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See article in its original context here by Leonard Miller for the Toorak Times.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

Celebrating its thirtieth year, the Next Wave Festival was established to foster creativity and experimentation with a focus on young emerging artists. In choosing choreographer James Welsby as a Next Wave Kickstart recipient and in programming his remarkable new work Hex, the festival has given everyone a birthday present. Full of energy and wit, the piece covers old ground in a new way and promises something of the grand new narrative which is the theme for this year’s Next Wave.

Hex is a discussion of the HIV/AIDS crisis which shook the western world from the early eighties to the mid nineties. It is a topic that has had many performative renderings, but Welsby still finds something new to say and a new way to say it. Lasting about an hour, the work draws strongly from the club dance styles of the period and almost uses them as its language. This also makes for a high energy show and all three dancers impress with their fitness and discipline.

See article in its original context here by Mark Brandi for the ArtsHub.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Hex explores the pain and struggle of fighting against adversity. Is is also a joyful celebration of what it means to be free.

For those who remember the HIV/AIDS awareness campaign of the 1980s, the Grim Reaper evokes a powerful emotional response. To this day, it remains a potent symbol of fear in our community.

With that fear, sadly, came much misunderstanding. Gay men in particular were stigmatised and singled out, as society tried to come to grips with a deadly pandemic.

In Hex, dancer and choreographer James Welsby ambitiously sets out to bridge the generational gap between those who lived through the crisis and Generation Y. He is determined that the struggles of activists in the 80s and 90s are not forgotten, and that his generation do not take for granted the relative liberalism they enjoy.

See interview in its original context here by Rose Johnstone for TimeOut Melbourne.

Spend a night among three cabaret stars to decide which one shines the brightest

On stage, Michael Dalton is best known as frock-toting diva Dolly Diamond. Rachel Dunham is the closest thing to Oprah you’ve ever seen – if Oprah had an incredibly powerful singing voice. Luke Gallagher is a storyteller with a swoon-inducing singing voice. We chat to the triple-threat trio to hear about the highs and lows of being in a cabaret supergroup.

You’ve all performed in the Melbourne Cabaret Festival before, but not together. How did this come about?

Michael: I perform as Dolly Diamond, but I wanted to do a gig as Michael. Luke and I wanted to perform together, and then we went to watch Rachel do Oprahfication, and fell in love with her. The girl can sing and the girl knows how to perform!

See article in its original context here by Jane Howard for The Guardian Australia.

★★★★

Hex review: the Aids crisis revisited through dance

James Welsby was born the same year as the Grim Reaper advertisement played on Australian television warning about the dangers of HIV. For his generation, it was so powerful that the image of the epidemic lingered on, even among those too young to have been conscious of it when it first appeared. Gen Y grew up in the wake of the Aids crisis: taught about its devastation, but removed from the events.

See article in its original context here by Stephen Russell for the Gay News Network.

EXPLORING HIV/AIDS THROUGH THE WORLD OF DANCE

See article in its original context here by Annie Louey for the ArtsHub.

An independent play has taken out almost as many Green Room Awards as the stage production ‘King Kong’ at last night’s ceremony.

Presented annually by the peer-based Green Room Awards Association, the Green Room Awards recognise excellence within Melbourne’s professional performing arts sector.

Savages, written by Melbourne playwright Patricia Cornelius and directed by Susie Dee took out four awards in the independent theatre category at last night’s awards ceremony at the Comedy Theatre. The writer and director both received awards in their respective disciplines. The other two gongs were given for set and costume design, and lighting.

Cornelius joked, ‘We wanted to beat King Kong!’

Savages won four Green Room Awards in the following Independent Theatre Categories: Writing/Adaptation on the Australian Stage - Patricia Cornelius Direction - Susie Dee Set and Costume Design - Marg Horwell Lighting Design - Andy Turner Read more about the…

See article in its original context here by Andrew Fuhrmann for the TimeOut Melbourne.

See article in its original context here by Tim Byrne for the TimeOut Melbourne.

★★★★

KaBooM – Stories from Distant Frontlines is described as a physical performance event, seven vignettes from seven different directors on the topic of war and its aftermath. It is decidedly outward looking, as the word distant in the subtitle indicates, but it is also deeply attuned to the ripple effects of warfare that still disturb and haunt the Australian psyche.

The sheer number of international conflicts to which Australians have been witness can be staggering to contemplate, and KaBooM makes no claim as some kind of exhaustive ledger. Instead, the approach is deliberately piecemeal, spanning decades and continents, focusing on the personal over the geopolitical. Faced with such individualised trauma, the reasons for going to war seem utterly perverse, and KaBooM rightfully turns its back on them.

See article in its original context here by Lisa Romeo for the Toorak Times.

Kaboom is about war, about true individuals who have fought on the frontline, and who have been forced to leave their country to escape conflict in the attempt to build new lives in Australia.

The show’s aim is to position the audience as witnesses to the atrocities of war, and the stories told touch upon some of the world’s greatest disasters – the Holocaust, the Vietnam war, Saddam Hussein’s army, the explosion of a Russian Navy ship in WWI that took the lives of over 600 men – right through to stories from commandos in the Israeli Army.

Seven independent theatre directors each create their own theatrical piece, tied together by the very powerful acting of Deborah Leiser-Moore who is the centre piece of each story, and delivered by the use of screen projections, video and television. There is no fourth wall in this production and the intent is to engage and involve the spectators by channelling them from one intimate space to the next, each set with its own props, thus creating a series of short and gripping events.

KaBooM featured in The Australian today!

KaBooM: Stories from distant frontlines featured in the Jewish News today!

See article in its original context here by Keith Gallasch for RealTime Arts. RT PROFILER 2, 26 MARCH 2014 The soldier inside Keith Gallasch: Deborah Leiser-Moore, KaBooM: Stories from Distant Frontlines I recently met with a very happy Deborah Leiser-Moore to…

See article in its original context here by Cameron Woodhead for The Age.

See article in its original context here by Chris Boyd for The Australian.

IN his memoir, the king of clowns Grock wrote about extracting mirth from nothing and that “the genius of clowning is transforming the little, everyday annoyances … into something strange and terrific.” Angela Carter’s fictional clown king, Buffo, belches and says “bollocks” to Grock’s argument. Buffo reckons “the beauty of clowning is that nothing ever changes”.

And that’s the line this ingenious and maddening show follows. It presents us with a fixed, unchanging clown universe. In this sinister, self-contained world, the rules of logic are utterly alien. Clowning isn’t an occupation, it’s a state of mind. And of being. Between public performances of their well-honed act, three clowns (Clare Bartholomew, Nicci Wilks and Derek Ives) slave away on a sweatshop production line, sorting and packing red noses into cans. Anna Tregloan’s set is like a Rube Goldberg contraption. Even the rules of narrative are flipped. In the world of The Long Pigs, music isn’t incidental or responding to the narrative, it actually is the narrative. Jethro Woodward’s score is extraordinarily agile, as spooky and sprung as the best of Bernard Herrmann. With a dash of Prokofiev for good measure. It’s as if Woodward is bullying the characters and directing stage traffic himself.

See article in its original context here by Anne-Marie Peard for Aussie Theatre.

Coulrophobia: fear of clowns. If you’ve never been scared of clowns and their silly red noses, you will be by the end of The Long Pigs.

Clare Bartholomew (Circus Oz, Die Roten Punkte and lots more), Derek Ives (Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus, The Candy Butchers and lots more) and Nicci Wilkes (La Fura Del Baus, CIRCA and lots more) are the three pigs: This, That and The Other Pig. They’re filthy and play in a rank mire of intimidation, mistrust and can’t-wash-it-off evil.

See article in its original context here by Myron My for Theatre Press.

Hilariously dark and frighteningly funny…

Firstly, if you have a fear of clowns, then this show is probably not for you but it doesn’t mean you still shouldn’t go see it. The clowns in The Long Pigs are not your traditional-looking clowns (for the most part).

These guys are dirty and dark with black noses, and are hell-bent on collecting the red noses of other clowns…

The uncanny ability that performers Clare Bartholomew, Nicci Wilks and Derek Ives (who along with director Susie Dee, also devised the show) have to use something as small as a facial expression or taking a step to make their audience get actual stitches from laughing is testament to their darkly funny skills as clowns.

See article in its original context here by Sean Wilson and Lachlan Cooper for the The Age. THEATRE THE LONG PIGS A black comedy about evil clowns who scalp clown noses, this is the latest offering from three leading theatre artists…

The Long Pigs featured in mX today!

See article in its original context here by K. E. Weber for Theatre People.

Susie Dee And Her Long Pigs

See article in its original context here by John Bailey for The Age.

The dark side of clowning is brought into focus with a new play.

While it’s become a bit faddish to declare yourself clown-phobic these days, pop culture has thrown us enough terrifying clowns in living memory to provide some underlying support for the claim – from Pennywise in Stephen King’s IT to serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the menacing US act Insane Clown Posse and their cultish Juggalo fans to Heath Ledger’s nightmarish turn as The Joker.

Last year, an English student posted creepy images of himself standing around the city in scary clown get-up; within days dozens of copycats had begun menacing people around Britain.

There is something unnerving about clowns, says performer Clare Bartholomew. ”The traditional make-up of a clown is made for a three-ring circus, where you might be half a kilometre away from the audience. That make-up is designed to show your expression to someone a very long distance away. If you put on all that make-up and you’re up close making a balloon animal for a child, it’s really scary.”

See article in its original context here by John Bailey for The Age. Elizabethan drama downstairs Fortyfivedownstairs' inaugural Festival of Words and Music kicked off on Monday and while the two-week program of events is heavily skewed towards the melodic,…

See article in its original context here by Cameron Woodhead for The Age & The Sydney Morning Herald.

Reviewer rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Zulya Kamalova
45 Downstairs, Until February 16

This intriguing cabaret-style solo show, deftly woven through short monologue and song, captures aspects of three different women caught in the tide of Russian history.

There’s the communist revolutionary Inessa Armand, who became Lenin’s mistress, agitated for the rights of women and tragically died young; a mail-order bride called Eva, revelling for a while in fairytale riches which can’t disguise the demeaning reality of her existence; and a semi-mythological figure, an incarnation of natural forces.

Evolution, Revolution and the Mail Order Bride is an excellent showcase for Zulya Kamalova’s voice. The Russian-born singer has a naturally dramatic sound that can skip effortlessly from ethereal ambient harmonies to the seedy glamour of jazz-inspired numbers. She’s an extraordinary vocal talent, backed here by piano, trumpet and cello.

Evolution, Revolution & The Mail Order Bride featured in The Australian recently!

See article in its original context here by Geoffrey Williams for Stage Whispers.

There’s a sparkling gem of an idea camouflaged deep within Evolution Revolution and The Mail Order Bride that deserves further exploration. The essential conflict in its current state is that musically, it is simply stunning, but dramatically, much less so – with a simplistic and perfunctory strain of ‘the wrongs men do’ carried through relentlessly. Not only is this problematic for the sexual politics of the piece, which remain surprisingly and steadfastly inert, but it also betrays the meaning, legacy and complexity of the lives that Ms Kamalova’s women led (and lead).

See article in its original context here by Liza Dezfouli for Australian Stage.

fortyfivedownstairs is one of those spaces that lends itself to atmosphere. Want to create a moody and evocative environment for your play? Put it on here. Evolution, Revolution and the Mail Order Bride by Zulya Kamalova, makes beautiful use of the space. A great pile of old stuff dominates the set, telling us that history and the detritus of lives will inform this work. Lighting and backdrop, including ravishing video images of the past, create a beautiful and worthy set, we have a mini orchestra comprising violin, electric mandolin, cello, piano, trombone – everything you need provided by musicians of calibre. And the girl, Kamalova, can sing, in terms of reaching those notes, she delivers. Kamalova is at her best with the witchy-poo, haunting, gothic Wendy Rule/Diamanda Galas style of singing; she’s not so hot with the more genre based styles. I didn’t love the timbre of her voice outside the delivery of the monstrous feminine vocals, but there’s no doubting her musicality.

See article in its original context here in the Daily Review.

Zulya Kamalova is an ARIA Award-winning singer who has made a career performing Russian and Tatar music to Australian and international audiences for almost two decades. She’s been in high demand for her musical prowess both locally and in Europe, but is now taking a step in a new direction with her self-penned musical tragicomedy Evolution, Revolution and the Mail Order Bride. In the show, she plays revolutionary Inessa Armand and her two alter-egos Eva and Maya.

We spoke to Kamalova about creating a new work and changing directions.

Evolution, Revolution and The Mail Order Bride represents a new direction for you. Is it daunting to be veering into a different artform?

Yes, definitely very daunting. But not as daunting now compared to half way through the process when I had realised what a huge task I took on. With the great support from Maude Davey, my director and co-creator, now I feel more excited than daunted.

How did the show come to be? What inspired you to step out of your comfort zone into something more theatrical?

My music started to become more theatrical and I realised how much I enjoyed being someone else rather than myself. I decided to create a new kind of show. So I churned through quite a bit of material, till I was drawn to Inessa Armand, the Russian revolutionary, who I found very fascinating for a number of reasons. Then I had to learn heaps about dramaturgy, research the philosophical and the psychological aspects etc. I wanted to do more than just tell one story so the other two characters were born as well. Three years later, it’s on! And I think it’s good. It’s gone its own way however, perhaps not exactly how I expected it to go, which just proves my point about evolution.

See article in its original context here by Richard Watts for ArtsHub.

Image: Zulya Kamalova’s Evolution, Revolution and The Mail Order Bride. Photo by Sarah Walker.
Art outside your comfort zone

‘My shelf life as a diver is quickly approaching its expiry date,’ laughs gold medal winning Olympian Matthew Mitcham, when asked why he’s decided to embrace a parallel career as a cabaret performer.

‘I have always been a pretty creative person, I think, but I’ve never really been given an opportunity to develop that side of me. And I really think it’s important for athletes to work on their Plan B for their lives after sport. I’m not going to be able to dive forever, and when I stop the sport, whether it be prematurely or because of my own choosing, I don’t want to have to start to build up a career from scratch; I’d like to hit the ground running.’

The ukulele-playing Mitcham, who made his cabaret debut at Perth’s Fringe World this week with Twists & Turns, based on his memoir of the same name, is not alone in turning his hand to a new skill. Across the country, artists are exploring the new and the unexpected in order to challenge themselves and push their creative practice in stimulating new directions.

One such artist is ARIA Award-winning musician Zulya Kamalova, whose first-ever theatre production, Evolution, Revolution and The Mail Order Bride, opens in Melbourne this week.

‘I was always attracted to acting, and my performances had become more and more dramatic and theatrical, and I realised that I enjoyed that …  And as with any career you go through ebbs and flows, highs and lows, and you go “What can I do now?”,’ Kamalova said.

  Evolution, Revolution & The Mail Order Bride featured in mX today!

See article in its original context here by Anna Snoekstra for The Melbourne Review.

EVOLUTION, REVOLUTION AND THE MAIL ORDER BRIDE

February 2014

A new performance at fortyfivedownstairs transcends location, time and genre in an exploration of femininity.

Zulya Kamalova explores themes of femininity and sexuality in this layered musical tragicomedy. Originally from Russia, Kamalova started her career as a musician. “Playing with a band, my repertoire was getting more and more dramatic,” she tells me, “so I thought, ‘I’ll try this thing out’.

“It took me years. I realised it was such a huge task,” she continues, “the themes I was looking at were so immense.” Eventually Kamalova created three vastly different characters, all “swept away by circumstance”. Maya, an ancient Shaman, Inessa Arman, a Russian revolutionary and Eva, a modern day mail order bride. Teaming up with director Maude Davey, Kamalova was able to play all three characters herself.

See article in its original context here by Andrew Fuhrmann for TimeOut Melbourne.

Watch out Zig! Watch our Zag! Clare Bartholomew is coming for you next
Devised and performed by clowning supergroup We!3!, The Long Pigs is the kind of sinister oddity that could only be dreamed up in the wilds of north eastern Tasmania.

Enter the black-nosed clowns, dressed in an ominous medley of surgical gear and abattoir workwear. From rusty buckets they pour their spoils, hundreds of red noses, bloody trophies torn from their sunny cousins in clowning. But one nose is missing. And one of the three is hiding something from the others.

Clare Bartholomew, Derek Ives and Nicci Wilks were at the Golconda Circus Festival, east of Launceston, when they first conjured this strange vision of the darkside of the clown, working on ideas for an impromptu festival show.

“I had this big bag of red noses with me because I’d been teaching clowning at a festival workshop,” explains Bartholomew. “So I was just sitting and staring at this bag, and I thought, well, what if we came from the forest out there and we were clown scalpers, hunting red-nosed clowns.”

For a career clown, this might be thought a symbolic act of self-murder; “long pigs” is, after all, Melanesian Pidgin for “human flesh”. But for Bartholomew it’s more an opportunity to change public expectations.

Read article in its original context here by Kylie Northover for The Age & The Sydney Morning Herald.

Reds in the beds

Zulya Kamalova tends to sing songs imbued with her own personality. But for her debut one-woman show, Evolution, Revolution And The Mail Order Bride, the ARIA award-winning Tartar singer wanted to inhabit the lives of other people.

In the work, which she describes as ”musical tragicomedy”, she plays French-born feminist revolutionary Inessa Armand, who was famously a lover of Lenin.

”I wanted to be somebody else, just for fun,” says the Melbourne-based singer, who arrived in Australia from Russia in 1991. ”But in the end, you are still attracted to characters that resonate with you, so I chose this Russian revolutionary.”

The work tells the intertwining stories of Armand and two ”alter egos” (all played by Kamalova) and their struggle with economic, political and moral crises.

”I felt I understood her – she really felt strongly about this idea of revolution and because I grew up in Soviet times … even though we kind of knew it wasn’t quite right, we were brainwashed to believe that they were the good ideals,” she says. ”I could’ve made a whole play about her; her life is so rich and interesting, but that didn’t feel enough.”

Legend has it that Armand tried to introduce the concept of free love to the ideology of Bolshevik Russia, but her famous lover dismissed the idea as bourgeois.

                  Evolution, Revolution & The Mail Order Bride featured in the Age recently!