Blog — Page 243 of 279

Dancer
Film review premiere
Leichhardt Norton Theatre
November 25, 2016

Palace Norton Cinema proved to be an adequate forum for Dancer - a 2016 French biographical musical drama film offering an intimate look into the life and journey of Sergei Polunin, who became the world’s youngest ever principal dancer at the Royal Ballet School. Renowned for combining grace and power, we follow Polunin through his times in the highly competitive arena of artistic dancing, the physical and emotional toll it takes and the impact his career had on his family, parts of which immigrated to different parts of Europe to pay for his education,

What the film does well is documenting and witnessing it all without passing judgment.

It starts in the Ukraine, painting a picture of the dire circumstances Polunin emerged from and his family’s dedication to enable him to live a different, more prosperous and fulfilling life.

His relationship with his family, strained by his move to the UK is a red thread in The Dancer, with Polunin finding success in the world of elite dancing as the glue to reunite his family. There is an omnipresent sense of guilt for his families’ sacrifices and a focus on the artist being in emotional distress, confusion and torment while striving for perfection as a dancer.

The movie also portrays Polunin as a rock star and bad boy of the ballet scene with everything that comes with its consuming lifestyle, i.e. late night party escapades and debauchery – a view of him that he seems to cultivate and revel in.

The Dancer culminates in a full-length music video of Polunin dancing to Hozier's “Take Me to Church,” which was a viral internet success and seems to signify his rebirth, emancipation and liberation, which is ins stark contrast to the VHS home-video footage of Polunin capturing his growth as both a dancer and a man.

What makes the documentary relatable is that it is not sensationalistic but a sympathetic, multi-layered portrait of an artist in flux struggling with his isolation on the top of his craft, background, success, perfection, remorse and personal desires.

Soundscape Festival Sydney
Factory Theatre
Sydney, AUS
December 17, 2016

After a successful debut in 2015, Soundscape Festival was back for the second time in 2016, serving up a massive day of tunes and chills in Sydney’s inner west.

After debuting as an intimate festival at the Greenwood Hotel in North Sydney, Soundscape has progressively up-scaled and took hold of the purpose built, multi-venue that comprises Marrickville’s Factory Theatre this time around, bringing together Australia’s most talented new bands, DJs, and producers.

The sunny December incarnation of the Soundscape Festival included: The Lulu Raes, who served up a mélange of catchy melodies smothered in soulful dance and punk tinged with an omnipresent Oasis / Beatles influence; Tora, an Australian electronic band dedicated to the new-age genre they refer to us Chillwave, a blend of ambient harmonies, layered rhythms and pulsing soundscapes; Moses Gunn Collective, a 5-piece glam-psych-disco band from Brisbane, who with their recent release add some brooding strokes to their previously dreamy oeuvre; Human Movement, comprised of Sydney-based dance duo Blake Gilray and Edward Macdonald emitting their minimalistic, dark vibes with emotive elements; Juan du Sol, who is well known among dance music circles for his role as one third of RÜFÜS, who carpet bombed the dance floor with dark synths, driving kicks and eerie vocal loops.

The Ruminaters, took the young hopefuls on a chaotic, fuzzed out, wild ride and Winston Surfshirt, spread what they have trademarked as “mellifluous Psychedelic Sex Funk Soul”, and the laid back surfer Robbie Lowe and permanent fixture at Sydney’s underground party – Sweetchilli - conjured his own signature broth of late 80ies acid / hip house & rap tunes behind the decks.
The South of Sydney sent The Kava Kings, an outfit that brought a loose mash up of Gypsy, Rock, Reggae and Dub and Adi Toohey brought her own bag of wax spanning house, disco, funk and soul, collected from international record crate digging expeditions. Strange Associates delivered the appropriate soundtrack for the sunny afternoon with their house music mixed with dreamy vocals, which they have come to refer to as “provocative house”, which did not fail to elicit the desired crowd response.

With having nurtured local talent since its inception and with most acts having become established and successful, it will be interesting to see what Soundscape Festival will grow to in 2017.

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Photos by KAVV

DZ Deathrays
Factory Theatre
Sydney, AUS
December 15, 2016

DZ Deathrays are essentially a duo.

An Australian “dance-punk” duo that is, that emerged from the ashes of the band Velociraptor. The fact that their debut EP Ruined my Life from 2009 was recorded live at a house party gives an accurate impression of their DIY approach to channeling their alchemy.
In 2012 their debut full length Bloodstreams saw the light of day and was warmly received and heralded as the appropriate, uncontrived soundtrack for a weekend of debauchery.

With the band signing with Infectious Records, a second album followed in 2014 and demonstrated that the band had arrived at more refined stage with more textured, dense and structured arrangements while still honoring their trash party origins and aversion to mainstream culture.

While not being derivative of any singular source band, as far as influences are concerned, DZ Deathrays have created their own signature concoction by skimming the cream of the crop of melodic punk and hardcore from the mid-'90s, enriching it with the beach-party blowout vibe of Air’s debut and topping it up with a nod to classic metal and alternative music standouts from 1990s.

Along with Violent Soho, DZ Deathrays are one of the spearheads of a new Australian scene that injects fresh blood into tested and tried rock archaisms - an injection that was direly needed and is leapt up by tonight’s mosh pit, consisting of a young, hairy, sweaty, beer drenched crowd of young hopefuls circle pitting, stage diving and overall having a fantastic time.

From the time the houselights dimmed and give way to DZ Deathray’s epileptic attack inducing strobe lights, there was a noticeable buzz among the crowd unleashing their anticipation and erupting with excitement – a reflection of the band’s vibrance, exuberance and their very own strain of radiation sickness.

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Photo by T

Craig Robinson and the Nasty Delicious
Metro Theatre
Sydney, AUS
December 14, 2016

If you don’t mind the American version of The Office, or goofball comedies like Hot Tub Time Machine franchise, Pineapple Express and most importantly This is the End, Craig Robinson won’t be an unknown constituent to you.

Robinson has a pedigree and longstanding career as a  stand up comedian, which commenced in Chicago 1998 at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal. 

His incarnation in Sydney during his first Australian tour showcased Craig Robinson’s unique comedy and musical talents backed by the immense musical talent of The Nasty Delicious. It was a laid back affair comprised of a combination of musical comedy and stand-up components – or as he eloquently puts it: “An evening of jokes and dancing transporting you back to the kindergarten days where you were to have fun and laugh and sing and play!”

Backed by The Nasty Delicious, a seven-piece funk band featuring Robinson’s younger brother, Chris Rob, Wynston Byrd, Asa Watkins, David Sampson, Brian Cockerham, Lakecia Benjamin and Reggie Hines, the funnyman performed an engaging set comprised of his own repertoire, cover songs and both accompanying and interrupting his songs with stories and anecdotes, as well as crowd interaction.

Despite most people having probably made an appearance because of Craig’s TV presence, The Nasty Delicious was the solid foundation and so much more than a mere backing band of the evening: Seasoned professionals that mean business, enjoy their craft and could have easily carried the evening without further comedic ado with their idiosyncratic blend of Latin jazz, electric funk and a whole lot of soul.

What seemed to be a lack of a stringent set list, left a lot of room for improvisation, which is where Craig Robinson feels right at home, truly shines and where the funnier bits of the evening originated from.

A naturally funny, funky comedic jam session.

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Photo by T

Nude: Art from the Tate Collection
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Sydney, AUS
November 5, 2016 – February 5, 2017

It was the invention of clothes and certainly not nature’s imperative, that made “private parts” private. The things we do not usually see.

The Nude: Art from the Tate Collection follows the nude through two hundred years of art and as the title suggests, draws on a single source – the collection of the Tate. It is a spectacular thematic tour de force through a mélange of major art movements, including romanticism, cubism, expressionism, realism, surrealism and feminism.

More than one hundred artworks are divided into eight chronologically arranged sections: The Historical Nude, The Private Nude, The Modern Nude, The Real and Surreal Bodies, Paint as Flesh, The Erotic Nude, Body Politics and The Vulnerable Body, intended to reveal the perception of bodies through time and to raise questions about beauty, desire, truth, mortality, equality and power.
The highlight of the exhibition is Rodin’s iconic marble sculptural blend of eroticism and idealism, The Kiss in the Erotic Nude section, with its fluid, smooth modeling, the dynamic composition and the charming theme.

Picasso’s portraits never disappoint and the depiction of his mistress Marie-Therese Walter and his redefinition of the human figure is not an exception: In line with the school of the British Vorticists, he channels the signs of their times into something dynamic, angular and at times completely abstract.

The theme of Harem girl or odalisque pervade the works by Matisse, while Pierre Bonnard’s rich chromatic range with his cropping of figures lend an interesting and different perspective, accentuated by his focus shifting the main incidents to occur at the edges of the canvas.

Francis Bacon’s expressively brushed and suggestively distorted nudes following the suicide of his lover, Georg Dyer, and Lucian Freud’s naked portraits dominate the Paint as Flesh section.

Bacon’s Triptych feels like a memento mori with Dyer struggling in vain to survive and with what death has not already consumed seeping incontinently out of the figures as their shadowblood.

Body Politics presents artworks from the 1970s, when the unclothed body in art became a political statement as feminist writers and artists began to question the imbalance of power in traditional nudes and thereby challenging stereotypes.

The Vulnerable Body features more recent artworks with a focus on vulnerability, imperfection and a sense of mortality.

Photographs of women holding their babies shortly after giving birth serves as the reminder that the way all of us enter the realms of this world would have made us prime candidates for the exhibition.

Ron Mueck’s astoninglishly lifelike verisimilitude, the nearly three-meter high Wild man looks so uncomfortable in his own (fore-)skin as he would like nothing more than join you as we exit through the exhibition’s gift shop – a display of anxiety, intimidation and vulnerability as a result of objectification. A turning of the tables.

The journey through human emotion and representation of its physical incarnation in its purest state is curated by Justin Paton, head curator of international art at the Art Gallery of NSW, in tandem with Emma Chambers, curator of modern British art at the Tate.
They have set out to show that the nude has changed dramatically over the last two hundred years with the constant being that the depiction of the model has always been closely tied to social, political and personal relationships between the artist and his object.
A constant that is reinforced through the segmentation of the exhibition, which underlines the continuity of the evolution of the artists’ engagement with the respective models.

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For related imagery, visit Art Gallery of New South Wales.