Circus Trick Tease
Trades Hall – Old Council
March 25 – April 18, 2010

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Circus Trick Tease; an abnormal trio of acrobatic geniuses.

Between the three of them, the cast has the energy of five toddlers, the strength of a superhero and the flexibility of Gumby. They’ve got body parts that bend in ways they’re not supposed to, they can sing, and they’ve got themselves into an inter-circus love triangle.

The storyline isn’t so complex. The trio caricatures different types of circus performers; they’re putting on a show, but things aren’t running so smoothly. Their raunchy back stage antics, suggested by naughty shadow play, make Circus Trick Tease a Comedy Festival stand-out.

Robust performer Shannon McGurgan plays a cliché 1920s strong man, complete with a fake moustache, bulging muscles and leopard print leotard. His hilarious ballad, ‘Sensitive New Age Strong-Man’, had the audience in fits of laughter. When he’s not trying to pick up women in the romantic sense, he’s physically lifting them. Each show, four lucky ladies are simultaneously hoisted by this super-human casanova.

The overly-dramatic and incredibly flexible Malia Walsh plays the drunk, attention seeking owner of the circus. We know it’s her circus because she constantly reminds the cast when things aren’t going her way. Not only does she throw a good tantrum, she is a mean, green, back-flipping machine.

Walsh plays the part of a diva superbly, attempting to win the affection of her co-workers and offering herself to whoever suits her at the time. She’s got the hots for the strong man, until she comes across someone she likes better: the exotic, silent type.

When Iranian balancing genius Farhad Ahadi first appears as a silent clown, it is clear he will be is the quiet achiever of the night. He rarely speaks, but his jaw-dropping balancing stunts left the crowd in stunned silence, and won the biggest applause of the night.

Although the acrobatics isn’t flawless, any minor slip-ups are forgotten as the troupe swiftly moves on to the next trick. All three have impressive comic timing, and flexibility, and show it off as best they can through a series of flips, headstands and near-impossible balancing feats that have the audience shaking their heads in disbelief.

The act, which ran for a good 50 minutes, did seem to end quite abruptly. One minute the trio was running amuck — literally throwing each other from one side of the stage to another –and the next, they were standing on each other’s shoulders for the finale, thanking the audience for their time. I felt that there needed to be some kind of closure. One thing was clear though: the wild antics of this slightly twisted trio certainly left the audience wanting more.

Raymond Crowe: Unusualist
Athaneum Theatre
March 27 – April 18, 2010

As one of the more physically remarkable acts in Melbourne’s Comedy Festival, Raymond Crowe gives the audience much more than run of the mill stand up comedy.

You may be familiar with his intricate hand shadow rendition of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World — a YouTube hit with over one million hits worldwide. The video is brilliant but it’s just a starting point; this man has so much more to offer.

Crowe’s performing style has a backbone of classic and witty humour, but he’s also mischievous and original. You could call him a variety performer. A unique blend of magician, puppeteer, mime and ventriloquist, Crowe uses all his obscure talents to put together a show that is unlike any other.

Dressed to impress in tails and a top hat, Crowe performs timeless magic tricks in entirely new ways. He is a master of multiplying billiard balls, performs levitation with a dancing suit jacket, and does the ‘linking rings’ with hula-hoop sized props. An audience favourite was a postal package that, through skilled ventriloquism, appeared to contain a screaming baby.

Crowe also throws in a live short story about a man on a fishing trip. As daggy as he looks in a fishing vest and floppy hat, he still manages to win the audience over with his ability to use little more than a few props on stage, being highly skilled in the art of mime and visual comedy. It was a charming little segment that won laughs, and a few surprised faces as he made his shoe appear in a tank of water.

The show is very family friendy, attracting crowds of children, grandparents and all ages in between. There is plenty of audience participation is involved, but fear not: if you’re chosen you won’t have to speak much, as Crowe puts his ventriloquism skills to use and answers any questions himself.

Most variety acts don’t have the benefit of having a ‘greatest hit’ in their repertoire. But Crowe’s incredibly well rehearsed What a Wonderful World shadow puppet routine is truly something special to witness. It seems he hasn’t grown tired performing this piece, as it still shows every bit of grace that you would expect if seeing him perform it for the first time.

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I ease my way down a nondescript alley beside a house in North Carlton and peer into a window at the dark space within. A twirling horror suddenly confronts me; the bound figure twists and reaches for unseen things in the flickering light, a mere arm span from me.

© Max Milne

Welcome to Holes in the Wall, a one night show devised and curated by Theresa Harrison. In a novel take on the traditional art exhibition, Harrison has temporarily evicted the residents of 276 Station Street, whose rooms are still quite obviously lived in, to accommodate the varied artwork of 12 local artists.

The idea is to walk down narrow side alley beside the house and climb some steps mounted in front of each of the alley windows to look at the artwork inside. There is never any indication from the outside of what could be hidden inside each room, and each yields its own unique surprises as you level with the window. The range of works on show was extremely varied, from inflatable promotional airmen crippled into a hunch while their arms flail uselessly in the constrained room space to a wall sized acrylic on canvas image of a levitating gothic figure that leached out the smell of paint onto the street. Good luck sleeping in that room after the show!

My favourite piece was a work which consisted of white fecal matter splattered artfully around the room and all over the two human figures standing within while flowers sprouted throughout — an imaginative use of the mediums. I would like to tell you who the artist was and the name of the work, but the vague and mangled descriptions used to describe the installations conspired against me (I encourage all aspiring artists to take a course in clear use of language).

The show was not limited to the rooms, though. The backyard was filled with a suspended structure of everyday objects, cascading upwards on fishing wire with every detail carefully positioned, right down to the abandoned teddy, lying face down in the dirt. The back of the lane was transformed into a makeshift bar on which the enormous crowd of screndy 20s descended to be served up wine and white rabbit ale through a spiders web of cable ties.

As I exited, winding my way past the jumble of broken furniture out front, old TVs flickering a loop of everyday life from within, and left the still growing crowd behind, I felt glad to live in a city that encourages such innovative and engaging exhibitions.

Top marks to Harrison for transforming the common into the artistic in such an unassuming location. It made me wonder how many other hidden shows go on around the Melbourne right under our noses, with the vast majority walking by obliviously.

For more photos, click here.

Midsumma Carnival
Alexandra Gardens
January 17, 2010

The Midsumma Carnival was held on Sunday January 17th and was a vibrant start to three weeks of Midsumma festivities.

The Carnival is for everybody, but caters for the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender (GLBT) community.

Alexandra Gardens was the perfect location. It was in the grounds closest to Flinders Street which made it vey central and accessible (providing that you utilised public transport!) It was magnificent to have the backdrop of the city whilst enjoying the parklands.

The carnival contained stalls offering culturally-specific Gay and Lesbian support groups, health information and affiliation with particular aspects of GLBT lifestyle.

Wet weather threatened the carnival a few times throughout the seven-hour event, but the crowd remained full and relished the sunshine.

One of the highlights was the performance by three drag queens from the Commercial Hotel in Yarraville. They really drew a crowd and it was beautiful to see such a diverse group of people, ranging from families to gay youth, enjoying the show. That is what Midsumma is all about; the whole community supporting each other and having fun.

The food stalls had long lines, but you were welcome to bring your own. The over-18 drinking area was nestled amongst the tall palm trees of Alexandra gardens and the skate ramps divided the two areas of the carnival, effortlessly providing its own entertainment.

There was an excited yet peaceful vibe to the whole event and it was empowering to feel comfortable enough to hold my boyfriend’s hand and seeing others do the same.

For information about what’s on as part of the Midsumma Festival visit midsumma.org.au.

Burlesque Bar
42 Johnston Street, Fitzroy
Thur – Sun, 5pm till late

Betty Bump and Pippy Squeak of Burlesque Bar

“Is it true what they say? Is it all fun and games? Or is there more behind the makeup and the faces full of paint?” - Christina Aguilera, Enter the Circus
. . . . . . .

“Have you fellas been to a burlesque bar before?” laughs the doorman, exchanging fifteens for tickets at the entrance. “It’s very, very naughty…”

Welcome to a world where fun is the number one venture. Welcome to a night filled with whooping crowds, swooping girls, laughter, dancing and adventure. Welcome to the Burlesque Bar, Fitzroy – a slimline cigarette holder of a venue filled with Parisian features and the swinging hips of elegant, deviant sweethearts.

The Burlesque Bar is almost a well known hidden little secret – a Chinese whisper amongst the ether. Within the curtained windows and lamp filled façades, the pretty little wild things of the Burlseque Bar own the night…and they love it.

Firecracker quick, shooting star soon, the lanterns begin to dim and flicker. In a ripped millisecond the tiny one foot high stage whip-crackles and burns, poised to cum with human electricity. The host for the evening, Natalia, erupts strident and eager out of the kitchen and onto the stage wearing black lace underwear and corset singing ‘Bring on the men’ – a song about feasting and munching on men for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. The crowd roars in aroused approval – this is their kind of kink.

A few moments later Natalia is haranguing and shanghaiing members of the audience, daintily and cheekily mocking them, asking them their names and deviously commenting on “beautiful, voluptuous breasts,” and men named Margaret.

“Anyway, enough of this joking,” snaps Natalia, dominant, curtly and abruptly. “Put your hands together for Betty Bump and Pippy Squeak…also known as Slap ‘n’ Tickle!”

The audience erupts, flares into beauty. Whooping rebel yells fill the arena. Big band music quickly follows to the sounds of liquor inducement as Betty Bump – an enchanting Bettie Page esque wonder – bounds onstage filled with feisty vivacious beauty. She quickly slinks into cabaret, slivering and snaking to the sound of ‘Mein Herr’ by Liza Minelli.

Pretty soon she trades places with Pippy Squeak – a sultry and cutesy Gatsby style blonde – who shimmies and strips to silk knickers and garters…a hit of champagne from a heel to blow out her show.

As the night moves through many movements, licks and manoeuvres, the room becomes louder, electric, blasting with liberation and dynamite. The mood heightens as each girl bounds into the darkened heart of the tiny but tightly wound crowd. Javier, the bar man, dances around – fetishistic, fiendish – slamming his hands on the bar in excitement, feverishly yelling with pure, uncut, walla-walla.

The speed and sound reaches a syncopation of climax and chaos – the devil is dancing, the snake charmer is lancing. Boom! Amplifier interior gunfire, pop-pops of small detonations bounce around the theatre. Snarling radios, echoes, weirdness.

“Frickin’ technical difficulties,” quips Natalia. “Now I sound like I’m talking out of a fish bowl. That’ll teach me to fuck up my lines. Ahem. Anyhow, darlings, it’s time for a little interaction…”

Natalia entices Margaret and his girlfriend onto the stage, dragging Javier along for the ride. A flick and a lick later she’s adding pink feather boas and having them pole dance and play for the room around Javier – much to the whooping crowd’s delight.

“You see, Margaret,” says Natalia. “When you use a woman’s name you get to snuggle with men. But anyhow, here’s the last part of the show for the night…Slap ‘n’ Tickle!”

Pippy Squeak and Betty Bump wander out of the kitchen, Pippy crawling on all fours seamed up like a cat, Betty Bump walking her on a soft, satin leash.

“There’s something appealing about a woman licking up milk,” says Natalia, buzzing with a mischievous grin.

A couple of milk soaked minutes later and the fun is flipped in the opposite direction – Betty Bump is tied to the leash and it’s her turn to walk on all fours through the crowd.

“Ah,” says Natalia. “There’s nothing like a woman in bondage…you should try it sometime…”

Paris, Berlin, 50s L.A. and a little dabble in grindhouse – these girls take you around the world in a whiplash. $15 a hit for a series of blitzkrieg-quick humour-filled striptreats would usually make people feel cheated. But this is burlesque and this is an amyl-nitrate esque funky ride. Fast, kooky, goofy and lusty. A cartoon manoeuvre with a foot and a toe in wild love and darkness, and a foot and a toe in the art of awe and performance.

As the crowd drifts into the murky neon cast-offs of Johnston street, Natalia sits high on the window balancing herself between glass ledge and thin air. Sipping from a beer, she says in leering to the crowd “It’s not the worst thing I’ve had between my legs, darling!”

Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood
ACMI Cinemas
Now until 25th April, 2010

“This is it.”

- Frank Booth, Blue Velvet

A fierce and furious molotov of motion and agitation, Dennis Hopper is a definitive illustration of a man who could never sit still for more than 2½ seconds. Born in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1936, Hopper’s career has blown holes in the globe via a wild arc of work, involving movies, photography and the world of contemporary modern art.

Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood cunningly captures this collision of interests and outlets into one exciting entity in order to create a ball-tearing, knuckle-dusting look at Hopper’s life spent riding the rails between high life and sobriety. The exhibition at the ACMI is the only one of its kind currently on display in Australia.

Containing both his own abstract expressionist creations and feverishly collected works by artists such as Andy Warhol and Wallace Berman, the journey through the exhibition creates the impression of a phrenologist’s chart of the head of Dennis Hopper. Each painted panel, pictorial portrait and celluloid frame offers elements of brute force, surrealistic vitality, confrontational nature and bruising, jazzy daring. Yet planted amongst this snarling mobocracy is a surprisingly subtle and delicate side – the kind that places great stock in solitude, companionship, strength, resilience, determination, and definitely change and rebirth.

Whichever direction you slide there are images of Hopper looming and leering back at you. Young, old, grizzled, crazy and suave – a caipirinha of screeching, jabbering, swooping and pinballing hyper action.

These self portraits and candids are joined by Hopper’s own photography, many of which depict earnest moments in the history of the United States of America. Yawed and fuzzy black and white images of JFK’s funeral on TV, slick and provoking snapshots of the streets and billboards of L.A., and young and old lions such as actor Paul Newman, musician James Brown and civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King.

As you’d expect, cinematic visual vistas make up a significant amount of the exhibition, each one graphically showing Hopper’s various famous roles and guises. Characters such as the free-wheeling Billy in Easy Rider, the sadistic, amyl nitrate-inhaler Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, and the unnamed stray dog photographer in Apocalypse Now.

These performances are aligned with carefully selected segments from three of Hopper’s self directed features: Easy Rider (1969), The Last Movie (1971) and Colors (1988). In addition, the ACMI has also taken the trouble to include Hopper’s fun-poking and self depreciating Ford Cougar adverts, and the surreal and strange Nike NFL TV spots. Most importantly, Hopper’s 1983 experiment with a Russian dynamite chair at the Big H speedway track in Houston, Texas, is given a chance to grandstand the masses.

“After destruction, how do you rise from the ashes? And how far do you go?”

- Dennis Hopper

After completing rehab for drug and alcohol abuse in the early 1980s, Hopper left his personal wilderness and made a homecoming to his long held love for artistic creation. This rebirth is represented through his fascination with gangland L.A., and the graffiti, climate and music attached to it. His series of pieces titled ‘one of four joiners’ is a particular stand-out moment. As is the previously mentioned motion picture, Colors, starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall.

In some ways Hopper’s collection and body of work is 100% Americana and a summation of the wham-bam motion of the fiendish world we inhabit. An odyssey through the sun-rays and shell holes that life weaves and pock-marks into your skin. Spending time drifting among the back alleys and labyrinths of Hopper’s mind for an hour or two makes you see and appreciate the flip side to his usual public perception. A destruction and rise from the ashes, if you will.

Dennnis Hopper and the New Hollywood runs until Sunday 25 April 2010

Soft self-portrait with grilled bacon 1941 oil on canvas

From young turk and anarchist to self-obsessed surrealist, Salvador Dali’s long strange trip through the artistic arena was a frenetic one. Born in Figueres, Spain, in 1904, Dali’s one-man travelling carnival drifted through Madrid, Paris, New York and Hollywood, before returning to its natural surroundings in Spain in the late 1940s. Liquid Desires is the only Australian exhibition of his work.

Populated by an attraction to crutches, clocks, insects, telephones, skulls and perfectly sculptured breasts, Dali’s creations can occasionally be seen as sweet, dreamlike and a cool provider of the shit-giggles. On a flipside, Dali’s work can commonly be viewed as a thunderclap collision of different styles and influences, and in many ways an experiment in terror. His depiction of skulls – one sodomizing a grand piano, another involving milk, honey and vipers’ nests, are obvious examples.

Along with these recurring themes, Dali’s mind held a deep obsession with the moving image, and this fascination is shown through his work with Alfred Hitchcock. Dali’s set designs and jaw-blasting imagery for Hitchcock’s 1945 movie Spellbound is overdosingly appropriate – frames filled with rolling eyes, contorting creatures, twisted backgrounds and trademark monstrous surrealism.

A testament to his love affair with cinema can also be seen in an adjacent dark-room loaded with a bug’s eye stack of TV screens, each one containing a hallucinogenic combination of bullfights and matadors, propaganda, rantings and ravings. Dali, with his upwards ant-claw moustache, is clearly seen at the centre of almost every reel of the proceedings.

Easily the most edible attraction of the exhibition is Destino, Dali’s collaboration with Walt Disney – slumped gathering dust on the shelves for over half a century. Destino opens with a slender señorita sweeping towards us out of an ocean of sand; every inch a picturesque naked commodity. Over the course of the seven-minute motion picture we witness a sweet love and delicate romance teasingly open and playfully close through many contrasting manoeuvres, each scene more elusive than the last.

With his prolific portrait raid on the retinas containing sketches, paintings and photos warped and mutated, it’s pretty clear that Dali was a natural street freak devouring whatever came by. Whether involved with film, fashion, art, advertising or ballet, Dali slashed cunningly through each field, his Molotov cocktail of art and adventure fully flaming every soul that he passed.

The exhibition at the NGV creates a chaotic and well crafted candy store environment with Dali cast as the conjurer-candyman and the crowd as the kid-eyed candy fanatic.

Loaded with exotic and playful moments, Liquid Desires is a dreamy, milky-way temptation of the senses.

Mark Watson

Mark Watson

All the thoughts I’ve had since I was born 
Melbourne Town Hall
10 – 25 April

Ritalin wasn’t in vogue when a young Mark Watson went to school – or I’m sure he would be on a different path (and we would have seen another comic).  Lucky for us, as this UK up-and-comer got plenty of laughs in his mile-a-minute delivery.

At 7:15pm, the crowd’s anticipation started to grow.  All eyes were glued to the mic stand on the middle of the stage, and then, a voice – but the stage still empty.  Mark Watson appeared halfway up the stairs and began his show in a less formal “greet the crowd” style.  His rationale was to create the mood and prep the crowd for things to come.  He assured us that whoever made the decision to buy tickets to his show was at least somewhat justified and that he was not going to lash out at the crowd.  It was a gamble we decided to take.

The theme of the show was stress, revolving primarily around how he went to the hospital a year ago due to his highly stressful life as a comic,  and how a self-help book gave him the three keys to improving his over-indulgent twenty-nine years.

Rambling a thousand words every ten seconds stories seemed to get off track but witty one liners were actually more entertaining than the  story line.  Then, miraculously, he brought us back to the plot, but only for a few phrases, and back down another punch line filled detour.

The late arrival is always a favorite with comedians.  Mark was no exception.  But instead of a simple one-off five minutes into the show Mark greeted half a dozen groups of late comers and made it kind of a side show that lasted well into his set.  It even came to a natural climax as one gentleman came in over halfway through the show and got a huge laugh with the simple excuse “My wife was getting ready.”  She was so embarrassed she stayed outside, so like every good comedian looking for quality improv Mark sprinted off the stage to chase her down.  No luck, and ramblings went on.

Overall, I know I smiling for the better part of an hour with a few belly laughs mixed in.  The story line was hard to follow but I think that was the plan.  His delivery was fast and furious with a choppy edge that was brilliant in punch line delivery.  He had my attention from minute one and I know most of the crowd was disappointed when his time was up.  Melbourne, check out Mark Watson, and definitely welcome him back next year.