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February 2020

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

February 14, 2020 - March 1, 2020
Various Melbourne, Australia + Google Map

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) is one of the oldest continuously operating LGBTQI organisations in Australia. SGLMG was built on the foundations laid by early community activists who fought for LGBTQI rights in a time of wide-spread, institutionalised oppression and discrimination. From these origins, SGLMG has evolved to include a strong focus on celebration while maintaining a commitment to social justice for LGBTQI communities. The Festival includes the iconic Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade on Saturday 29 February and a dedicated performance program at the Festival Hub (the Seymour Centre in Chippendale).

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Adelaide Fringe

February 14, 2020 - March 15, 2020
Various Melbourne, Australia + Google Map

About Fringe We were born 59 years ago (although we don’t look a day over 25) and we’ve grown up to become the Southern Hemisphere’s largest, and Australia's biggest, open access arts festival! We completely take over Adelaide, its surrounding suburbs and even some regional areas of South Australia for 31 magical days and nights each year. The city practically pulses with creativity. In 2020, it'll be our 60th birthday! Our dates are from 14 February-15 March, and if you ask anyone who’s ever been lucky enough to experience the Fringe, they’ll tell you themselves that it’s the best time of year to be in Adelaide. Our atmosphere is indescribable, but here are some words that almost do the job: mythical, magical, fantabulous, fantasmagorical, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. You get the idea – we’re one in a million. Venues big and small, pop-up and permanent house thousands of artists from all over Adelaide,…

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The Seen and Unseen

February 20, 2020 - February 29, 2020
Martyn Myer Area, 26 Grant St
Melbourne, Victoria 3004 Australia
+ Google Map

A mesmerising convergence of contemporary Indonesian dance and physical story-telling, The Seen and Unseen is adapted by Indonesian artist Kamila Andini from her internationally acclaimed film of the same name. Tantri and Tantra are twins born under the full moon. Inseparable in life, the line between reality and the dreamworld begins to blur as one life ebbs away and the other must begin anew. Directed by the award-winning Andini, this dance and theatre production is a unique collaboration with Indonesian choreographer Ida Ayu Wayan Satyani and Australian theatremakers Adena Jacobs, Eugyeene Teh and Jenny Hector. On the Australian stage for the first time, a cast of extraordinary child performers from Bali’s Komunitas Bumi Bajra bring a captivating honesty and playful energy to profound meditations on life, grief and hope.

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Spice Night : TRAILBLAZING QUEER COMEDY FROM ACROSS ASIA

February 20, 2020 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm AEDT
The Comic’s Lounge, 1/26 Errol St, North Melbourne
Melbourne, Victoria Australia
+ Google Map

Asia boasts the boldest, fastest growing, standup comedy scene in the world right now, and the sassiest artists amongst it are a new wave of gay and lesbian performers, queering the mic from Mumbai to Manila. Performing in countries in which homosexuality is, or until very recently was, criminalised, these out-proud-and-hilarious performers are flamboyantly upending the established order in comedy clubs across the region - not to mention in the corridors of power. In the last 12 months India has decriminalised homosexuality and Taiwan has legalised same-sex marriage, but Malaysia seems to be moving backwards and Brunei threatened the death penalty last year. The landscape is changing around these performers, and in the 21st century with a global audience, they are grasping the momentum to force and amplify progressive change. Hirzi Zulkiflie is a Singaporean social media star and leading personality in the local LGBTI community. With hundreds of thousands of…

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Black Ties

February 21, 2020 - February 29, 2020
Arts Centre Melbourne, 100 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne, Victoria 3004 Australia
+ Google Map

Two families, two cultures... too much! It was love at first sight when Māori corporate hotshot Hera and Aboriginal consultancy entrepreneur Kane locked eyes at a cultural awareness session. Ambitious and career focused, Kane and Hera now have their perfect future all mapped out. There's one thing they can’t control…their families! As the biggest mob of Aunties, Uncles and cousins from both sides of the ditch get worked up for the blackest wedding ever, reality is sinking in fast. Will this international love story bring two strong cultures together? Or will it tear Hera and Kane’s world to pieces? BLACK TIES is a hilarious and heart-warming immersive theatre experience by ILBIJERRI Theatre Company (Australia) and Te Rēhia Theatre (Aotearoa/New Zealand) that reminds us of the power of love to reach across the gulfs that divide us and unite us as human beings. Following sold out seasons at Sydney Festival and Perth Festival, BLACK TIES is coming to…

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The Planet – A Lament

February 21, 2020 - February 22, 2020
Arts Centre Melbourne, 100 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne, Victoria 3004 Australia
+ Google Map

Experience the world premiere of a new staged song cycle from the visionary director Garin Nugroho. This stirring, provocative work merges film with live dance and a 16-voice choir to impart a moving story of creation set against the backdrop of environmental disaster. Nugroho, who stunned audiences at Asia TOPA 2017 with Satan Jawa, expands his canvas to portray a destroyed community struggling in the aftermath of a devastating tsunami. He again performs his alchemical mix of striking cinematics, haunting song, wild dance and ancient ritual to concoct a new myth that speaks to our complex times. For this extraordinary new work, Nugroho collaborates with composers, visual artists and choreographers from across the Indonesian archipelago alongside Australian theatre luminaries Michael Kantor and Anna Tregloan. The Planet – A Lament is an act of catharsis that mourns a world lost, while offering hope for another that may yet be nurtured in its…

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Sancintya Mohini Simpson’s Kūlī nām dharāyā / they’ve given you the name ‘coolie’: Exhibition Opening

February 22, 2020 @ 4:00 pm - April 18, 2020 @ 7:30 pm AEST
Institute of Modern Art, Ground Floor, Judith Wright Centre 420 Brunswick Street Fortitude Valley Brisbane QLD 4006 Australia + Google Map
Free

Kūlī nām dharāyā / they’ve given you the name ‘coolie’ evokes the lived experiences of indentured labourers taken from India to Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) to work on sugar plantations during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Continuing to trace her familial history, Simpson creates a new archive that speaks to shared narratives of indentured labour. The word ‘coolie’ is a term that was often used derogatively in relation to Indian indenture diaspora. By using language linked to this past, Simpson’s exhibition brings forward colonial narratives to acknowledge the strength of her people: their stories and legacies embodied in a large-scale corrugated iron structure filled with video, sound, and smell. Through this sensory and immersive work, Simpson offers a reflective space for ongoing resistance and healing. Simpson’s exhibition at IMA Belltower is accompanied by a new projection work developed in collaboration with Sai Karlen for the façade of the Judith Wright Centre…

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Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance

February 24, 2020 - March 1, 2020
Various Melbourne, Australia + Google Map

Founded in 2015 by Kate Usher and Glyn Roberts, Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance is a celebration of people and place through vibrant and exquisite contemporary dance. Two colleagues who were united by sarcasm and a dry dose of humour, a love for SBS docos and spending time commiserating about Brisbane’s humidity, Kate and Glyn’s professional relationship was cemented at the Atelier for Young Festival Managers in Gwangju, Korea in 2015. A transformative experience which opened their minds to the incredibly valuable function and purpose of festivals, the lifelong learnings of the Atelier inspired them into action. With the tropical backdrop of Brisbane as the setting for the newly founded festival and a vibrant Queensland dance sector supporting the endeavour, Supercell was launched in the midst of a sweltering summer - a collision of beauty, ferocity, spectacle and rejuvenation. After the first edition, Glyn took up the helm at Castlemaine…

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Lotus

February 26, 2020 @ 7:00 pm - February 28, 2020 @ 8:00 pm AEDT
Signal, SIGNAL, Northbank, Flinders Walk, CBD
Melbourne, Victoria Australia
+ Google Map

"Chi is such a talent! And her story is so important, in a time where so many Australians refuse to acknowledge their privilege and show empathy for immigrants and refugees" - Audience member on LOTUS. LOTUS is Chi Nguyen’s debut one-woman comedy cabaret all about her outrageous life as a Vietnamese immigrant living in Australia. After starring in the first ever Vietnamese-Australian comedy web series Phi and Me, LOTUS is Nguyen’s most humourous, daring and personal work to date, bringing you on Nguyen’s journey of falling in and out of love with her cultural identity and finding her place in the world. This is a journey filled with hilarity, compassion and resilience. With dramaturgy by Jean Tong (MTC’s Hungry Ghosts), music composition by Sidney Millar (MTC’s Wild) and set design by Alex Rothnie (VCA’s Mother Courage and Her Children), LOTUS is the race-in-your-face hour of entertainment Australia has been waiting for. Featured original songs include Nguyen’s soon-to-be-smash-hits Things White People Say to Me,…

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The Relationship is the Project: Lgbtiq+ author readings

February 27, 2020 @ 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm AEDT
Hares Hyenas, 63 Johnston Street, Fitzroy
Melbourne, Victoria 3065 Australia
+ Google Map

Jade Lillie, Brow Books, and Hares Hyenas bookshop all warmly invite you to this special event, featuring readings from queer contributors from the newly-released book The Relationship is the Project, followed by a Q&A. Come celebrate this vital new book! And hear from contributors Daniel Santangeli, Caroline Bowditch, Adolfo Aranjuez, Eleanor Jackson (Peril Chair), and Jade Lillie. Drinks at bar prices, and some nibbles provided. Thursday 27th February from 6:30pm Hares & Hyenas bookshop 63 Johnston St, Fitzroy VIC 3065 Free, all welcome. Proceedings will kick off at about 7pm. ____________ ABOUT THE BOOK The Relationship is the Project: Working with Communities Edited by Jade Lillie, with Kate Larsen, Cara Kirkwood and Jax Jacki Brown A brilliant new ‘right now’ resource that aims to assist emerging practitioners, artists and cultural workers better engage with community-based projects. The breadth of the advice shared in this non-academic, practitioner-led book includes insights into…

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Adelaide Writers’ Week and Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature

February 29, 2020 - March 5, 2020
Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden Adelaide, 5000 Australia + Google Map

In 2020, Writers’ Week contemplates one of the few things that incontrovertibly unites us all: Being Human. Through the words and minds of great thinkers, Writers’ Week explores how humans engage with each other, with technology, with the natural world. It examines the stories we tell ourselves and those we construct. It asks from where we can draw solace and inspiration. It challenges us to avoid apathy and despair. It applauds our curiosity in and engagement with the wider world. It seeks joy and stimulation in our intellect and each other. We hope you will join the authors, poets, journalists, historians, scientists, politicians and academics from around the world coming to Adelaide to be part of our annual conversation. Explore the exciting list of authors. This year sees the return of the weekend for younger readers, including the powerful showcase of spoken word performance, Hear Me Roar. We expand the…

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March 2020

The Winter’s Tale

March 4, 2020 - March 8, 2020
La Mama Courthouse, 349 Drummond Street, Carlton
Melbourne, Australia
+ Google Map

"A sad tale's best for winter…" In a fit of wild and unfounded jealousy, Leontes, a civic leader of 1920s Hong Kong, is convinced that his wife Hermione is carrying the child of his best friend, the Australian politician Polixenes. Once born, the child is exiled and seeks refuge in a rural community in modern day Australia. Things go well for the child until she falls for the son of the bigoted politician. Leaping from Hong Kong to Australia and from the 1920s to modern day, this unique setting of Shakespeare's The Winter’s Tale sheds light on the far-reaching impacts of colonialism in both countries.

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Sancintya Mohini Simpson: First Thursdays

March 5, 2020 @ 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm AEST
Institute of Modern Art, Ground Floor, Judith Wright Centre 420 Brunswick Street Fortitude Valley Brisbane QLD 4006 Australia + Google Map
Free

Join IMA Belltower artist Sancintya Mohini Simpson and her collaborators as they take over the IMA courtyard with an evening of performance that brings together language, gesture, and ritual to invoke the stories of women forgotten by colonial histories. See performances by Joella Warkill, Manisha Anjali, Shivanjani Lal, Sancintya Mohini Simpson, and Isha Ram Das, as they share connected familial histories marked by the colonial sugar industry’s system of indenture. The night will give voice to the performers’ ancestors—women who journeyed across oceans to be bound by sugar plantations.

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Not Today’s Yesterday

March 10, 2020 - March 13, 2020
The Engine Room, 3550/58 View St
Bendigo, VIC 3550 Australia
+ Google Map

An award-winning international collaboration between Australian choreographer Lina Limosani and UK Bharatanatyam artist Seeta Patel, Not Today’s Yesterday blurs the lines between dance and theatre with a poetic narrative and the beauty and disquiet of a dark fairytale. Winner of Best Dance at the 2018 Adelaide Fringe as well as a 2018 Peace Foundation Award, Not Today's Yesterday takes aim at the revisionist and airbrushed histories that have become a central point of tension across the globe. Britain and Australia, amongst others, have sordid histories and relationships with Indigenous and migrant communities and skewed histories fuel a distorted sense of nationalism. Opening up conversation through its clever appropriation of whitewashed historical narratives, Not Today's Yesterday aims to give a voice back to silenced communities. With striking imagery, this one-woman show challenges nostalgic views of history and interrogates our ideas of equality, culture and identity, inviting audiences to see the past anew and to hope for a…

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Virtual Intimacy

March 13, 2020 - March 15, 2020
Martyn Myer Area, 26 Grant St
Melbourne, Victoria 3004 Australia
+ Google Map

Identity. Online. Sexuality. Data. Relationships. Technology. Queer. Virtual. Intimacy. A collaboration between directors from Australia and Taiwan, Virtual Intimacy invites you to reveal information about yourself, openly and anonymously. From this, a post-digital work of participatory theatre evolves to explore both our relationships with technology and the ways in which it shapes our relationships with others. South Australia's ActNow Theatre joins with Taiwan's Very Theatre for this unique performance experiment. A bilingual piece in English and Mandarin developed from work with local queer communities, Virtual Intimacy draws on its makers' practices in film, multimedia and participatory storytelling. Expect to play a part in the live conversations happening within the performance – bring a charged smartphone as we explore our intimate, digital selves. Please note, audience members will need to use their own mobile data to participate.

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Oedipus Schmoedipus

March 18, 2020 - March 28, 2020

伊狄帕斯・豬亦拍屍 A comic bloodbath about a fate that none of us can escape. Oedipus Schmoedipus is a joyful, dark, irreverent, hilarious and confronting performance about death: real death, fake death, and death as portrayed in the world’s great theatre classics. This irreverent work from provocative Australian collective post (Zoë Coombs Marr, Mish Grigor & Natalie Rose) piles up classic dramatic death scenes into an engaging spectacle of glee-ridden blood and gore. Starring Mish Grigor and Shelly Lauman, who resurrect again and again through multiple murders, suicides and accidents. For Asia TOPA 2020, productions of the work in English and Cantonese (featuring ManMan Kwok and Man Sui Hing) are performed over two weeks. For each show’s mammoth bloodbath, a cast of 25 local volunteers is invited to join in the comic lament and slaughter. Straddling live art, theatre and contemporary performance, Oedipus Schmoedipus has had audiences around the world in stitches and in tears. It’s a democratic theatrical extravaganza 2,500 years in the…

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Melbourne International Comedy Festival

March 25, 2020 - April 19, 2020
Various Melbourne, Australia + Google Map

BACKGROUND The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is one of the three largest comedy festivals in the world, alongside Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival. An annual event, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival literally takes over Australia's comedy capital, Melbourne, each autumn with an enormous program of stand-up comedy, cabaret, theatre, street performance, film, television, radio and visual arts. The Festival was launched in 1987 by Barry Humphries and Peter Cook. Thirty-two festivals later, with attendances of up to 770,000, it has grown to be Australia's largest cultural ticketed event. With an average ticket price of just $30, the Festival is not only a hugely popular event but an extremely accessible one. When the Melbourne Town Hall precinct is converted into a giant comedy hub, there is something for every comedy lover, from the very best local and international comedy acts in venues of all shapes and sizes.…

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August 2020

We’ve been here before

August 8, 2020 @ 2:00 pm - 2:30 pm AEST
Free

We've been here before by Govind Pillai and Raina Peterson Moving, visceral and experimental dance explores the truth that for many in this grand metropolitan matrix of streets, suburbs and prejudices, the experience of isolation is nothing new nor uncomfortable. We've been here before. Maybe you have too? Govind and Raina’s At Home Residency Showing invites attendees to submit contributions that will inform the artists’ improvised choreography. A Q&A session will also take place as part of this showing. What is Take Over!? A unique partnership between Arts Centre Melbourne and Melbourne Fringe, this year’s program features 10 fearless and unique artistic explorations that will take shape in artists’ homes across Victoria in the lead up to their presentation at Melbourne Fringe in November 2020. What are the At Home Residency Showings? This an opportunity to connect with the Take Over! artists at the end of their at home residencies…

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Giraru Galing Ganhagirri

August 22, 2020 @ 2:00 pm - 2:30 pm AEST
Free

Giraru Galing Ganhagirri An installation weaving the dancing body with the digital image, reflecting on the endurance of Country. Speaking to the assurance that, in nature, one thing follows another. It always has and always will. Giraru Galing Ganhagirri translates to “the wind will bring the rain” in the Wiradjuri language. It also speaks of the bringing together of the elements of air and water. Joel Bray's At Home Residency Showing will present a work-in-progress performance. A live Q&A session with Carly Sheppard will also take place as part of this showing, where audience participation is encouraged. What is Take Over!? A unique partnership between Arts Centre Melbourne and Melbourne Fringe, this year’s program features 10 fearless and unique artistic explorations that will take shape in artists’ homes across Victoria in the lead up to their presentation at Melbourne Fringe in November 2020. What are the At Home Residency Showings? This…

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I Am Maggie

August 29, 2020 @ 2:00 pm - 2:30 pm AEST
Free

I Am Maggie with Maggie Chen and Maggie Zhu An anti-tragedy and participatory biography about resilience and female empowerment. Enter the life of two Maggies, childhood in China and adulthood in Australia. This work embodies the soft power they possess. Jonathan's At Home Residency Showing will reveal four short videos of crowd-sourced 'Mad Lib' performance. Stay tuned for updates about how you can contribute to the creation of these videos. What is Take Over!? A unique partnership between Arts Centre Melbourne and Melbourne Fringe, this year’s program features 10 fearless and unique artistic explorations that will take shape in artists’ homes across Victoria in the lead up to their presentation at Melbourne Fringe in November 2020. What are the At Home Residency Showings? This an opportunity to connect with the Take Over! artists at the end of their at home residencies and get an insight into the creative process. We have not…

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September 2020

Namummaa fi Wantoota Namummaa Qancarsan – Humanness and What Took It

September 12, 2020 @ 2:00 pm - 2:30 pm AEST
Free

Namummaa fi Wantoota Namummaa Qancarsan - Humanness and What Took It A multilingual performance combining theatre, poetry, song and Oromo dance. Exploring what it means to be human in the presence of each other – those who elevate your humanity and those who deny it. Dedicated to lifting up the diverse philosophies and stories that the Oromo worldview has to offer. Soreti's At Home Residency Showing will present a work-in-progress performance. A Q&A session will also take place as part of this showing. What is Take Over!? A unique partnership between Arts Centre Melbourne and Melbourne Fringe, this year’s program features 10 fearless and unique artistic explorations that will take shape in artists’ homes across Victoria in the lead up to their presentation at Melbourne Fringe in November 2020. What are the At Home Residency Showings? This an opportunity to connect with the Take Over! artists at the end of…

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