Period films, especially biopics featuring a famous historical figure, can start to blur together. They’re never revolutionary, always follow the same formula, and the only thing viewers discuss at the end is how great the costumes were. But Corsage is different. This internationally co-produced historical drama by writer/director Marie Kreutzer was practically designed to reverse…
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Perth Festival celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2023, and artistic director Iain Grandage looked to the stars when pulling together this program. In his address at the program launch held at the Perth Concert Hall last week, Grandage talked about how the stars are central to, and connect, cultures around the globe; and how for Noongar…
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WA playwright Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of the classic Friedrich Schiller play Mary Stuart has come to Perth Festival and it’s ready to live up to the reputation of its predecessor. The two hour production focuses on the last days of Mary, Queen of Scots and explores her complex relationship with cousin Queen Elizabeth I of…
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WA-based psychedelic rockers Pond opened the Perth Festival at the wondrous Fremantle Arts Centre on Friday night in front of a gig-starved audience on a glorious late summer’s evening. Pond are much more than a Kmart version of Tame Impala and they showcased that to their tune-thirsty audience, with a fun and groovy display that…
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“Hello Perth, this is Bergen calling.” Perth and Writing WA will be featured, along with ten other international locations, in LitFestBergen’s Literature Live Around The World on February 12th. One of the few positives that has come from the global Covid-19 pandemic, is the increasing use of the virtual. In 2020, Literary Awards and Book Festivals…
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Fresh from its triumphant world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Roderick MacKay‘s acclaimed debut feature The Furnace will have its Australian premiere during the Lotterywest film season in the lead up to the Perth Festival (5th – 28th February, 2021). Starring Australian screen legend David Wenham, rising star Jay Ryan (It: Chapter Two), and…
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Last September saw American psych synth rockers Moon Duo release Stars Are The Light. For their seventh album, the duo moved into new territory, drawing influence from the world of disco. This week the band bring the record down to Australia. Kicking off on February 9th in Hobart the tour will take in the East…
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An all-star collaboration of sorts, Anthem sees acclaimed writers Christos Tsolkas, Patricia Corneleus, Andrew Bovell and Melissa Reeves reunite with composer Irene Vela following their 90s-era play Who’s Afraid of the Working Class? A series of stories interweave through the backdrop of Melbourne’s train network, with a range of characters thrust together on public transport…
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Sisonke Msimang, the new curator for Perth Festival’s Literature and Ideas festival, delivered her full program for the late February event on Thursday night to an enthusiastic crowd at the Octagon Theatre. Her program, designed around the concepts of ‘Land, Money, Power, and Sex’ has been curated with a goal of inviting a new intake…
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Performance artist Bryony Kimmings is known for work centering on the personal, with prior shows exploring her partner’s depression, a show devised with her tween-aged niece and another sleuthing the source of an STD. In I’m a Phoenix, Bitch, however, things get far more raw. If one uses life experience as a platform for their…
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Running from February 7th to March 1st, more than 250 events will take over the WA capital for next year’s Perth Festival, all under the guidance of incoming Artistic Director Iain Grandage. And, in an Aussie arts festival first, the 2020 run will kick off with an opening week dedicated to First Nations artists and…
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Aloe Blacc and his awesome band put on an amazing performance which had the crowd at the Festival Gardens dancing and singing throughout the night to hits like “Brooklyn In The Summer”, “I Need a Dollar” and even throwing in a short rendition of John Farnham’s “You’re the Voice” during the set. Joining in on the fun…
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It’s the event that kicks off the writers’ festival circuit every year, and Perth Festival’s faithful will tell you it’s one of the best in Australia. Under the stewardship of new program curator, William Yeoman, the Perth Writers Festival has seen some changes in the last two years- most notably a change of name to…
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English rock band, Nothing But Thieves, are heading Down Under next month for a mini-tour after a busy 2018 of touring and festivals, even finding the time to release a new EP What Did You Think When You Made Me This Way. Ahead of their dates in Perth, Adelaide and the Central Coast, which mark…
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With summer just down the track, why not prepare yourself for one of the best Arts festivals to hit WA shores. Running from the February 8th to March 3rd, Perth Festival has cultivated the growth and exploration of some of the greatest Australian and International acts and is one of Australia’s premier Arts events. Here…
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Neighbourly disputes are really not all that uncommon in the real world, but in Under the Tree, the third feature film from Icelandic director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigur∂sson, a relatively minor disagreement between two suburban neighbouring families over a tree and the shadow it casts morphs into an ever escalating case of mutually assured destruction culminating…
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With Gurrumul, director Paul Damien Williams has created a striking and emotive portrait of one of Australia’s greatest musical talents – Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. But more than that, Gurrumul also affords us all a glimpse into the cultural life and traditions of the Yolngu people in North Eastern Arnhem Land, in what are some of…
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Thursday night saw Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds brave the warm Perth weather and make his Perth Festival debut at the festival gardens, treating the attentive and patient crowd to a selection of songs from his latest album For Now I Am Winter and more. Sydney composer Sophie Hutchings opened proceedings with a brief, but lovely…
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream is up there as one of Shakespeare’s most oft performed plays. There have been countless as adaptations and reinterpretations over the years, but I’d imagine there are few as wonderfully strange and eclectic as Russian director Dmitry Krymov’s interpretation A Midsummer Night’s Dream (As You Like It). As clichéd as it…
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Heroes and tyrants, Gods and Mortals, and ancient armies all clashed on stage on Sunday night. All of them brought to vivid life by one man, actor and co-writer Denis O’Hare, for the Australian premiere of the An Iliad. A captivating and engaging adaptation and reinterpretation of Homer’s Iliad by US collective Homer’s Coat, that…
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I’ve been waiting to see The Tallest Man on Earth live for a while now. I missed out on tickets to his sold out show at the Rosemount Hotel on his last Australian tour, so on the news that he would be heading back down to Australia, and playing the Perth Festival I jumped at…
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Tuesday night saw Cat Power stop in at the Perth Festival Gardens for the first of two shows. It was her second show of the tour in Australia, following a run of two shows in New Zealand. I can’t say it was the best performance I have seen from Chan Marshall, but was by no…
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For a little while now I’ve found myself falling under the spell of the music coming out of New Orleans. So I jumped at the chance of seeing one of the cities renowned brass bands, The Soul Rebels, when they stopped off in Perth for the arts festival. Expectations were high and exceeded in a…
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Every now and then I like to step outside of my comfort zone when it comes to gigs. The Raah Project’s show at the Perth Festival on Friday proved to me that this can only lead to good things. Theirs was a performance that was entertaining and at times nothing short of exquisite, a captivating…
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Friday night saw former Fleet Foxes drummer J Tillman take to the stage of the Perth International Arts Festival, for the first show of his latest Australian tour as Father John Misty. Opening proceedings were local Alt. Country band Ruby Boots, fresh from a month long tour over East in support of new single “Kellie…
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