemented infrastructure of modern cities, and also a kind of love letter to the hidden beauty of accidental architecture and human place-making.
It Takes A Lot Not To End Up Dead | NiK NaK Productions
In this unique musical cabaret, local folk singer-songwriter Lizzie Flynn takes us on a heartwarming journey through her youth via the key people and events that inspired her repertoire of original songs. It Takes A Lot Not To End Up Dead is a fun and wholesome time. I’m a big fan of putting singing and storytelling together. Singing itself is storytelling, but add a sprinkle of honest, in-character storytelling and you’ve got something extra special.
The Pageant | The Beryls
Roger Seahorse, played by Laura Trennery, was a stiff, wide-eyed dork of a man, clad in a bedazzled pale blue suit. He was timid but endearing and practically plastic with fake tan and glowing white teeth. Victoria Beauvoir, played by Patrick Dwyer, was lush, larger than life, suggestive and sexually available in a shimmery gown and a cloud of blonde curls. Both characters were extreme, almost demonic, caricatures of pageant hosts. The footlighting cast shadows across their faces that twisted their white smiles.
Utopia! And the Calamity Caravan | Observatory Theatre
Using circus, tap dance and clowning, the team at Observatory Theatre have made a vibrant and lively adventure story that is sure to please the kiddos. This is a pretty good first draft of a fun family show, and I genuinely enjoyed it and would like to see it transformed into a real winner, so I am going to put on my circus producer hat for this one.
As You Like It | ThunderBear Productions
A classic Shakespearian comedy, As You Like It is a drama that throws a big stick in the spokes of gender norms, what with a cast of characters that wander off the path on ill-conceived adventures, that fall in love quicker than you or I can drink a luke-warm latte, and are inclined to cross-dress without so much as a by-your-leave. It’s quite satisfying then, to see this contemporary staging heavily weighted with women, when once it would have been entirely performed by men.
Vasilissa | Sylph Circus & Sirin Ensemble
I hope that Sylph Circus continues this path in future productions, finding other girl-centred stories to tell, to share, to enjoy the creating and performing of, to embed knowledge and learn it joyously, to share it with whomsoever comes to trip down the forest path on a crisp morning in autumn.
The Great Grandiosa | Act React
If you have ever wanted to know what the winning lottery number is going to be, or what riches are coming in your future, then you might not find that at The Great Grandiosa. What you are guaranteed though is a fun night of hilarious comedy and a peek into what might’ve happened in our past lives as you are swept away by The Great Grandiosa’s psychic charm, tarot card readings and a deep delve into horoscopes.