Scanning the foyer of the North Melbourne Art House after watching a performance of Holiday there are scores of audience members looking as if they had taken a trip themselves.
In an era that is distinguished by busy agendas it was a real treat to see so many visitors chatting over a drink, reflecting on a couple of successful performances and generally sharing a few idle moments together.
Hoilday is a charming piece of theatre. Produced by the Ranter Theatre co-op it is a contemporary baroque musical about relaxation that brings up some interesting questions for a society that is unable to take its foot off the accelerator.
It seems that down time is a complicated subject for people these days. In an economic culture of success, of making things happen 24-7, of keeping a diary full of appointments, seeking leisure for itself is not an easy goal out there.
The idea of leisure as a topic for the stage is what writer Raimondo Cortese so wonderfully realises in this meaningful look at the lives of two blokes taking time out.
Cortese is a wonderful writer and the level of success of this project was proven by the size and responsivness of the theatre goers who took a deep refreshing breath at the atmosphere of the absurd established by actors Paul Lum and Partick Moffatt. When taken by the mood they did the odd baroque sing song.
A remarkable set designed by director brother Adriano Cortese put on centre stage a wading pool that pulled the eye towards it as real pools pull people towards them for fun.
A pool is the traditional status symbol for middle class relaxation; of earned leisure.
It's the middle class of any society who are most awkward in persuit of real leisure as they are always desperate to make their lives meaningful by toil rather than putting their feet up.
For Cortese, the middle class context is a grand setting of drifing and dreaming for his characters.
The pool of water is a reference for lazy days as the actors take their time gazing into the mid distance, reclining on a chaise lounge and languidly slipping into the depths of their own thoughts that makes for a string of ephemeral reflections that as you might guess are often profound.
In such depths of themselves we see that there is an extreme of ideas, of experiences, of awareness, and these themes take the place of action on stage.
The light heartedness of a trip away, of doing nothing and expressing ideas freely took a sudden turn when truth entered the stream of Lum and Moffatt's relationship.
Are you awake or dreaming? Is what one actor insighfully inquires after a particularly laissez faire exchange of words. Of course the question is not posed to be answered and the dialog drifts along as a ship sails across the back of the set, birds fade in and out of the elegant soundscape and the actors coast on until the light dims on this carefree flight from the daily grind.
Holiday closed at the North Melbourne Art House on August 22.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Homelands in exile
When Frederic Brenner went to work almost 30 years ago it was one photograph he took, then another and before long there were the thousands of images that make up this remarkable body of work.
Diaspora: homelands in exile, gathers a selection of lyrical black and white images of the Jewish Diaspora as it does in an accompanying book of the same name. The photographic exhibit is now on at the Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne.
On his lengthy search of authentic Jewishness Brenner went to more than 40 countries aiming his lens at the keepers
of remnant cultures who often kept their traditions out of sight of prying eyes.
For three months this series of photographs of Israel, Italy, the United States, Russia, Spain, South Africa and Poland will be celebrated by Victorians as it was by guests of the United Nations gallery and Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City in previous years.
Brenner was born in 1959 in Paris. At 19 he had gone off to Israel with his camera. In the streets of Jerusalem, in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish district of Mea Shearim he caught a thoughful first series of photos that he imagined were archetypal Jews preserving an ‘authentic’ Jewish culture.
Besides these earlier images is written the question that drove the photographer for 25 years of research, What is authentic Jewishness?
Brenner went moving slowly along from ethnographic documentation of his subjects to elegant, posed individual and family portraits. He brushed on the epic cycles of Jew history, of departures and return, but found an answer to satisfy his calling in the presence of cultural mingling.
In Rome of 1992 the inexorable influence of Italian life can be traced on the faces of Jewish men as they pose with motorbike helmets under their arms at the most iconic of Roman landmarks, the Colosseum. At the Arch of Titus, the old Roman port of the Jewish ghetto, women stand in a small group beckoning us to ask if they are the one family, the one race?
The melding of Jewish culture with the cultures of other lands is a theme that skips from frame to frame as one wonders this exhibition.
Idiosyncratic and sometimes outlandish images of the United States are Brenner’s most interesting as they directly challenge the stereotype of Jewishness.
What about the protesters of an anti-Semitic act in Montana of 1994. Each person; black, white and native American is alone, defiantly alone, tens of them as they march toward the camera each raising a Hanukkah.
How wonderful is the express conversion on a beach in Miami, Florida of 1994. We read that the people arrive in the morning for breakfast, they have three hours of lessons on Judaism and Kabbalah. They are then brought to the sea for a ritual immersion and given their Hebrew names. Lunch is offered, and they are Jews.
Of the years on the Iberian peninsula of inquisition and conquest we get a Diaspora within a Diaspora. After 1492 the Jews of Spain were forced to flee their homeland for the safety of neighbouring countries. In Morocco we first see a North African, or is it a Spaniard? Again we meet a Jewish character who is unique in the world.
A beautiful photo of the Marrano's of Portugal is a rare glimpse of people who vanished for centuries only to be rediscovered in 1917, and by the lens of Brenner.
Diaspora: homelands in exile is Jewishness as Brenner observed it. The shifting soul of the photographer who traipsed to five continents to achieve this fascinating collection eventually went back to Israel where he encountered some of the subjects he had snapped years earlier in other places. Again the obsessive chronicler took his camera out to capture these new exiles, at home.
Diaspora: homelands in exile is at the Jewish Museum of Australia in St Kilda until October 28.
Diaspora: homelands in exile, gathers a selection of lyrical black and white images of the Jewish Diaspora as it does in an accompanying book of the same name. The photographic exhibit is now on at the Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne.
On his lengthy search of authentic Jewishness Brenner went to more than 40 countries aiming his lens at the keepers
of remnant cultures who often kept their traditions out of sight of prying eyes.
For three months this series of photographs of Israel, Italy, the United States, Russia, Spain, South Africa and Poland will be celebrated by Victorians as it was by guests of the United Nations gallery and Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City in previous years.
Brenner was born in 1959 in Paris. At 19 he had gone off to Israel with his camera. In the streets of Jerusalem, in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish district of Mea Shearim he caught a thoughful first series of photos that he imagined were archetypal Jews preserving an ‘authentic’ Jewish culture.
Besides these earlier images is written the question that drove the photographer for 25 years of research, What is authentic Jewishness?
Brenner went moving slowly along from ethnographic documentation of his subjects to elegant, posed individual and family portraits. He brushed on the epic cycles of Jew history, of departures and return, but found an answer to satisfy his calling in the presence of cultural mingling.
In Rome of 1992 the inexorable influence of Italian life can be traced on the faces of Jewish men as they pose with motorbike helmets under their arms at the most iconic of Roman landmarks, the Colosseum. At the Arch of Titus, the old Roman port of the Jewish ghetto, women stand in a small group beckoning us to ask if they are the one family, the one race?
The melding of Jewish culture with the cultures of other lands is a theme that skips from frame to frame as one wonders this exhibition.
Idiosyncratic and sometimes outlandish images of the United States are Brenner’s most interesting as they directly challenge the stereotype of Jewishness.
What about the protesters of an anti-Semitic act in Montana of 1994. Each person; black, white and native American is alone, defiantly alone, tens of them as they march toward the camera each raising a Hanukkah.
How wonderful is the express conversion on a beach in Miami, Florida of 1994. We read that the people arrive in the morning for breakfast, they have three hours of lessons on Judaism and Kabbalah. They are then brought to the sea for a ritual immersion and given their Hebrew names. Lunch is offered, and they are Jews.
Of the years on the Iberian peninsula of inquisition and conquest we get a Diaspora within a Diaspora. After 1492 the Jews of Spain were forced to flee their homeland for the safety of neighbouring countries. In Morocco we first see a North African, or is it a Spaniard? Again we meet a Jewish character who is unique in the world.
A beautiful photo of the Marrano's of Portugal is a rare glimpse of people who vanished for centuries only to be rediscovered in 1917, and by the lens of Brenner.
Diaspora: homelands in exile is Jewishness as Brenner observed it. The shifting soul of the photographer who traipsed to five continents to achieve this fascinating collection eventually went back to Israel where he encountered some of the subjects he had snapped years earlier in other places. Again the obsessive chronicler took his camera out to capture these new exiles, at home.
Diaspora: homelands in exile is at the Jewish Museum of Australia in St Kilda until October 28.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Telling a life story
There was a moment at a theatre in Melbourne recently when a guild of learner writers stood triumphantly after delivering a powerful exhibit of work.
This is the gift of In Our Own Words. The yearly production of stories, poems, songs and photographs about life on the margins of Australia's cities offers friends of the Big Issue an opportunity to share their brand of wisdom with the wider public.
What these writers do then, what they did so beautifully in this collection, is to find the small telling incident at the center of their pain, or joy or humiliation or disappointment, the center of their soul. This is what journalism does not do, and why in an age of slick media casting people as well as events, a simple telling of stories is worth paying some attention to.
It's a long way from lonely streets on stage as performers took time to get comfy with the sudden rush of attention. Their stories were powerful and as you may expect were told in an straightforward manner as the content was so close to the bone. Even acts of irreverence were spiked by hidden tensions.
Not that deeper issues of marginalisation, of the privacy of loss and of loneliness quarantined strong gales of laughter for many of the witty remarks.
The impact more than anything else was the work of the narratives. By putting things together, by making connections, the writers linked their lives into other cycles.
In the audience there were journalists and writers who eek out a living from the power of the pen. One of those who was there for each of the readings was Arnold Zable. The Melbourne writer celebrated for his themes of identity and of memory could be spotted in the front row each night encouraging the amateur writers who he had been mentoring for weeks before the production.
After the show the award winning author went around casually greeting people and patting the backs of troupe members on a countless number of occasions.
What had been the equivalent look of a free fall off a rocky cliff for the performers was transformed into a gentle landing by an abundance of applause. For the audience it was all a bit of story telling fun. The pressure of the stage they briskly swept aside by waves of giggles and by the power of group participation. Later a young homeless writer joked with friends that the stage is a lot like the street only a tad scarier .
In Our Own Words is on in Sydney next month. Arnold Zable is the award-winning author of Jewels and Ashes, The Fig Tree, Café Scheherazade and Scraps Of Heaven.
This is the gift of In Our Own Words. The yearly production of stories, poems, songs and photographs about life on the margins of Australia's cities offers friends of the Big Issue an opportunity to share their brand of wisdom with the wider public.
What these writers do then, what they did so beautifully in this collection, is to find the small telling incident at the center of their pain, or joy or humiliation or disappointment, the center of their soul. This is what journalism does not do, and why in an age of slick media casting people as well as events, a simple telling of stories is worth paying some attention to.
It's a long way from lonely streets on stage as performers took time to get comfy with the sudden rush of attention. Their stories were powerful and as you may expect were told in an straightforward manner as the content was so close to the bone. Even acts of irreverence were spiked by hidden tensions.
Not that deeper issues of marginalisation, of the privacy of loss and of loneliness quarantined strong gales of laughter for many of the witty remarks.
The impact more than anything else was the work of the narratives. By putting things together, by making connections, the writers linked their lives into other cycles.
In the audience there were journalists and writers who eek out a living from the power of the pen. One of those who was there for each of the readings was Arnold Zable. The Melbourne writer celebrated for his themes of identity and of memory could be spotted in the front row each night encouraging the amateur writers who he had been mentoring for weeks before the production.
After the show the award winning author went around casually greeting people and patting the backs of troupe members on a countless number of occasions.
What had been the equivalent look of a free fall off a rocky cliff for the performers was transformed into a gentle landing by an abundance of applause. For the audience it was all a bit of story telling fun. The pressure of the stage they briskly swept aside by waves of giggles and by the power of group participation. Later a young homeless writer joked with friends that the stage is a lot like the street only a tad scarier .
In Our Own Words is on in Sydney next month. Arnold Zable is the award-winning author of Jewels and Ashes, The Fig Tree, Café Scheherazade and Scraps Of Heaven.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Celebrating the wild weather
While pundits spent their time debating the presence of climate change the weather is off doing its own thing like a defiant child.
This winter the weather has gone unexpectedly cold. This has been the wettest winter in a decade, the best snow season in years and ultimatley it's leaving us feeling relieved and at the same time kind of out of rhythm with such a sudden blustery shift.
Friends say it's an old school winter, meaning I think these were the days of our youth, when school sports were postponed because of a water logged ground. Before the weather became wild and woolly, there was a rush on to install water tanks for keeping safe every drop of rain, the grass was dying and there were ancient natives that longed for a drink. We looked to the heavens for portents and signs and began preparing for the worst.
The weather was a political player.
This winter we are back on cycle. The days are planned for rainy squall patches, there are books to read and partners to slip up next to in warm cosy beds. Bellies are growing larger and looks calmer as the cold makes us slower in its weird hibernal way.
Maybe it's the comfort of being toasty. Science says it's intuitive, the circadian clock. This is the body clock, a seasonal timer that is why we wrap ourselves up in a cocoon.
New discoveries are being made of old clothes and conversations are flowing. It is easier to sit still in this weather, to think about all those things that are forgotten when the sun drugs the brain.
This is not the doom and gloom they were predicting, just a good-old fashioned Melbourne winter of frosty mornings and feeling sorry for football players as the powerful southerly blows in right off the straight. It makes the town seem more its moody self or as local crime writer Peter Temple says Melbourne is a great place to write because it's got serious weather.
There are lots of things to celebrate this season. The time spent in front of the heater, a secret day off work, money saved from hiding indoors, the greening of gardens, filling of dams and the absence of uncertainty toward the world when we look up at the sky.
This winter the weather has gone unexpectedly cold. This has been the wettest winter in a decade, the best snow season in years and ultimatley it's leaving us feeling relieved and at the same time kind of out of rhythm with such a sudden blustery shift.
Friends say it's an old school winter, meaning I think these were the days of our youth, when school sports were postponed because of a water logged ground. Before the weather became wild and woolly, there was a rush on to install water tanks for keeping safe every drop of rain, the grass was dying and there were ancient natives that longed for a drink. We looked to the heavens for portents and signs and began preparing for the worst.
The weather was a political player.
This winter we are back on cycle. The days are planned for rainy squall patches, there are books to read and partners to slip up next to in warm cosy beds. Bellies are growing larger and looks calmer as the cold makes us slower in its weird hibernal way.
Maybe it's the comfort of being toasty. Science says it's intuitive, the circadian clock. This is the body clock, a seasonal timer that is why we wrap ourselves up in a cocoon.
New discoveries are being made of old clothes and conversations are flowing. It is easier to sit still in this weather, to think about all those things that are forgotten when the sun drugs the brain.
This is not the doom and gloom they were predicting, just a good-old fashioned Melbourne winter of frosty mornings and feeling sorry for football players as the powerful southerly blows in right off the straight. It makes the town seem more its moody self or as local crime writer Peter Temple says Melbourne is a great place to write because it's got serious weather.
There are lots of things to celebrate this season. The time spent in front of the heater, a secret day off work, money saved from hiding indoors, the greening of gardens, filling of dams and the absence of uncertainty toward the world when we look up at the sky.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
In Praise of Summers' Past
IT’S hard to imagine a collection of photos more evocative to Australians than those on the walls of the Victorian Archives Centre.
Summer Past, Golden Days in the Sun 1950-70, is the name of a free exhibit to stir memories of beach going days for all audiences, but perhaps mostly of an older generation.
The snaps taken by national archivists and supplied by the National Archives Office are worth a thousand words as they show us who we are and hold still those special places where we spent holidays in warmer months.
The coastal backdrops are unspoilt by development and the faces look relaxed and comfortable in front of you as your eyes wander from frame to frame of smiling children surfing on waves to bronze bodies basking on Bondi before the sun became an object of menace.
This was the time of hauling caravans, budget motels and of transistor radios playing the cricket for groups relaxing on the sand.
The women are full-figured and free-spirited, and perhaps more than anything else this walk down memory lane frames that first generation of young liberated women.
The likeability of this rich archival series is that it truly captures youthfulness before the change of a nation.
There is Lorne of 1967, at the end of a long, hot day of playing in the waves. As you stare yourself into this image you catch that brilliant moment on a beach when a stinking afternoon turns to its end.
What about the lads at Manly! Snapped risking their lives to dive across a spinning wheel into the bluest sea. Torquay at dusk of 1968, and the silhouette of two surfers gathers something of the mood you suspects exists between all mates alone in the elements.
The suggestion behind these photos is that it was better back then, simpler, though it might be a case of the camera keeping what was a real experience for its subjects and not the simulacra of today.
Standing in front of the three placegetters in the 1952 Miss Pacific pageant, you wonder what became of these glamour gals? Maybe they married their dreamboat partners, became mothers, raised families in the suburbs and retired down to the coast.
Summers Past at the Victorian Archive Centre is on until November 2007.
Summer Past, Golden Days in the Sun 1950-70, is the name of a free exhibit to stir memories of beach going days for all audiences, but perhaps mostly of an older generation.
The snaps taken by national archivists and supplied by the National Archives Office are worth a thousand words as they show us who we are and hold still those special places where we spent holidays in warmer months.
The coastal backdrops are unspoilt by development and the faces look relaxed and comfortable in front of you as your eyes wander from frame to frame of smiling children surfing on waves to bronze bodies basking on Bondi before the sun became an object of menace.
This was the time of hauling caravans, budget motels and of transistor radios playing the cricket for groups relaxing on the sand.
The women are full-figured and free-spirited, and perhaps more than anything else this walk down memory lane frames that first generation of young liberated women.
The likeability of this rich archival series is that it truly captures youthfulness before the change of a nation.
There is Lorne of 1967, at the end of a long, hot day of playing in the waves. As you stare yourself into this image you catch that brilliant moment on a beach when a stinking afternoon turns to its end.
What about the lads at Manly! Snapped risking their lives to dive across a spinning wheel into the bluest sea. Torquay at dusk of 1968, and the silhouette of two surfers gathers something of the mood you suspects exists between all mates alone in the elements.
The suggestion behind these photos is that it was better back then, simpler, though it might be a case of the camera keeping what was a real experience for its subjects and not the simulacra of today.
Standing in front of the three placegetters in the 1952 Miss Pacific pageant, you wonder what became of these glamour gals? Maybe they married their dreamboat partners, became mothers, raised families in the suburbs and retired down to the coast.
Summers Past at the Victorian Archive Centre is on until November 2007.
Who's a journalist?
As you may gather there are significant changes taking place in the world of journalism. Or should we say advances. So many journalists are talking about the merger of digital and print operations in newsrooms it has a lot of others eyeing off space in the blogosphere.
Journalists are largely interested by this space because it allows them to publish those stories that there may not be room for in a newspaper.
Filing a blogs is a less regimented practice and is done on a more cyclical basis to suit the nature of breaking news and it's a forum of interaction.
With Fairfax forking out millions for equipment to run integrated publishing networks, there is going to be a real revolution of information delivery services for news consumers of Australian capital cities. What questions about this progress are being asked?
The most significant flips the equation around to ask are bloggers journalists? This is of particular interest to journalists who are protective of their credibility.
The question presumes news makers are a product of large media organistaions and are perhaps more special than they are.
Bloggers in the United States who broke the Monica Lewinski scandal story say if it had been left to the mainstream guys the
front-page scoop would have been missed.
Yes, we are journalists too! they protest, taunting tighly held conventions, and in the process claim industry rights, privileges and accesses.
Harvard Law School graduate John Hinderarker of Powerline, one of the most visited conservative blogs on the internet, says he Scott Johnson took to the blogosphere as an experiment after wriitng commentary for print outlets.
Powerline now gets 60,000 hits a week in the US, and is credited with publishing the 'Rathergate' story in 2004 that exposed documents critical of President Bush's National Guard Service as forgeries.
As more journalists race to file blogs on the home front the question of shield law protections will have to be answered for a guarantee of security for sources and for real growth.
While bloggers might brag of their freedom and uncensored cleverness, reality awaits the blogosphere. In years to come the new journalism will be a lot like the old, only faster and more abundant, and audiences will have to decide who's a journalist and who's not.
Journalists are largely interested by this space because it allows them to publish those stories that there may not be room for in a newspaper.
Filing a blogs is a less regimented practice and is done on a more cyclical basis to suit the nature of breaking news and it's a forum of interaction.
With Fairfax forking out millions for equipment to run integrated publishing networks, there is going to be a real revolution of information delivery services for news consumers of Australian capital cities. What questions about this progress are being asked?
The most significant flips the equation around to ask are bloggers journalists? This is of particular interest to journalists who are protective of their credibility.
The question presumes news makers are a product of large media organistaions and are perhaps more special than they are.
Bloggers in the United States who broke the Monica Lewinski scandal story say if it had been left to the mainstream guys the
front-page scoop would have been missed.
Yes, we are journalists too! they protest, taunting tighly held conventions, and in the process claim industry rights, privileges and accesses.
Harvard Law School graduate John Hinderarker of Powerline, one of the most visited conservative blogs on the internet, says he Scott Johnson took to the blogosphere as an experiment after wriitng commentary for print outlets.
Powerline now gets 60,000 hits a week in the US, and is credited with publishing the 'Rathergate' story in 2004 that exposed documents critical of President Bush's National Guard Service as forgeries.
As more journalists race to file blogs on the home front the question of shield law protections will have to be answered for a guarantee of security for sources and for real growth.
While bloggers might brag of their freedom and uncensored cleverness, reality awaits the blogosphere. In years to come the new journalism will be a lot like the old, only faster and more abundant, and audiences will have to decide who's a journalist and who's not.
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