Reunited and it feels so good
Season One 2022
Arts House is kicking off 2022 with a riot of colour, music, movement and connection – saturate yourself in the kinds of experiences we’ve been longing for.
Rafaella McDonald’s Crowd Stance is a work of visual art that erupts with vibrant energy – a large-scale, abstract rendering of the crowd that will lift you off the ground. It’s a transformative work full of joy and colour.
You could say the same for FAMILI, a blockbuster evening created by a huge collective of queer Pasifika and Bla(c)k artists in which live music, DJ sets and visual and video installations weave a complex tapestry of Oceanic culture.
We’ve been waiting a while to share with you the singular experience that is Sarah Aiken’s Make Your Life Count – Sarah is one of the most original and exciting choreographers working in Australia today, and here she experiments with scale to produce a phantasmagoric dive into the vastness of the individual ego and its vanishing in the face of an ever-expanding universe.
THE RABBLE’s YES is just as cosmic in its implications, applying the company’s signature visual imagination to a series of questions that ask us to reconsider our relationship to truth in a post-traumatic world. This is art so planetary it has its own weather systems, and we’re so happy to welcome back these feminist iconoclasts.
Daniel Schlusser Ensemble’s Hercules is theatre at its most brave, but don’t go looking for heroes – this gripping reimagining of one of the West’s most enduring myths unpicks the monster within the man, and is performed by three women with fearless nerve.
Our North Melbourne neighbours and leading Australian dance company Lucy Guerin Inc are back into the building too. Set against the backdrop of a devastating event, the world premiere of Flux Job gives us four dancers navigating the strange spaces where individual worlds overlap with those of others. Evocative and poignant, it uses both dance and the scripted word to ask who we are when we’re alone, and who we are when we aren’t.
Now, while we’re beyond delighted to be back at North Melbourne Town Hall, we have also really enjoyed being able to connect with you all via out Digital Program over the past two years. The good news is that in Season 1, this will continue, as we lift the veil on Makeshift Publics 2021. This year has seen some of Melbourne’s most critical artists and cultural leaders gather to stir their thoughts and share experiences, and the results will be live between February and May with a series of critical reflections and responses.
And in a continued sharing of knowledge: we are also proud to launch, in person, the incredible and comprehensive publication In the Time of Refuge. If you’re keen to understand some of the lessons we’ll be taking forward from six years exploring art, climate science and emergency: come along.
We have missed you all! And we want it to be as easy as possible for people to return to Arts House. So all tickets for this season are still just $20, with Blaktix at $10.
See you out there!
Emily Sexton,
Artistic Director, Arts House
Image credit: Gianna Rizzo, FAMILI EP Launch
Image description: Landscape image Lay is erupting from the stage exclaiming in the air, Meleika arms up dancing facing Lay, Ripley to the left eyes closed nodding. Seth playing beats on their laptop in the left hand corner of the image.
