Art and revolution

When Brett Sheehy, Melbourne Festival artistic director, launched his program earlier this year at a lavishly corporate event, he announced ...

Melbourne Festival review: Aviary

Some of the dance at this year's Melbourne Festival has been full-on sensory overload. Hofesh Shechter's Political Mother hit like a...

Melbourne Festival review: Hedda Gabler, The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane

Watching Thomas Ostermeier's production of Hedda Gabler - the first of his works I've seen - was unexpectedly fascinating. Through d...

Melbourne Festival review: Double Think, Journeys of Love and More Love

Byron Perry's new dance work Double Think opens in complete darkness in the vast space of the North Melbourne Town Hall. To the rhythms ...

Melbourne Festival review: Whiteley's Incredible Blue, Foley

La beauté, “Beauty is difficult, Yeats” said Aubrey Beardsleywhen Yeats asked why he drew horrorsor at least not Burne-Jonesand Beardsley kn...

Melbourne Festival review: Political Mother, The Magic Flute

When Hofesh Shechter debuted here during Brett Sheehy's first Melbourne Festival, I was in the UK and missed it. So it's fair to say...

Melbourne Festival: Aftermath

A pointer to my review of New York Theatre Workshop's Aftermath, which I saw at the Perth Festival earlier this year, and which opened i...

Melbourne Festival review: The Manganiyar Seduction, Rhinoceros in Love

Much has been said about The Manganiyar Seduction, a stunning theatrical presentation of Rajasthani music, and no doubt I will simply add an...

Melbourne Festival review: Assembly

One of the strongest aspects of this year's Melbourne Festival program is the local performance. I can remember a time when under-develo...

Melbourne Festival review: Ganesh Versus The Third Reich

I've been dithering over this post for days, trying to find a way in to writing about this extraordinary show. As with Back to Back'...

Melbourne Festival review: Clybourne Park, Half-Real

Your faithful blogger has been shanghaied by the day job lately, dealing with an editing deadline for my forthcoming novel. (Forthcoming Chr...

Melbourne Festival: here we go

Launches have their conventions: they are the events where those interests, state and corporate, who invest lavishly in an event get to stan...

Melbourne Festival: The Wrap

After several thousand words and a couple of days ruminating, what else is there to say about MIAF 2010? There it was. Here we are. We'v...

MIAF diary #8: Seven Songs, Tomorrow, in a Year, An Anthology of Optimism

So, that was MIAF 2010, signing off last night with a huge star-studded Black Armband extravaganza in the Myer Music Bowl. The weather gods ...

MIAF Diary #7: Opening Night

Finally, in its last week, the Melbourne Festival has warmed up. Quite literally - there's no doubt that a couple of balmy nights help l...

MIAF Diary #6: Vertical Road

Death cultivates visibility...The image does not reflect reality, but rather, the spectacular end of all reality.To see, means to die; to wa...

MIAF Diary #5: Jack Charles v. The Crown, Adapting for Distortion / Haptic

Now I'm facing Melbourne Festival Week #3: and I confess that my feathers are a little bedraggled, my tail and whiskers a little less th...

MIAF Diary #4: The Beckett Trilogy

This inertia of things is enough to drive one literally insane.Molloy, Samuel BeckettSamuel Beckett is famously one of the most recondite of...

MIAF Diary #3: Carnival of Mysteries, Come, Been and Gone, Thomas Adès and the Calder Quartet

Ms TN is still standing: but I was grateful for a couple of nights home early this week. I'm not complaining - don't get me wrong - ...

MIAF Diary #2: Intimacy, The Blue Dragon

In 2007, Raimondo and Adriano Cortese's company Ranters had an independent hit with their production Holiday, which saw a return season ...