Download 2016 In Review - Brisbane Festival

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2016 YEAR IN REVIEW
HIGHLIGHTS
BRISBANE FESTIVAL IS AN INTERNATIONAL ARTS
FESTIVAL AND 2016 HIGHLIGHTED PIONEERING WORK
FROM THE WORLD’S STAGES.
En avant, marche! was a poignant collaboration between
the great Belgian company les ballets C de la B and our own
Brisbane Excelsior Band. This piece has played hundreds
of times through Europe, and the Belgian team thought the
Brisbane band the best they’d ever encountered.
PEOPLE CLEARLY LOVED
THE EXPERIENCE OF
ARCADIA THIS YEAR.
MORE TICKETS WERE
SOLD IN THE HUB THAN
IN ANY OTHER HUB
WE’VE HAD, EVER.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream broke the rules with a laugh riot that
played with the audience in the most exhilarating ways – might
Geoffrey Rush play Bottom for one night only?
Rules of the Game came to us ahead of its New York premiere,
Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid was another fairy tale
and displayed ground-breaking American choreographer Jonah
favourite, this time playing in Arcadia, our burgeoning hub.
Bokaer at the top of his own game.
Two Spiegeltents hosted that curious cat along with the
champagne-poppingly popular burlesque Blanc de Blanc
La Verità reminded us, with the help of the divine madness of
and a huge range of music and comedy. Much of the music
Dalí, that circus and life are sweetly connected. The audience
was genuinely legendary – Robert Forster, Custard, Mick Harvey,
went for the ride.
Kim Gordon and Stones Throw (along with the surprise george
Our commissioned new work included a piece from Brisbane’s
own circus superstars, Circa. Troppo played The Courier-Mail
reunion concert we housed in QPAC’s Concert Hall) – mixing it
with the bright new talents of Montaigne, Kilo Kish and others.
Piazza and will have international dates over the next year or two.
People clearly loved the experience of Arcadia this year.
We also contributed to the commissioning of En avant, marche!,
More tickets were sold in the hub than in any other
Terrapin Puppet Theatre’s You, Me and the Space Between, and
hub we’ve had, ever.
a fresh look at Snow White in a co-production with La Boite and
Opera Queensland. The latter work formed part of a fairy tale
The same goes for our other hub, Theatre Republic at the QUT
thread that included the French and fabulous Ballet Preljocaj
Creative Industries Precinct. It was a record-breaking fourth
Snow White that filled QPAC’s Lyric Theatre.
year for this special space that is home to some of the most
adventurous independent theatre from Brisbane, around the
nation and around the world.
Echoes, which addressed mostly unspoken aspects
of the Syrian crisis, and Hart, which spoke to our own
Stolen Generations crisis, were highlights among many.
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FM RADIO 3%
TV 7%
AM RADIO 9%
ONLINE NEWS 57%
NEWSPAPER 20%
3-24 SEPT
10 Sep 2016
Courier Mail, Brisbane
September, 2016
Where Magazine (Brisbane), Brisbane
04 Sep 2016
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ARTS
Risque to
cabaret
Brisbane Festival
lifts off NEWS, PAGES 10-11
Monsieur Romeo (above) is Blanc de Blanc’s
maitre d’ while (left) Jaimi Luhrmann is the
show’s resident dancer and balloon jumper.
Pictures: David Kelly (main), Mike Keating
HIGHLIGHTS
Photo: Tammy Law
Risque to cabaret: festival camps
under Spiegeltent
Strap yourselves in, the
Brisbane Festival is
under way, writes
Nathanael Cooper.
T
he nights are warming
up and for party people
that is a sure sign that
the Brisbane Festival
has begun.
For three weeks in September
the city drags itself out late into the
night to sample the best arts from
around the city, around the country and around the world.
From world class Spiegeltent
shows to a world leading ballet
production and a smattering of
world firsts, the Brisbane Festival
is kind of like World Expo only infinitely cooler.
This year the festival boasts productions from as far afield as Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland and the
United States, as well as from all
around Australia.
The festival offers a smattering
of productions, from the world premiere of local circus and physical
theatre troupe Circa in the Suncorp Piazza, to a variety of works
in the Theatre Republic. The independent theatre festival is held
within the broader event.
Whether you love dance,
theatre, music or art, David Berthold has curated a festival that will
appeal to at least one of your interests and even if you aren’t a
regular arts consumer, there will
be at least one event in the program that you can try.
With hundreds of events on offer
over the three weeks, our Brisbane
Festival expert (and reigning may-
BURLESQUE
WITH BOUNCE
or of the Spiegeltent, according to
Foursquare) has narrowed it down
to the top seven things you should
get to this week.
1
The Game
This is innovative and explorative theatre at its absolute finest.
The Game gives audiences a look
into a world we all know about but
few of us enter – buying sex.
Each night five male volunteers,
who have no idea what they are in
for, enter the stage without a script
and without being told what is
about to happen.
The piece explores the role of
sex workers and people who buy
sex in a fascinating way, for what is
sure to be a confronting, exciting
and challenging night at the
theatre.
September 3-5, Visy Theatre,
Brisbane Powerhouse.
A semi-naked woman jumping around inside
a giant inflatable? All part of the Magic Mirrors
Spiegeltent cabaret show, Blanc de Blanc
PHIL BROWN
M
onsieur Romeo’s faux French
charm is appealing but we’re not
buying it. Until we realise that,
well, he really is French. So
French. So chic, as they say. He’s a 38-yearold male model and performer who has
worked with some of the world’s top
designers (Armani for one) and performed
alongside the likes of Beyoncé and Kylie
Minogue. And now he’s the oh-so French
maitre’d, the host with the most in charge
of Blanc de Blanc, Strut & Fret Production
House’s latest saucy minx of a show.
It is on in the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent
at Arcadia (out the front of QPAC at South
Bank) throughout the Brisbane Festival
and is a sexy mixture of circus, cabaret and
burlesque. Monsieur Romeo – his real
surname – think’s you’ll like it. “But it’s not
really a story,” he says. “It’s more a celebration. It starts off as a sophisticated French
cabaret and ends up as a party.” And apparently we’re all invited.
Monsieur Romeo’s own transition on
stage is instructive. He starts out wearing a
tuxedo. “I eventually remove that and I end
up in Speedos in a jacuzzi,” he says.
And here’s the rub: you could end up in
the jacuzzi with him, so be warned, there is
audience participation. “In Sydney I had a
grandmother in the jacuzzi with me,”
Romeo says. “If you come along to this
show you might get wet, or touched, or be
brought up on stage.”
Blanc de Blanc is a bubbly show, as it
should be since it takes its name from a
type of bubbly, one made from chardonnay
grapes. Brisbane Festival artistic director
David Berthold loves it and wants everyone (except the kiddies) to come to this
“champagne show”.
“It’s in the tradition of the naughtiest
burlesque,” Berthold says. “So expect the
tease of the strip, the bawdy and the
sensual, all with a bit of tongue in cheek.”
The bloke behind it, Scott Maidment,
who gave us shows such as Fear & Delight,
and Limbo, premiered Blanc de Blanc at the
Sydney Opera House early this year and
has just returned from London with his
cast. He admits that doing a show such as
this in Brisbane 30 years ago might have
attracted attention from the constabulary.
“It’s true there is nudity and it is risque,”
Maidment says, but adds, in his own
defence: “There’s no bad language. But it is
certainly not for the easily shocked.”
Maidment is thrilled to bring the show
home to Brisbane where it all started for
him and he’s enthusiastic about it being
performed in a spiegeltent. “There’s something magical about a spiegeltent,” Maidment says. “It’s like the carnival has come
to town.” While he says Parisian cabaret inspired him, Maidment admits the show dissolves into “a bit of a piss-take of French
sophistication”. The champagne theme is
quite literal at times and a few bottles of
expensive French bubbly are used during
the show – he doesn’t specify how.
The retinue he has assembled to create
his theatrical party is global and includes
Japanese performer Shun Sugimoto, who
combines breakdancing with contortionism; and American Spencer Novic, an
actor, mime artist and clown. There are two
Australians in the mix, one of whom is
Jaimi Luhrmann, 24, a Brisbane artist who
now performs around the world. She is
J’aimime in this show (pretentious, right?)
and does clowning and an act in which she
performs inside a giant inflatable. “I climb
inside a big balloon and bounce around in
it,” she says. “I do handstands in it and all
sorts of things.”
Luhrmann does some acrobatics too but
mainly clowns around. Maidment discovered her 10 years ago when she was a teenage student with Brisbane’s Flipside Youth
Circus. Now she’s in a grown-up show and
her folks, who live at Redland Bay on the
southern bayside, are okay with that, he
says. “I warned my parents but they love
it,” Luhrmann says. “It is risque but in a
comical way. “We were a little concerned
about how people in London would take it
but they ended up loving it.”
The other Australian in the show is
Sydney’s Emma Maye Gibson, billed as an
“obscene beauty queen, surreal showgirl
and sex clown”.
One of the international stars is Masha
Terentieva, 29, originally from St Petersburg in Russia. The daughter of a clown,
she has worked with Cirque du Soleil and
has a range of skills, including acrobatics.
Her signature act involves acrobatics and
aerial shenanigans with a hotel luggage
trolley. “I got the inspiration for that from
being on the road so much, always staying
in hotels,” Terentieva says.
“What do you do when a bunch of
drunken acrobats come back to the hotel
and want to play around?”
You vault over the luggage trolley? Yep.
See for yourself.
Blanc de Blanc runs until September 24, Magic
Mirrors Spiegeltent, Arcadia, South Bank, $38-$78;
brisbanefestival.com.au
Philip Bacon AM
Thomas Bradley QC
Anonymous x 2
Jeff and Amanda Griffin
Cory Heathwood
Daniel Morgan
Diane and Magnus Murphy
Sam and Georgie Robson
David and Gub Schlect
Craig and Andrea Templeman
19
2016 YEAR IN REVIEW
20
2016 YEAR IN REVIEW
Principal Partner
Brisbane Festival is an initiative of the
Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council