Past Events

As part of Arts Centre Melbourne’s Big World, Up Close and Families Winter/Spring programs, Between Tiny Cities រវាងទីក្រុ ងតូច is a dance work that represents the cultural exchange between Australian and Cambodian artists, taking over the State Theatre Rehearsal Room from 10 – 13 July these winter school holidays. In this work, dancers Erak Mith, from Phnom Penh, and Aaron Lim, from Darwin, use the rituals, movement styles and language of their shared hip-hop culture to reveal the dramatically different worlds that surround them and uncover the choreographic links that unite them. This is an immersive experience, with the performers up close, as the audience forms a circle to witness the playful and exploratory intensity of physical storytelling. Choreographed by internationally-renowned Sydney hip-hop dance artist Nick Power and accompanied by the beats and sound design of Jack Prest, the work blends the raw energy of b*boy battles with skillful improvisation…

Brendan Wan & Trades Hall present  GENRE: Comedy, Sketch and Storytelling Sweet & Sour Dilemmas: untold story of riches to rags migrant story It’s a familiar story: Asian migrant leaves with $5 in his pocket for a better life in Australia. Or, if we want to be strictly precise, affluent Indonesian-Chinese migrant leaves his mother country because he’s swept by the romance of living the charming Australian life of quality coffee, orderly traffic, and cigars in the sun, only to learn the brutal reality of migrant life, which has resulted in comedy-drama production, Sweet and Sour Dilemmas. Brendan Wan is an incredible new talent on the Melbourne comedy scene, and it’s easy to see why Sweet and Sour Dilemmas is tipped to receive excellent critical reception. Audiences will quickly forget they’re assembled in a traditional theatre in Carlton as they enter ‘Chef Chung’s’ bustling Chinese kitchen. Through storytelling and the…

Black is the new white -- by Nakkiah Lui 2 October  to 6 November 2019 Southbank Theatre, The Sumner A mix of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Meet the Fockers, Nakkiah Lui’s smash hit comedy is set to delight Melbourne audiences. Charlotte Gibson is a lawyer with a brilliant career ahead of her. As her father Ray says, she could be the next female Indigenous Waleed Aly. But she has other ideas. First of all, it’s Christmas. Second of all, she’s in love. The thing is, her fiancé, Francis Smith, is not what her family expected – he’s unemployed, he’s an experimental composer… and he’s white! When the families come together at the Gibson’s ritzy holiday home, the stage is set for a riotously funny struggle for dominance where insults fly, secrets come flooding out and sacred cows of all descriptions are mercilessly skewered. It’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,…

Footscray Community Arts Centre is producing a community Festival in Melbourne’s West called the Due West Arts Festival from the 15 – 24 November 2019. It’s a 10 day festival highlighting the Voice, Sound and Music of the communities of the West. One of them is EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS IN THE CURRENT. It explores the emotional and social implications of moving between different states of being. When the flow of our existence is interrupted and relocated, the context shifts and everything we knew then is no longer. Expanding the transitional state where the end meets the beginning, where nostalgia morphs into memory, where words become gestures – the exhibition asks: where are the disruptions of time and their residue? Curated by Nikki Lam, with artists Anindita Banerjee, Shivanjani Lal, Ellen YG Son, Cyrus Tang, and Siying Zhou, EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS IN THE CURRENT will be installed at multiple sites in…

Footscray Community Arts Centre is producing a community Festival in Melbourne’s West called the Due West Arts Festival from the 15 – 24 November 2019. It’s a 10-day festival highlighting the Voice, Sound, and Music of the communities of the West. One of them is Jason Phu in Footscray. Drawing on family history, Jason Phu responds to Footscray as a place of migratory resettlement. Sourcing materials from within the boundaries of the local area and in collaboration with the local community, Phu will create a mixed-media installation exploring the stories of his family and the history of the area, touching on the events that birthed places like Footscray the world over. Public Programs ~ Drawing yourself as a bottle of sauce 7 pm – 8 pm, Tuesday 19 November 19 at MakersWindow A self-portraiture calligraphy class with Jason Phu, taking inspiration from Vietnamese sauces and condiments. Using ink, brush and…

FOOTSCRAY BY NIGHT (A SECOND CALL) by Hoang Tran Nguyen restages a community arts project first mounted with David Nguyen as part of Big West Festival 2011. Inspired by the Paris By Night cabaret shows, popular in the Vietnamese diaspora, a series of karaoke videos were produced celebrating the communities associated with Little Saigon Shopping Centre. Since the fire of 2016 that devastated Little Saigon, the center of gravity for the Vietnamese community has shifted, raising questions about gentrification, the reclamation of space and what these discussions mean in a (de)colonial context. Revisiting the project relocates it to a new meeting point, bringing in dialogue with local Indigenous community practitioners of Melbourne’s West to explore the conversation of dispossession and dislocation between migrant and Indigenous communities. Join FOOTSCRAY BY NIGHT (A SECOND CALL) for an evening of song, performance, and video in Nicholson Street. Featuring Robbie Bundle and Brian Morley,…