#arts feature

The following are excerpts from “It’s Nice, But You Wouldn’t Want To Live There”, Hazel Motes’s recently published chapbook of poems written during his five months (so far) in El Asilo. The views and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect those of the El Asilo Gazette.

Arts Feature: Is Character Performance Dead?

 As everyone mourned and celebrated the life of David Bowie last week, I couldn’t help but consider one nagging feeling. Adopting a character as an expression of art is all but dead. (more…)

Running as part of this weekend’s True North Festival in Reservoir, four different artists are playing the creative equivalent of Chinese whispers. Lost In Translation is an imaginative, Reservoir-inspired project commissioned for the north-bound festival by the City of Darebin. Writer Stella Glorie, cartoonist Keith McDougall, singer/songwriter Auður, visual artist Laura Wood, and their respective mentors have been working on four different pieces which will be on display throughout Reservoir this weekend. Festival-goers can view these pieces individually, or go on a walking tour of the project with comedian Kate McLennan to hear the unique tale of how the story, the comic, the song and the visual piece were all inspired.

Reservoir-residing Stella Glorie was devastated when she had to move north from Northcote as Melbourne rent prices rise relentlessly, and she wrote a short story about it. This story, In the Rezz, was then sent to aspiring graphic novelist Keith McDougall and – with the help of mentor Bernard Caleo – he developed a 34-panel comic inspired by Glorie’s words. McDougall’s gigantic comic board was then handed over to local songwriter Auður (mentored by Andrea Keller) who, based entirely on the content of the comic, wrote a song. Finally, Auður sent the song to emerging visual artist Laura Wood, who created a piece solely based on the song, with guidance from her mentor Belinda Suzette. 

Illustrator Keith McDougall was sent the story in December, and found himself challenged by the lack of conversation it contained. “What I'd been given to work with was both challenging and inspiring because it contained very little dialogue,” he reflects. “It's a mood piece that relies on imagery and the interior drama of one character. The comic I've created out of it is almost completely wordless because I was more interested in using images to capture the shifting mood of the story.” 

The story is the narration of a woman who is forced further and further north by rising rent prices. “[She’s] recently moved into Reservoir, and used to live in Northcote, and to begin with, the narrator is quite depressed about Reservoir and wishes she was back in Northcote. At one point in her life she said that she’d never lived north of Separation Street, and then she said never north of Bell Street, and now she’s crept further and further north, which is a common thing for people in Melbourne,” McDougall adds. “I live in Coburg now, I used to live in Brunswick, so it was something I could relate to. By the end of the story though, she realises that, well... Reservoir isn’t such a bad place,” he laughs. 

Not previously familiar with Reservoir, McDougall spent a lot of time in the area when planning his comic interpretation of the piece. “It’s a pretty interesting place, like it's quite beautiful,” he says. “Some of it looks – if you walk around where the actual reservoir itself is – it’s actually kind of spooky, but in a really cool way. So I incorporated that sort of dark, spooky look into the comic, but then [as the story progresses,] some of the more bright and colourful things as well.” 

Because the comic is to be displayed in Oggi’s shop window, the visual presentation of the comic was integral to the finished piece. “I did some brainstorming with my mentor Bernard Caleo, and we came up with this idea that I would create a giant newspaper page. Since the comic is going to be displayed in a window, it couldn’t be a book. It’s just one page, so I figured what would look really good would be a giant broadsheet newspaper page with a huge comic section. Decades and decades ago the newspapers were much larger and the comic sections were much bigger and more colourful, so I was inspired by that.” 

Comedian Kate McLennan will be hosting Lost In Translation walking tours on Saturday and Sunday, which will take punters to each of the works in corresponding order, to see the process in its entirety. It’s a unique project that McDougall is excited to be a part of, and his guess is as good as yours when it comes to predicting what the end result will be. “It’ll be really interesting at the festival itself to meet the other artists and see the work, and see how this is all going to fit together. I'm wondering how the end product – the sculpture or painting – how different that will be from the original story.” 

Melbourne’s comic scene is one that McDougall is particularly proud to be a part of. After completing his bachelor degree doing predominantly sound and music based papers, he returned to RMIT in 2010 because he “just suddenly really got into comics and decided I wanted to make a graphic novel.” McDougall quickly discovered the underground world of local comics and their artists. “There are just so many brilliant graphic novels being published, and there are a lot of really great local cartoonists in Melbourne – there are a lot of really talented people around.” Including McDougall himself, who has received a grant to do residencies in Berlin and New York, the next step on his mission to becoming a published graphic novelist. “I mean, I'll see if I can make a career out of this, but I think I need a backup plan – like, I was thinking about studying to be a librarian or something.” 

BY KATE MCCARTEN

Burlesque truly has stood the test of time. While our world has changed beyond recognition over the last 500 years, it seems we've managed to find a place in mainstream society for this sexiest of performance arts in a time not known for its appreciation of the past. In fact, Melburnians more than most have embraced the resurgence of burlesque, with a bevy of clubs and artists around the city dedicated to the movement. Three years ago, Scarlett (real name: Sheree Matthews) began experimenting with burlesque after spending most of her life devoted to the much more respectable ballet, and hasn't looked back. Launching her own company aptly titled Scarlett Productions with the 1980s stage extravaganza Cherry 2000, Scarlett is just as surprised as anyone at how her life is panning out.

Like most females, Scarlett began doing ballet when she was a young girl. Unlike most though, she didn't give it up after a few classes. In fact, she dedicated the next 15 years of her life to the dance. “I started quite young like a lot of people do,” Scarlett recalls. “But I ended up at McDonald College in Sydney. Right from Year 7, I did two hours of training every day along side my school work, as well as after school. I finished school in Year 10 to do full time training, and ended up in Germany training 10 hours a day, six days a week. So yeah it was quite...I mean, that was meant to be my career.” After all that though, Scarlett eventually realised that she didn't actually want to be a ballerina. Of retiring, Scarlett simply says, “I just decided in the end that it wasn't for me. I think my body was just a bit tired.” 

Returning to Australia, Scarlett began readjusting to normal life, becoming a university student and finally exploring her passion for interior design. But they do say 'once a performer, always a performer', and Sheree Matthews the ballerina eventually find herself back on the stage, this time as the blood-haired bombshell Scarlett. “It was a bit of an odd step into it,” she muses. “I needed a little extra spurt of creativity into my life, and so I went to some burlesque classes. I wanted to do something a bit crazy and something very different to my ballet training, which certainly it is. I eventually found myself on the stage, and then it picked up really quickly.” So quickly in fact, that it soon became a full time job. Alongside her study, Scarlett began performing two to three times a week throughout Melbourne's flourishing burlesque scene. 

Quickly developing a following as the prima ballerina of burlesque, Scarlett still uses her point shoes and incorporates a lot of ballet into her routines, which she attributes to helping her get work and exposure. But the similarities between ballet and burlesque are limited. “The transition was really interesting because performing on the stage for ballet, you're quite distant and detached from the audience, whereas in burlesque it's all about getting in people's faces and really eliciting a reaction. It challenges you more as a performer, in a different way.” When talking about the transition between ballet and burlesque, Scarlett adds, “It was actually a real surprise getting into performing that much again but as soon as it happened it felt natural, albeit in a much different realm.” 

As Scarlett's final year as an interior design student came to an end though, she inevitably began to look toward the future. Finding that ballet was no longer written there, the choice for Scarlett was now: burlesque or interior design? The answer, it seems, is attempting to amalgamate the two into one venture: Scarlett Productions. Using both her knowledge of design and her passion for the stage, Scarlett is now focused on bringing to life shows of her own. Not just as the performer and producer, but as the writer, the choreographer, and of course the set and prop designer. Perhaps not using her interior design knowledge as was expected, Scarlett concedes, “I keep coming back to performance. I just can't escape it.” 

In association with Red Bennies, and inspired by the cult ‘80s sci-fi film of the same name, Cherry 2000 promises not only burlesque, but circus, cabaret and even fireworks. Scarlett intentionally chose something as ambitious and multi-faceted as Cherry 2000 to launch her production career. “I wanted to attempt to break away from your standard burlesque show set up where it's just one act after another with a very general theme. I really wanted to put more of a show into it. Every scene is considered, and there's more of a storyline.” 

The storyline in this case being of a future where android babes reign supreme and love is, quite literally, a battlefield. And while the show is based on the film, it is not a direct stage rendition of it. Scarlett, who is also the lead dancer, explains, “We've taken a few key scenes from the movie and re-enacted them, while also fleshing out the idea of android love, and of romance having died. Basically, we wanted to celebrate the film in all its 1980s glory, but we've taken a bit of creative license that allows us to throw a few other vaudevillian acts in there as well,” Scarlett exhales. “It's going to be a big one. I'm excited.” 

BY KATE MCCARTEN

Statistics isn’t usually a word associated with fun or creativity. Without faces to a number or stories to a percentage, it’s hard for anyone to muster the energy to care about how John and Jane down the street filled out last year’s census form. 100% Melbourne is putting an animated spin on those usually lifeless numbers, attempting to encourage people to stand up and take notice of their own surroundings. After huge acclaim for 100% Berlin, 100% Cologne and 100% Vienna, celebrated Berlin-based theatre company Rimini Protokoll, in association with the City of Melbourne, is bringing their hugely successful 100% franchise to the Southern hemisphere for the first time.

Described as ‘part-theatre, part-game, part-reality performance’, the genre for the 100% franchise is obviously tricky to categorise. The format though, is simple: 100 different Melburnians selected based on five key statistical criteria – age, gender, region of birth, residential location and family composition – take the stage and partake in a variety of activities that show us the opinions, stories and lives of the people who live in our city. Nine of the 100 are toddlers, representing the nine percent of Melburnians who are under five years old. The oldest performer is 88. Three of the group were born in Africa or the Middle East. In fact, only about half the group were born in Melbourne, illuminating just how metropolitan this city has become. The unique selection process of the performers illustrates that despite these differences, we are all connected. Associate Director Bec Reid was in charge of casting, which was a huge undertaking all in itself. Reid was given 100 days to find 100 people. She began by finding one Melburnian that fits into a particular statistical mould. From there, that person recommended someone they knew who fit another set of criteria. The next person recommended the next so that everyone on stage knows at least two people alongside them. Two degrees of separation is yet another statistic represented here. 

Watching the 100 chosen Melburnians take the stage for their second-to-last rehearsal before opening night, it is immediately obvious that these are not actors; the majority of whom have never even visited the theatre before, let alone dreamed of performing inside one. Here is your local shopkeeper, your chiropractor, your neighbour, your babysitter, your local busybody. They seem as confused as anyone to find themselves as the centre of attention. It’s this organic feeling of watching, not plastic faces drowning in make-up or cardboard cut outs with neutralised accents, but your fellow city-dwellers representing you that has made the 100% franchise such a surprising success. Any one of you could be up on that stage, which makes the performance immediately relatable. 

As one part of the larger performance, there is a time lapse activity, in which the 100 act out tasks that they would be doing at a given hour of their standard day. When “Melbourne at 10pm” is announced, the children and the elderly are lying on the stage feigning sleep; harried looking women are miming the washing up; while a few enthusiastic 20-somethings pretend to sip from alcoholic bottles whilst fist-pumping to imagined club-bangers. Watching the 24-hour cycle of one day, with so many of the 100 doing so many different things, begins to awaken the usually dormant notion that there are indeed so many other lives out there.

The group is asked questions about their beliefs and their politics and their morals. The left side of the stage is “yes”, the right is “no”. Who believes in a God? Who is in favour of gay marriage? Who is afraid of the future? Who has come to Australia to escape violence somewhere else? The questions are emotional and loaded, and as you look into the faces of those few who are standing on the left side of the stage after being asked, “Who has experienced war?” you can’t help but wonder what their story is. And sometimes they tell you. Throughout the performance, members of the 100 approach the microphones and share a tiny snippet of their lives with the audience, bringing everyone inside their bubble for the briefest of moments. Veterans speak of war, immigrants of culture shock, and a seven-year-old girl of Justin Bieber.

Being the fifth instalment of their 100% series, German directors Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetze have the mechanics of the work down to a prototypical science. As they call orders and suggestions to the group of 100 performers, you get the sense that they’ve been here before. Although it’s the first performance for 100% on this side of the world, the fact that they can coordinate 100 English-speaking people so seamlessly further echoes what the underlying message of the show is: whether you live in Melbourne or Vienna or anywhere in between, people are people are people. Fundamentally, we are all the same. This story can be told anywhere by anyone. But this time it is being told here, to us, by us.

100% Melbourne promises to entertain as well as to inform. It’s a performance for everyone, about everyone. It’s interesting, it’s powerful, and it makes you think. Not about some once upon a time unreality in a galaxy far far away but about our city, our neighbours, our friends. Perhaps above all, it promises to make us contemplate ourselves. And all of us could do with a little self exploration.

BY KATE MCCARTEN

For the father of a one-and-a-half year old and a brand new set of twins, Antony Hamilton has unprecedented amounts of energy. Studying ballet throughout his youth, Hamilton's life was revolutionised by the discovery of contemporary dance in the late nineties. His eyes had been opened to this whole new world of movement, and he hasn't dared close them since. After almost a decade as a dancer for Chunky Move, Hamilton is about to debut his first solo commission work for the company as a director. Keep Everything is professed to be a stripped back, abstract work exploring the idea of the creative process. In his last week of rehearsals, and in between bites of a tuna panini, Hamilton ponders his inspirations, his passions and his fears.

Like most children of the ‘80s, Antony Hamilton was taken with breakdancing from a young age. His attentive mother quickly recognised her son's physical abilities and signed him up to local ballet classes to give his playful movements some discipline. Unlike most eight year old boys, Hamilton thrived in ballet, and ended up spending the next fifteen years of his life mastering the craft. It wasn't until he began training at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts towards the end of adolescence that a totally unimaginable idea suddenly jumped up and changed the rest of his life. “There was a life changing day in class where the teacher basically said 'you can do anything'. You can do anything – anything. You don’t have to do the information that’s in your body that you’ve learned. You can try new things,” Hamilton smiles. “It was just a revelation, you know? And that’s when I got really excited about making work because it could be my ideas. Holy shit. It was awesome.” But at that stage, he was still young and he was still a dancer, programmed to bring other people's ideas to fruition. Something, it seems, he was damn good at. Hamilton went on to dance with the Australian Dance Academy, Kage Physical Theatre, Chunky Move and Lucy Guerin Inc. His extensive and global dance resume is riddled with critical acclaim and awards, including Best Male Dancer titles from both Greenroom and Helpmann.

When he eventually did begin the transition from dancer to director, the length of the leap took Hamilton by surprise. “There's quite a delineation between a choreographer and a director. A lot of dancers are choreographers, but directing is something all together different. Learning how to direct a whole show was the steepest learning curve I've ever had,” remembers Hamilton. “I didn't know what the fuck I was getting into. I thought it was going to be like 'oh yeah, no problem', but when it came to production I was beside myself. Just like, 'what have I done?'” The experience didn't scare him off though. Battling through a continuous cycle of commissions and independent works since, Hamilton has quickly but determinedly established himself as one of Melbourne's leading young contemporary directors. Acclaimed works like Black Project 1 and Drift have demanded the Australian dance scene to stop and take notice, and it appears Hamilton has got something equally intriguing up his sleeve with Keep Everything.

From an engineer building a skyscraper, to an arts journo writing about Antony Hamilton, any creation suffers through an elimination process. Which ideas will work, which ideas are shit, and which ideas you wish you could use some other time for some other thing. Keep Everything is an abstract work focusing on the elusiveness of that creative process. The initial vision was to create a work that would bring to life notions that had been thrown to the wayside in previous developments. But even that concept has twisted and turned throughout its own life, consolidating the authenticity of the idea.

Despite having an incredibly talented and experienced crew on hand, including Australian duo The Presets working on the score, Hamilton has purposefully kept the piece visually exposed. From a minimalistic set and costume design to subtle lighting and music, he wants to prove that his ideas and skill alone are enough to carry his works. “[Minimalism] is quite a divergence away from my other work. I wanted to challenge myself to see what I could get purely from the performers. I figured if I’m going to be a director, I should dig a bit deeper with the performances, rather than focusing on the dressing of the work.” Dancers Alisdair Macindoe, Benjamin Hancock and Lauren Langlois have a tough job ahead of them. A job that Hamilton admits he wouldn't want. The three dancers are present throughout the performance, literally having nowhere to hide.

Other than those vague hints though, Hamilton is reluctant to divulge any more about what the piece will actually look like. He doesn't want you to know, yet. “I generally want people to have no expectations. I think the work speaks its own language, so to colour it with words takes something away from it. It means you can only read it through those eyes,” Hamilton muses. “I will say it does have a strong emotional backbone. It definitely makes me feel strong feelings. Like 'that's really fucking scary' or 'that's really weird' or 'that's beautiful'. But maybe that's just cause I like it cause I made it, and that's my taste. Other people might go 'that's really fucking boring',” he laughs. “They probably will.”

BY KATE MCCARTEN 

Probably most widely known for her regular participation in Melbourne’s annual Carols by Candlelight, self-proclaimed ‘Melbourne girl through and through’ Silvie Paladino has enjoyed a musical career spanning more than two decades. From performing in musicals on London’s West End to singing the national anthem at footy games to touring with seven prolific orchestras, Paladino is an obviously versatile performer. On My Own is her first full-length studio album and since its release last year, Paladino has been showcasing the album live to fans around the country. After performing in Darwin last week, Silvie is back down in Melbourne this weekend to put on a couple of shows for her fellow Victorians.

Silvie Paladino began singing with a local teacher when she was nine years old. Like all tween-aged extra-curricular activities, it began as a hobby – just something to fill the afternoons. But Paladino soon found that not only did she adore singing, but she was also naturally good at it. By 12, she already had her first regular singing gig as the lead singer of a reception band that performed at weddings, baptisms and other local shindigs. Two years later, Paladino won the Italian Song Festival with songwriter Johnson Peters. But even after experiencing these early successes, Paladino still didn’t consider the idea that her singing had the potential to take her much further.

Before this modern day obsession with fame struck the hearts of five and six-year-olds the world over, the idea of turning singing into a career was an incomprehensible concept to most young girls, Paladino included. Her mum having migrated to Australia from Egypt, her dad from Italy, the content Paladinos didn’t particularly encourage excess. “I come from very humble beginnings. There were no grand expectations on our lives, it was just – we were lucky to be here, living a good life; we never had any luxuries or anything like that. So it sort of didn’t dawn on me that I could even turn singing into a career.” And it wasn’t until she won Channel Ten’s Young Talent Time when she was 14 that the idea of a future in music began to surface. Within the year, Paladino made the decision to drop out of school and put her faith in her voice. “I really had to make the choice whether I was going to sing or whether I was going to stay at school and give it all my energy. I decided not to do that because I didn’t like school very much,” she laughs.

It was a risky move but one that, even early, proved to have paid off. When she was just 18, Paladino was cast as Eponine in the production of Les Misérables. The first of many successful musical theatre roles across her career, Paladino is still hesitant to label herself as an actress. “I’ve certainly learnt how to act over the years,” she eventually admits. “It’s never something that I studied. It was something that I was sort of thrown into with Les Mis, because I was predominantly a singer; that’s what I knew my strength was. And working with the wonderful director Gail Edwards on that, she nurtured me and was so wonderful at explaining it so clearly that I learnt to how to emote through my singing. I’ve sort of learnt the art through working it, you know?”

She must have been doing something right, because her portrayal of Eponine on the 12-month tour earned Paladino a Victorian Green Room Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She went on to bring Eponine back to life on the West End, and then returned to London a couple of years later to tackle the role of Fantine for a two-year run.

Despite performing in many other musicals over the years and earning herself much-coveted acting chops, Paladino’s heart lies primarily with music. Although Paladino includes her first performance of Les Misérables among her career highlights, it sits amongst a modest list of singing accomplishments: winning Young Talent Time, performing the national anthem at the AFL Grand Final in 2005, and singing at Carols by Candlelight each year. And perhaps something to add to the list is last year’s release of her first studio album, On My Own. Paladino doesn’t claim to be a songwriter, and accordingly the album only includes one original, At A Time Like This, which she wrote with John Foreman. “I can’t say I’m a really great songwriter, but I’ve certainly started investigating this art of writing songs. And I’m really proud of the song we wrote for the album. It’s something that I’ll certainly try to do more of,” she adds.

The rest of the album doesn’t follow one genre or one theme; it is an eclectic mix up which reflects the versatility of Paladino’s strengths and preferences. “The reason why the album has all different styles on it is because I feel like that’s a reflection of who I am. I wanted it to be true to me. So I picked songs from musicals because that’s what I do. I picked Italian songs because that’s my background. And I did some more contemporary, and a bit more classical, because I sing all sorts of genres; I couldn’t really pick one.” So it follows that her intimate performance at the Clocktower Centre this weekend, accompanied solely by David Cameron on piano, will be just as encompassing.

BY KATE MCCARTEN