Image by Joseph Issa
The relationship between Australian sport and the LGBTQI+ community has always been a rocky one. The hyper masculine footy environment doesn’t always demonstrate an accepting attitude, as reignited in recent Israel Folau bigotry controversy. In Relative Merits, conservative Australia comes up against a love of footy in unexpected ways to explore the gay community in the early 1990s.
After over thirty years practising and teaching in the US, Concetta Antico has returned to her hometown Sydney to open a brand new gallery in Paddington. Displaying work for sale from across her career, the Concetta Antico Gallery marks a significant milestone for the artist to share her art with the world.
It’s a tale as old as time; a story most children would have heard a version of, about an unusual duckling who didn’t quite fit in. Q Theatre’s adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen classic uses physical theatre to explore difference and acceptance.
Ushered into an intimate tent past two open fires, the audience are greeted by a mock anthropological “Aborigine” scene. The sarcastic narration quickly sets the scene for Chasing Smoke’s playful tongue-in-cheek tone. Combining circus, dance, and a bit of comedy, this production from Australia’s only entirely Indigenous circus group is a celebration of identity and story-telling.
These two girls have been friends since childhood, playing make-believe and integrating themselves into each other’s families, but something has changed and it’s making this reunion awkward. Life’s path only seems clear in retrospect so having a spider friend, a symbol of your future self, drop in to say hello becomes a source of affirmation and reassurance in this production of Spider in My Soup.
Night Writes is joined by performer Lara Croydon to discuss the Sydney debut of Chasing Smoke.
Night Writes caught up with performer Margaret Thanos ahead of the most recent development of Spider in My Soup at Bondi Feast.
Arranged as a celebration of some Slavic master composers, Seraphim Trio’s Slavic Passion program could also be said to combine representations of remembrance. Across grief, loss, celebration, and captured moments, the pieces uniquely demonstrate the trio’s range of skill and interest.
Image by Craig O’Regan
Persuasion is often labeled the most romantic of Jane Austen’s novels for its mixture of love, regret, and a sense of destiny in the lead couple, much like more recently love stories like The Notebook or Always Be My Maybe. Two people fall in love but the circumstances drive them apart only for them to be reunited in the future when rekindle their young romance.
Image by Riley McLean
Two beings find themselves together in a Wonderland-esque world with some memories of a life before but no clear idea of how they got to be here. Over the course of an hour, or perhaps years in this timeless place, they build their pasts and develop a symbiotic relationship through which they can explore philosophy, self, and trauma.
Night Writes 