Reviews

In the glorious acoustic surrounds of Adelaide’s Town Hall, the lauded Esmé Quartet astounded their audience on their first tour of Australia courtesy of Musica Viva.  The group’s name, meaning “beloved”, is taken from medieval French and I feel sure that in future they will be welcomed back here to showcase their prodigious talents.

Silence, presented by Karul Projects and Blak Dance, is a contemporary dance fusion of traditional dance and hip-hop. Openly political, it calls for a treaty with Australia’s Aboriginal people.

Experimental musical dinner theatre isn’t common, and theatre exploring the dark underbelly of bigotry and polarisation which expressly wants the audience to feel warmly safe is even less so. The People, which is a loose group of people centred around Morgan Rose and Katrina Cornwell have managed to bring a piece to life which does just that.

The performance space for the Biennale of Sydney at the White Bay Power Station is ‘out the back’. Which is not to say that it’s small. Open plan, the audience faces 40 steps to a first floor platform (with occasional strolling viewers), only a third of the way to a huge cathedral-style roof, hung with draperies and flags too distant to discern. It’s hardly the venue for an intimate one-person show.

Yet it’s here that Samoan/Australian actor Tommy Misa has to tell his tender, troubled story of life in Canberra as a gay boy and youth.