No artwork at RISING 2021 was quite like [*Flow State*](/festival-program/flow-state). Only accessible through a lottery, the work—by artists Sarah Retallick and Amanda Roff—asked participants to depart the banks of the Birrarung (Yarra) river in a boat destined for Herring Island. On their arrival participants were led through the bush to a private, sound-emitting bathtub equipped with speakers specially designed to vibrate the fluid tissue, skull and inner ear nerves.

With its run cut short, and following thousands of entries to the draw, we thought it only right to share with you a piece of what made it special. Flow State’s full audio soundtrack is streaming now via the link below. Use the password to access the audio and be sure to have some good quality headphones handy for the best experience.

[FLOW STATE AUDIO](https://www.sararetallick.com/thankyouforenteringflowstate)  

__Password__: flowstate


Enter the stream of our sonic bathing experience from your own tub.

Flow State at Home

Over the last 20 years, sound systems—shorthand for the massive custom speaker stacks (think metres high and wide) through which crews of selectors, DJs and emcees play abdomen-vibrating tracks—have been a relatively well-kept secret here in Melbourne.

But with the scene growing, the now on-pause debut of *Heavy Congress* at RISING was set to be a baptism of bass, and a broad introduction to the scene for Melbourne.

Conceived by artist Jason Maling, reggae ambassador Stick Mareebo and Northside Records’ Chris Gill, *Heavy Congress* will see 18 local sound system crews come together to battle it out in a colosseum of speaker stacks and Afro-Caribbean dance music.

"The display and the volume of the potential sound in front of the audience will be staggering," Gill says. "It will be an absolutely beautiful, sculptural, freak-out for people—even before we've turned on any electricity."

Born from reggae and dancehall, sound systems have also become the ideal delivery method for Colombian music, techno, hip hop and Latin flavours.
Audiences new to sound system culture will experience music in a way they never have. There are no stages here. No artists kept at a distance—the selectors are close enough to touch (but maybe don't). Sound systems thrive in the streets and in community settings where their intensity and directness is most appreciated. 

The crews at *Heavy Congress* represent all corners of the city. [El Gran Mono](https://elgranmono.com.au/) brings the vibrant history of picó sound system culture—which sees tropical music blasting out of huge, hand-painted, fluorescent speaker stacks—all the way from the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

Adrian Hough first built his sound system, [Adrian's Wall](https://www.facebook.com/AdriansWallSoundSystem), after visiting Notting Hill Carnival in 2007. When he moved to Melbourne a few years later, his was one of only four sound systems in the country. *Heavy Congress* is testament to the growth of the scene in the decade since.

Melbourne is also the proud home of over 35 female DJs spinning reggae music on the regular, and *Heavy Congress* will, for the first time in our city, feature an all-woman sound system. Fiona Bourne, aka Miss Fee, and Yasmin Rupesinghe, aka Bellyas, of [Housewife's Choice](https://www.facebook.com/housewifeschoicesound/) are experts in Jamaican music and more than ready to battle it out for the top spot.

Sound system battles are competitive, but there are no ballots or score cards: you vote with your feet and your voice—making a booty-shaking case for the sound system you want to win.

"Sound will not break your windows, but you will feel it," Mareebo warns. "If you get close to it, you feel the bass in your face. We don't want to keep the neighbourhood awake all night, but we're looking forward to having some good quality sound."

Want to explore the neighbourhoods of the *Heavy Congress* crews? Here's where to grab a drink before, or coffee the morning after, they battle it out.

### JOHNNY EL PÁJARO—EL GRAN MONO
__RISING: What's your suburb?__  
__JP:__ Reservoir.

__RISING: Favourite bar?__  
__JP:__ [Future Mountain Brewing and Blending](https://www.futuremountain.com.au/).

### YASMINE RUPESINGHE—HOUSEWIFE'S CHOICE
__RISING: What's your suburb?__  
__YR:__ West Melbourne.

__RISING: Where do you hang out?__  
__YR:__ [Code Black](https://codeblackcoffee.com.au/), for excellent coffee and vibes.

### ADRIAN BOURNE—ADRIAN'S WALL
__RISING: What's your suburb?__  
__AB:__ Campbellfield.

__RISING: What's the coolest thing about your neighbourhood?__  
__AB:__ Probably the ice cream on waffles at [Sweet Inspirations Lebanese Patisserie](https://www.facebook.com/Sweet-Inspirations-Lebanese-Patisserie-1388669258053242/). Best waffles in the north.


Since taking root in Jamaica in the 1950s, sound system culture has migrated and seen local crews spring up in neighbourhood pockets all over the world—including here in Melbourne.

An Introduction to Melbourne's Sound System Culture

Getting Heavy:

Our festival is down but not out, there’s still plenty of ways to experience our program. We’ve got podcasts brimming with big ideas, guided audio tours, projections saturated with colour, colossal lantern installations and moving audio works. And if you’d like to support the festival, our full suite of festival merch is on sale now.

## If It’s In Your 5km Radius
We ask that you don’t travel to these works, but consider experiencing them if you are exercising within 5km of your home.

[__Wander the Wood__](/festival-program/wander-the-wood)
- Take a self-guided, podcast walking tour through Collingwood. Listen to stories of the area’s creative history and hear about its residents’ talents and journeys.

[__Ancestral Memory__](/festival-program/ancestral-memory)
- A flowing Spirit Eel weaves its way across Hamer Hall in this saturated projection work.

[__The Rivers Sing__](/festival-program/the-rivers-sing)
- Our major sonic artwork projecting sounds and voices collected on Country. If you live beyond 5km of the work, tune-in to its Instagram Live stream every night at 5.15PM by following [@the_rivers_sing](https://www.instagram.com/the_rivers_sing/?hl=en)

[__Wandering Stars__](/festival-program/wandering-stars)
- A 500-metre-long lantern installation exploring the eel’s migratory journey from inland waterways to the deeps of the Coral Sea; and its embodiment of First Peoples knowledge of the land, sea, river and sky.

__Moving Objects__
- Dotted around the city you’ll find the [poster-based](/festival-program/moving-objects-cbd-posters) and [Metro hoarding](/festival-program/moving-objects-metro) artworks that make up *Moving Objects*—a sprawling exhibit showing responses by First Peoples artists to the collections of Museums Victoria. Also included is *Mulunma—Inside Within*—contemporary dance and choreography projected onto Melbourne Museum from dusk to dawn.

__Melbourne Art Trams__
- The new fleet of 2021 Melbourne Art trams have are now rolling out across the network. For the first time, each tram has been designed by a First Peoples artist—together they make up a rolling, city-wide art exhibition. Head [here](/arttrams) to learn about each tram, find their tram IDs and track if they’ll be passing through you neighbourhood soon.

## Official festival merchandise

[__Reko Rennie Collection__](https://shop.rising.melbourne/collections/reko-rennie)
- Acclaimed visual artist Reko Rennie (Kamilaroi/Gamilaroi) has created a mini collection in bold blue and pink, featuring a long sleeved tee and umbrella. A portion of the profits will be donated to Rennie’s nominated charity Elizabeth Morgan House.

[__Aunty Zeta Thomson Collection__](https://shop.rising.melbourne/collections/aunty-zeta-thomson)
- For her collection, Aunty Zeta Tomson adapts her Melbourne Art Trams design, *Mookies Around the Waterhole*, into a range of tees, a tote and wet weather gear. A portion of the profits will be donated to Thomson’s nominated charity, Wildlife Victoria.

[__RISING Collection__](https://shop.rising.melbourne/collections/rising)
- We designed our RISING collection to keep you toasty well beyond festival season. Rug up and avoid the cold sting of winter regret.

## The Festival In Liquid Form

__RISING festival x Blackhearts & Sparrows Wines__
- Imbibe some of our collaborative grape juice from the comfort of your own home. We’ve got a [textural Fiano](https://www.blackheartsandsparrows.com.au/products/21804/rising-2021-x-blackhearts-white-fiano-2020) and a [spicy Tempranillo](https://www.blackheartsandsparrows.com.au/products/21798/rising-2021-x-blackhearts-red-tempranillo-2020).

[__Bloody Moon__](https://www.blackheartsandsparrows.com.au/products/21757/four-pillars-x-blackhearts-x-rising-2021-bloody-moon-negroni-cocktail-500ml)
- The Bloody Moon is Four Pillars Gin and Blackhearts & Sparrows’ complex, bold update to the Negroni; featuring Bloody Shiraz Gin, Davidson plum, white chocolate and tonka bean. The lockdown cocktail you need.

## For Your Ears 

[__The RISING Podcast__](https://www.litmus.media/podcasts/rising-2021-podcast)
- We took a deep dive on some of the festival’s most thematically rich works. Each episode pairs an esteemed host with the works’ creators. John Safran meets Back to Back Theatre, opera singer and composer Deborah Cheetham AO speaks to journalist Daniel Browning, and the drummers of The Necks and Dirty Three discuss their bands’ origins. 

[__Festival Playlists__](https://open.spotify.com/user/xtftdfo9o882j4bl4ngkqmox4?si=26f016753e5c4c15)
- Our first music program spanned epic sets of improvisation, otherworldly R&B, bass-heavy club tracks. Check out some of those peaceful, passionate or political voices on one of our playlists.

[__Heavy Congress Playlist__](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/34h7iQlZHVtlzD1987FYsv?si=bdc56b90126d4e5d)
- What was to be our baptism of bass at Melbourne Town Hall is on pause—but that doesn’t mean you can’t dive into the decades of rich history that make up the world’s sound system cultures. After you're done listening, have a read about the project's crews, and where they're from, [here](/wormhole/getting-heavy).

[__RISING: Singles Club__](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2aVoj69YPihr4rZiXwAfU2?si=9c768a03b99a4d4c)
- Listen to our series of specially commissioned cover songs from the country’s best. Julia Jacklin and RVG cover Björk, Gregor and Sweet Whirl take on Creedence, and you can charge up to Amyl and The Sniffers belting redo of ‘Born To Be Alive’.

## Donate

While recent developments are devastating, we are buoyed by the sheer resilience of the staff and artists involved with RISING. Together they created something that spoke to Melbourne; something beautiful and beguiling; something extraordinary, for extraordinary times. We could not be prouder. If you can, please consider making a gift today to support RISING’s future. [Donate here](https://tickets.rising.melbourne/donate).


Take a moment to experience RISING at home, from guided audio tours to lantern installations and collaborative bottled cocktails.

RISING at Home

## *By This Lake* - Lucy Bleach 
*2021, frozen lucastrine, led strip lighting, harcourt granite, hydrophones, sound*

Over the festival period, large blocks of ice are incrementally ‘parked’ on the top floor of Golden Square Car Park. The ice blocks are composed of frozen layers of water, sourced from both the Melbourne water supply via the tap, and inland lakes in Victoria. Comprising varying degrees of translucency, mineral content and suspended sediment, as the layers melt, a mingling of lacustrine and civic water leaches over the carpark and out into the city.

Frozen into the ice blocks, hydrophones capture the slowly cracking ice. The live sound is amplified through speakers installed in a nearby stairwell, enabling the transitioning ice forms to be encountered through different senses, at different times and in different spaces.  

Embedded within each ice block, boulders of Harcourt granite lie latent in the frozen mass. Harcourt granite, recognised as valuable building material for the construction of colonial Melbourne, was quarried from Mount Alexander in the mid 1800’s, and features in many of Melbourne's civic buildings, including the original Stock Exchange and Parliament House. The boulders within the ice are the wastage from building blocks extracted from the quarry at this time, with many evidencing the chisel scars produced during the splitting process.

During the late Devonian period, a vast granite intrusion extended across Victoria and Tasmania (then a connected land mass), part of which resulted in the Harcourt granite batholith. The approximate time of the granite’s formation, 358,900 000 million years ago, has been translated as a sequence of slowly pulsing light wrapped around each frozen boulder, with the duration of each pulse reflecting the average length of a human breath. The light algorithm synthesises the time of the rock’s creation with the rhythm of human breathing, a kind of mingling of geologic and human vital registers.

*By This Lake* suggests implicit forces at play which are simultaneously still and mercurial, deep and diminishing. Inseparable and contradictory opposites. We are in the thrall of vanishing and enduring forms. 

*Acknowledgements*

In Dja Dja Wurrung language Mount Alexander is known as Lanjanuc, named by the Jaara people. The artist acknowledges and pays respect to the Jaara as the ancestral and enduring custodians of Country from which the boulders were extracted at the time of colonisation.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the generous support from the following people and organisations:

Rocks Plus for the loan of the granite boulders

Jon Smeathers for sound design

Jason James for lighting design

Steve Outram/Moonman construction

Stuart Houghton construction


## *OA_Initiation* - Reko Rennie
*2021, three-channel video with sound*

A 1971 Holden Monaro Coupe revs its engine, tires squeal and the smoke from burning rubber billows through Melbourne’s western suburbs. But the car’s decked out in hot metallic pink and there’s opera on the stereo. This is Initiation OA_RR, a new video work by celebrated visual artist Reko Rennie.

In this new RISING commission—the follow-up to his 2016 work *OA_RR*—Rennie cruises the working-class landscapes of his youth in Melbourne’s west. At an open tarmac, he puts the customised Monaro through a series of burnouts, referencing 'Westie’ drag-racing culture, First Peoples initiation practices in an urban context and the traditional sand engraving motifs of the Kamilaroi/Gamilaroi people.

*OA_Initiation* is accompanied by a newly commissioned operatic score from Yorta Yorta woman, composer and soprano, Deborah Cheetham AO.

> "The work is a road trip going back to the suburb of my birth and relates to my experiences growing up in the 1970s and 80s working class western suburbs of inner Melbourne. I was born in an urban environment where traditional notions of initiation, were experienced in a completely different way to my ancestral home of the Kamilaroi/Gamilaroi people of North Western NSW." — Reko Rennie


## Lu Yang - *Power of Will – Final Shooting*
*2016, fabric, LED light, inflatable mechanism*

Digital technology and science are completely shifting our ideas of self. 

Lu Yang’s installation *Power of Will—final shooting* is a physical to digital (and back again) manifestation of the artists’ head. 

Lu Yang’s ongoing practice of digital reconstruction reflects the myriad ways digital technology and science are shifting our ideas of self. 

Incorporating virtual reality, gaming subcultures, manga aesthetics and popular music, Lu Yang’s practice celebrates the digital realm and its potential for control over one’s identity, partially liberated from the rigid confines of nationality, gender, and sexuality.


## Agneiszka Polska - *The New Sun*
*2017, Animated with sound*

*The New Sun* incorporates a character of the Sun: a child-faced star with a beautiful voice. In its half-sung, poetic monologue, the Sun directs its lover, a human - and in an unsettling manner, presents a gloomy vision of a collapsing world.

The Sun’s dialogue is moody: shifting from elevated and emotionally charged confessions to the goofy stand-up comedy, ending up with an interpretation of “I got love”, a song from the 1970 musical Purlie. Whilst the film is dark, the song leaves a space for hope and marks the significance of words as tools of social responsibility.


## Monira Al Qadiri - *The End*
*2017, Polystyrene model, sound, levitation module*

The hamburger - the most powerful food object in the industrialized world, is displayed here as a levitating sculpture. 

In *The End* the hamburger embodies the image of an Ukiyo-e (a genre of traditional Japanese art, the name for which translates as “image of the floating world”). Alongside it, an excerpt from a book about the modernization of Kuwait in the 1960s is read as a sound piece. The 1960s represent the high summer of American cultural expansion, the allure of which seems to have faded to the point of alienness. 

*The End* highlights the precariousness of power, and its ability to fall from grace within seconds.

Commissioned by Gasworks (London) and the Sursock Museum (Beirut)


## Parallel Park - *MISSION SURGE*
*2021, durational performance*

*MISSION SURGE* is a durational performance work that consists of two performers navigating a 4-meter long, transparent, double sit-on-top kayak around the Golden Square. The aquatic vessel is propped up on wheels, propelling the two fish out of water forward, exaggerating the tension and endurance of what it takes to work in tandem. 

Affectionately nicknamed ‘the Divorce Boat’ the kayak functions as a symbol for collaboration, as it unveils the power dynamics between a working duo. In order to surge forward, the duo has to perform an equal effort of the same motions, surrendering individual ego to operate as one. 

While this work looks closely at the mechanics of collaboration, it also aims to ask questions about relationship cliché’s and how to navigate queerness within in the context of the arts. 


## Tabita Rezaire - *DEEP DOWN TIDAL*
*2017, video with sound on LED screen*

*DEEP DOWN TIDAL* delves into the political and technological impact of transoceanic communication networks.

From fibre optic cables to sunken cities, drowned bodies, histories of navigation and sacred signal transmissions - the sea is home to a complex web of communication streams. 

As modern information and communication technologies (ICT) become omnipresent in Western lifestyles (rebranded global to further implement Western domination) we urgently need to understand the cultural, political, and environmental forces that have shaped them. 

Submarine fibreoptic cables carrying our digital data run along colonial shipping routes. The bottom of the sea becomes the interface of painful yet celebrated advancements, masking the violent deeds of modernity. *DEEP DOWN TIDAL* navigates the ocean as a graveyard for Black knowledge and technologies. 

From Atlantis to the ‘Middle passage’, or refuges drowning in the Mediterranean, the ocean abyss carries pains, lost histories and memories - while simultaneously providing the global infrastructure for our current telecommunications. Could the violence of the Internet - inflicted upon Africa and more generally Black people lie in its physical architecture? 

Research suggests that water has the ability to memorize and copy information, disseminating it through its streams. What data is our world’s water holding? Beyond trauma, water holds a myriad of deep secrets; from its debated origin, its mysterious sea life of mermaids, water deities, and serpent gods, to the aquatic ape theory, and sacred water spirits celebrated in many cosmologies. 

*DEEP DOWN TIDAL* uses the complex cosmological, spiritual, political and technological entangled narratives of the ocean as an interface to understand the legacies of colonialism.


## Patty Chang - *Invocation for a Wandering Lake*
*Invocation for a Wandering Lake, 2016, two channel video work*

The title of Patty Chang’s work *Invocation for a Wandering Lake* is a reference to Swedish explorer Sven Hedin’s eponymous book published in 1938, in which Hedin documents his search for a mysteriously transient body of water. In 2009, Chang travelled to the northwest province of Xinjiang, China, to find the lake known as Lop Nur for herself. Fraught with logistical challenges as well as political tension, her trip to this remote setting and the footage she filmed became the source material for the work *Minor* (2010). For eight subsequent years, Chang continued to chase water as both a physical force and metaphorical inspiration. 

*Invocation for a Wandering Lak*e depicts Chang washing the carcass of a beached sperm whale in Newfoundland in the eastern most point of North America, and the hull of a rusty ship washed ashore. 

Acknowledgements -
The Wandering Lake project was realized with grants to the artist from Creative Capital, Guggenheim Foundation, Headlands Centre for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and New York Foundation for the Arts.

Patty Chang describes the work: 

> “Fogo Island is an old fishing island. Since the 1991 moratorium on cod, people do not fish for money there anymore.  The lack of industry has be recently replaced with an attempt to create a new economy in the form of an art residency and art tourism, with the idea that one can lead with the arts and economy will follow. 
> 
> The location is interesting to me because if you have read Cod a biography, you’ll know that the waters of Newfoundland is where the basque came to fish for cod in the 1400s.  It was their secret fishing grounds that they didn’t want to tell anyone about because they were afraid others follow. But the new world would not be a secret for long.  A few days before I arrived in Fogo, a dead sperm whale washed up to the shore.  Actually the head was lodged onto some rocks but its body flowed freely with the waves.  The weather was really bad for the entire first week I was there in the end of June.  Rain and wind every day. The first clear day that came, I decided to walk across the island, we lived in the middle of the island, and I decided to walk 11 miles to the other end. 
> 
> At the end of my walk I thought that I wanted to wash the dead whale.  It was about 30 feetlong, probably a young male.  Seeing it from the edge of the rocks and being in the water with it was a very different experience.  I had never been in the water with such a large dead being before.  I’d never seen anything so large and dead before.  The sense of humanity was overwhelming.  the sense of a sorrow or indescribable emptiness.  Washing the body of the deceased is practice as a form of purifying the body to prepare it for the next stage.  This ablution occurs in many religions, Judaism, Hinduism.  It is a form of care and connecting while at the same time a letting go. The daily ritual of cleaning allows for a mourning or honouring in our everyday life."


## Rox Lee

### *INSERTS* (1985) 
*8mm transfer courtesy Asian Film Archive, Singapore*

Archival imagery and everyday footage are collaged into this film to question outcomes of colonisation and the survival of culture.

This version of *INSERTS* has been altered from the original, with a number of scenes removed. 

### *Juan Gapang* (1987) 
*8mm transfer courtesy of  Asian Film Archive, Singapore*

A figure crawls on the street of Manila in a film made a year after the Edsa Revolution—the revolution that ended the 20-year presidency of Ferdinand Marcos.

This film is rumoured to have been the inspiration for the horror film *The Ring*. 

### *SPIT+OPTIK* (1988)
*16mm transfer courtesy Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin*

'The man with no brain went to the hill full of flying brains. He tried to catch one flying brain but he didn't catch any. 'Why can't I catch a brain?' 'What must I do?'

Cartoon drawings, magazine clippings and found images collide in this meditation on the human condition.


Golden Square Program 

When it was first staged in 2008, [*Food Court*](/festival-program/food-court)’s unflinching depiction of abuse—the kind so often inflicted on the vulnerable and marginalised—confronted and transfixed audiences. It’s now being restaged at RISING, as part of the festival’s retrospective of pioneering Geelong-based theatre company Back to Back Theatre, with a live score by [The Necks](/festival-program/the-necks). 

We spoke to Back to Back Theatre ensemble member Sarah Mainwaring, who as part of *Food Court*’s principle cast devised the show in 2008; and returns for its restaging. Mainwaring is a neurodiverse person, who channelled her life experiences into the creation of the work.

__RISING: What was the first idea that sparked the creation of *Food Court*?__

__Sarah Mainwaring:__ I had just joined the ensemble. Improvisations were part of the creative process and Rita Halabarec and Nicky Holland developed characters in the improvisation process that would bully the “new girl”.  This was not in real life, but in the rehearsal.

__RISING: *Food Court* debuted at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2008. Tell us about making the work and how it remains relevant.__

__SM:__ Back to Back Theatre had a successful show with [*small metal objects*](/festival-program/small-metal-objects). I knew of it but hadn’t seen it. I had a background in theatrical training, and this was good to fall back on and use in the rehearsal process. The rehearsal process was not pressured, and my skills were new to the company and brought something different. 

*Food Court* is still relevant as people still bully others even though society is more aware of it. The question remains—why, and what are the effects, and are we conscious of it.  Bullying has changed since then with cyber bullying.

__RISING: What were the key challenges the performers faced in sharing their experiences?__

__SM:__ With Sarah Goninon and Jess  joining the cast, they bring their own interpretation of the roles. The script remains strong and the show is evolving as we rehearse it. It is tricky to say what it might evolve into until we show it to an audience.

I remember feeling a weight being removed from me and a strength awakening.  Growing through the performance to being stronger at the end was enlivening.

__RISING: Tell us about working with The Necks. How did that collaboration unfold? How do their improvisations work with the performance?__

__SM:__ It was great to work with a band of wonderful musicians. The music can sometimes affect my performance, but they work hard through their improvisations to work with our performance.

__RISING: Can you tell us a memorable reaction to the show?__

__SM:__ It was wonderful to have my family there at the time and we didn’t talk about it all that much, but their being there was really important. I’m looking forward to having my family come and see *Food Court* again and finding out how they see it now.


Ahead of Back to Back Theatre’s RISING retrospective, we talk to Food Court’s principle cast member Sarah Mainwaring about devising the show.

Sarah Mainwaring

Q&A: Food Court

Debuting at RISING 2021 is [*RED*](/festival-program/red), Dancenorth Australia’s desperate ode to a fragile planet. The production’s slowly contracting stage is an allegory for decreasing bio-diversity and illuminates the universal challenge of our survival: sustaining diverse and resilient social and biological ecosystems. 

We sat down with the company’s creative leads on the work—Dancenorth Australia’s Artistic Director and Co-CEO Kyle Page, and its Associate Artistic Director Amber Haines—for a deep dive on the research and inspiration underpinning the urgent piece of dance.

__RISING: What was the first spark of an idea for *RED*?__

__Kyle Page:__ About two-and-a-half years ago, Amber and I were having a conversation about the loss of species diversity across the planet. We then had this moment of acknowledgement that humans are just one of almost nine million species existing on this giant rock floating through space.

We started considering our relationship with all of those other species, life forms and natural processes—bacteria and protozoa, fungi, plants and animals at all levels of the food chain—and acknowledged our role as a part of that living system. We were curious about the fact that humans so often see themselves as distinct or separate to nature.

__RISING: How have your personal lives sparked your interest in these ideas?__

__KP:__ Living in North Queensland, we are surrounded by an abundance of nature. We spend time out on the reef, where all of the research suggests there are huge numbers of declining populations; when we go snorkeling and diving, we witness first-hand the extent of coral bleaching. We have a number of friends and colleagues living and working up here as environmental scientists, and the stories that we’re being told, and the insights that are being shared, paint a pretty bleak picture. 

__RISING: *RED* takes the endangerment of the recessive gene for red hair as a base premise. Tell us about that.__

__KP:__ Well, it's very contentious. Red hair was created by a genetic mutation in northern Europe tens of thousands of years ago. When humans migrated out of Africa their skin lightened over time because they were exposed to less sun. The gene associated with red hair, (MC1R), had the beneficial effect of increasing the body’s ability to cope with sunlight, allowing redheads to efficiently generate vitamin D. 

In 2007 there was an article in National Geographic which suggested redheads may become extinct due to global intermingling and the effects of climate change. It suggested that if climate change was to continue as predicted there would be more sunny days, less cloudy overcast weather and less requirement for this recessive gene to emerge. We also discovered that in 2011 Cryos International Sperm Bank, the largest sperm bank in the world, began turning redheads away due to lack of demand. The redhead extinction theory has since been disputed but it did spark an interest re the risk of extinction for humans more broadly.  

More than ever Amber and I are viewing the human population as one entity, the global human population as one living being—that is the macro. Then there's the micro, that each single human body is an ecosystem, host to countless microorganisms, diverse communities with highly complex synergistic interactions within the body, microorganisms actually outnumber human cells by ten to one.

The fact is that human life on the planet, as one of the contributors to a global ecosystem, is indeed endangered and heavily affected by the shift in climate and rapid loss in biodiversity of which humans are, for the most part, the primary cause.

__RISING: How does catastrophic climate change relate to the world of dance?__

__Amber Haines:__ We have augmented our environment essentially to satisfy a culture of comfort and convenience. There's unprecedented sedentarism in the world, technology is increasingly geared at removing movement for comfort and simplicity. And if you speak of that in ecological terms, there are vast environmental implications – from outsourcing labour, depleting natural resources and demolishing ecosystems in order to facilitate, drive and feed this continuous culture of ours.

I guess as artists that work with the body, movement is intrinsically a part of our world. I am very interested in the idea that the less you move, the more someone else moves for you, and not necessarily for their well-being or the planet's wellbeing.

__RISING: That's a very interesting idea: the less you move, the more someone else moves for you. Can you tell us more about that?__

__AH:__ This amazing biomechanist Katy Bowman gives the simple analogy of a teabag. With a teabag, you've forfeited the movement of making a garden, planting the seed, growing the plants, harvesting the plants, processing the tea leaves, even fetching water to boil water, to even using a tea pot that you then have to wash. If you think of the labor and massive mono crop industrial agriculture base behind the making of that tea bag for your convenience, those sedentary concerns are also ecological ones. 

__RISING: So how did you translate these huge things and ideas into human movement, how does that choreography reflect those ideas?__

__AH:__ It starts with the two performers, James and Georgia, who are two of the most incredibly embodied humans I've ever known. They've devoted their entire lives to expanding their kinetic intelligence, as viscerally engaged and energetic performers. In a world increasingly dominated by the verbal intellectual it is increasingly rare to witness such refined and articulate bodies—movement and the physical aspects of our being are increasingly undervalued aspects of humanity.

*RED* is largely improvised within evolving structured parameters. Because they're navigating one another’s bodies and the shifting environment, it is a very live and dynamic system. It's incredibly hard, what they're pulling off, but it is really emulating a living organism that is responding to a multiplicity of information, forces and collaboration resulting in cellular development and evolution. This is happening live between them, that is the dance.

In the culture of dance, there are some very codified ways of moving and codified systems that, for me, emulate how Western culture looks at the world and looks at nature. It's all very segregated and refined and it needs to be quantifiable, repeatable, understandable; whereas this dance, the virtuosity really exists within the responsiveness of their bodies, the immediacy of their attention and presence with one another, Kyle and I are in awe of these two performers.

We're viewing aspects of nature through this sensorial intelligence and connection, these two embodied humans that are evolving together and problem-solving together until, literally, their environment interrupts the process.

__RISING: So in *RED*, you explore ideas of constructing worlds or situations to make us comfortable. The set includes a large physical structure. Can you tell us about that?__

__AH:__ It is an eight by four by three metre inflatable dome made with transparent PVC. The floor is an inflatable dropstitch material with a density structure knitted through it, so it's solid. For much of the performance the structure has air circulating to keep it inflated. I don’t want to give a lot away, but at a certain point, we turn that off.

Our research into constructed spaces led us to a condition called floppy fin syndrome that affects Ocas in captivity. Orcas in captivity only swim in circles, often in only one direction and aren’t exposed to the pressure of oceanic depths so the mechanical environment is drastically different from their wild habitat.

Floppy fin syndrome is essentially a flaccid dorsal fin that can’t stand upright—the tissues of the fin are similar to human tissue, it has no bony structure so therefore is reliant on swimming in long straight lines with oceanic pressure at depth to remain healthy and upright. It only occurs to animals in captivity.

Modern humans have augmented their environment so much that we could be classified as living in captivity. Because evolution is such a slow process on a cellular level we are the same as we were tens of thousands of years ago but due to our increasingly augmented environment and unprecedented sedentarism we are denied the mechanical forces that enabled our ancestors to thrive. One interpretation is that the set is a metaphor for the augmented environments in which we live our lives.

__RISING: Is there a hopeful outcome to the work?__

__KP:__ It's a really interesting thing for us to sit with this idea of hope. Hope and fear are both projections in opposing directions perhaps of the same continuum, but there's somewhere in the middle that clarity arises. 
I don't think anyone would deny the fact that the systems and ideas that have for a long time felt reliable, solid, are no longer working. We're curious whether they may need to dissolve in order to be re-imagined. Within that, people may find a sense of hope, but I guess we are more interested in providing a sense of clarity or reflection. 

Throughout the development, we were continually reminded that the preciousness of life resides in the unassailable interconnection between all living beings. Life is an ongoing process, and despite our repeated reductionistic attempts, it cannot be separated into constituent parts nor made sense of in isolation. Humans exist somewhere within this complex ever-changing web, not at its centre as we so often believe.


Dancenorth Australia’s Artistic Director and Co-CEO, and its Associate Artistic Director sit down to discuss the deep themes underpinning the company’s urgent new dance work *RED*.

AMBER HAINES AND KYLE PAGE

Q&A: Red

From Monday to Thursday on ABC Radio Melbourne’s Afternoons, host Jacinta Parsons speaks to the best and brightest from diverse fields including the arts, science and health. Afternoons is a show for an audience of curious minds, just like Parsons—so we asked her to apply that curiosity to our first festival program and share her top five festival picks.

“I don’t think I’ve been more excited about a festival for a long time. RISING is bold, innovative, and thoroughly exciting. Us Melburnians love a bit of culture and this festival challenges us to explore our city and its artists in a brand-new way—which makes picking a top five nearly impossible. But here goes.”

## Back to Back Theatre: Retrospective  

"Back to Back Theatre is one of the country’s most enduring and creative theatre companies—they’re also out of Geelong which makes them very cool.  They are delivering a retrospective of their work spanning 16 years—presenting three pieces that are not to be missed—[*small metal object*](/festival-program/small-metal-objects), [*Food Court*](/festival-program/food-court) and [*Ganesh Versus the Third Reich*](/festival-program/ganesh-versus-the-third-reich). Back to Back Theatre is theatre at its best."

## The Rivers Sing

"Our rivers will speak to us through one of our great treasures, Deborah Cheetham AO, in this new sonic artwork. It’s free and will get you out of bed early to hear it at 7.25AM and then as you’re wandering home, again at 5.15PM. The Deborah Cheetham, Byron J Scullin and Thomas Supple collaboration is one that I’m really looking forward to hearing."

### [Learn More](https://rising.melbourne/festival-program/the-rivers-sing)

## The Wilds

"You had me at ice skating, but in addition to ice skating under a giant moon is the enticement of what a transformation of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl into a wonderland of exploration will look like. Bamboo forest, tunnels that take us through mirrored fields and roaring fires—yes please."

### [Book Now](https://rising.melbourne/festival-program/the-wilds)

## Wurukur Djuanduk Balag—Ancestors Are Calling

"Dr Lou Bennett AM has composed a multi-language song-based work that asserts that objects stuck behind glass in museums are not static, but instead have a life, an energy and are calling for their families to take them back home. Bennett has provided a soundtrack for a generation with her work with the Black Arm Band and the music of Tiddas and will do so again with this collaboration with some of our great vocalists—Emma Donovan and Deline Briscoe to name just two."

### [Book Now](https://rising.melbourne/festival-program/wurukur-djuanduk-balag-ancestors-are-calling)

## PENDULUM

"Sneaking into the upper level of the NGV is where we go to experience the tolling of bells, human movement and an exciting creative collaboration by percussive artist Matthias Schack-Arnott and acclaimed Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin. Merging sound artists and choreographers is my idea of a fun night out!"

### [Book Now](https://rising.melbourne/festival-program/pendulum)

Ahead of our first festival, we asked ABC Radio Melbourne’s Afternoons host Jacinta Parsons to fill us in on the RISING events that have her excited and raring to go.

Jacinta Parsons 

Top Five

We all have our favourite spots in Chinatown, the ones we go back to for dim sum mornings, late-night feasts and the family's-in-town lunches. But Chinatown rewards getting lost and finding yourself again, face-first in a steaming bowl; or grasping for dishes off a spinning communal table. RISING is the time to try something new and pull up a chair at someone else's go-to.

Either side of their [*Parade for the Moon*](/festival-program/parade-for-the-moon) weaving its way through Chinatown and [*Golden Square*](/festival-program/golden-square), these are the spots where Jason Phu and his *Parade* collaborators Nabilah Nordin, James Nguyen and Veisinia Tonga will be eating—and think you should too.

### BLOSSOMING ROMANCE

Yamato Japanese Restaurant on Corrs Lane (not to be confused with the one on Exhibition St), is intimate and warm, the perfect spot to share sukiyaki as your knees bump together on the tatami mat. After you're done, Section 8 is right there. Go for a dance.

### GROUP BANQUET

Pacific BBQ Cafe is the sort of place where you'll want to try one of everything on the menu—so either bring plenty of friends or schedule in a return visit. Phu recommends—or really, insists—you get the roast duck, soya chicken and BBQ sweet pork. Do as you're told.

### ONE-ON-ONE CATCH-UP

Order a strong coffee and share something sweet at International Cakes, before paying a visit to the glorious Chinese Dragon at the Museum of Chinese Australian History. After wandering through the museum's exhibits, get lost in the aisles as you stock up on snacks at Great Asia Food Store. It's on the ground floor of Golden Square Car Park—how convenient.

### FROTH ON

Adding a beer onto any dinner of dumplings, Korean fried chicken or gyoza is always a good idea, but if you're only after the froth Phu has a hot tip: the Exford Hotel. Open late, with a bottle shop that has seen us through many last-minute Chinatown BYO runs, it's also the closest he's found to the kind of no-frills grungy pub he became accustomed to living in Sydney.

### LATE-NIGHT FEED 

When you're looking for a classic post-midnight feast, the only answer is Supper Inn. Tucked down at the tail of Celestial Avenue, it's got great food and a boisterous atmosphere. Perfect for when the show is over but the night isn't.


Take a trip through Chinatown's winding laneways to some of artist Jason Phu's favourite bars and restaurants.

An artist's guide to food and drink

Jason Phu's Chinatown

You’re not alone in being overwhelmed by our first festival program—it’s a whopper. Whether you’re a family looking for guidance on how to satisfy both young and old; need hot tips on where to party late; or want a beat-by-beat breakdown of how we’ll be spending our weekends; these quick itineraries are a good place to start.

## FAMILY

RISING’s first program isn’t just for adults. There are big ideas, accessible for all ages, embedded throughout the festival. Many of which are free, or cheap, to attend and have been designed to share First Peoples stories and experiences. 

Start your evening on the river at dusk by listening to the serene call of [*The Rivers Sing*](/festival-program/the-rivers-sing). Next, take a [lantern-making workshop](/festival-program/wandering-stars-lantern-making) and become part of our 500-metre-long lantern installation [*Wandering Stars*](/festival-program/wandering-stars)—for prime viewing, jump aboard a river cruise.

Refuel with a bite at our [Birrarung kitchens](/festival-program/eat-and-drink-at-birrarung) then head over to Hamer Hall and check out the giant eel spirit animating its surface, care of [*Ancestral Memory*](/festival-program/ancestral-memory). Finally, to finish your journey from ancient knowledge through to contemporary art, keep an eye out for a [*Melbourne Art Tram*](/festival-program/melbourne-art-trams) running along Swanston and Bourke Streets—for the firs time, each one has been designed by a First Peoples artist.

## UP LATE

Begin your night with a show at the [Comedy Theatre](/venues/comedy-theatre)—our gilded hall of music. Take in otherworldly R&B by [Connan Mockasin](/festival-program/connan-mockasin);  [The Necks](/festival-program/the-necks)’s improvised majesty; or full-band album launches by [Sweet Whirl and Gregor](/festival-program/gregor-and-sweet-whirl). 

Next, follow contributing artist [Jason Phu’s recommendations](/wormhole/jason-phus-chinatown) on where to eat in Chinatown, before checking out the district’s free art works: [*the hearts of the people are measured by the size of the land*](/festival-program/the-hearts-of-the-people); [*Banksia*](/festival-program/banksia) by Atong Atem; and Michael Candy's [*Persistence of Vision*](/festival-program/persistence-of-vision). Or dive into the boundary-pushing contemporary art and cocktails at [*Golden Square*](/festival-program/golden-square) before getting lost in the night’s real-life stories at [*The Nightline*](/festival-program/the-nightline).

## FRI 28 MAY

Start your night with a two-for-one hit of bold theatre and pioneering music at Back to Back Theatre’s [*Food Court*](/festival-program/food-court), scored live by The Necks. Then head over to our supernatural forest of ice, art, food and sound at [*The Wilds*](/festival-program/the-wilds). Head to the back of the Bowl and order a dish whipped-up in our [collaborative kitchens](/festival-program/eat-and-drink-at-the-wilds), run by Shannon Martinez and Australia’s best chefs. 

## Sat 29 May

Outside Melbourne Town Hall, start your night with a warming broth at [*Stock Exhange*](/festival-program/stock-exchange) for lunch or dinner; today’s menu is created by social enterprise Free to Feed. Then take a few steps over to Mission Control to grab some wild merch ([have a peak here](www.shop.rising.melbourne)), before making your way to the roof of [*Golden Square*](/festival-program/golden-square) for a cocktail by travelling bar crew Fancy Free. Then fire-up for party rap with a dose of unflinching commentary at [Barkaa](/festival-program/barkaa)’s [Max Watts](/venues/max-watts) show.

## Sun 30 May

It’s been a big weekend, so today’s about taking it easy and treating yourself. Head to the river and learn about the eel’s mysterious migration, and the First Peoples stories embedded in the night sky, at [*Wandering Stars*](/festival-program/wandering-stars). Then book a table at our luminous, glasshouse restaurant [*The Lighthouse*](/festival-program/the-lighthouse): where you’ll dine on an original three-course menu by David Moyle (Franklin, Longsong), with a wine list picked by Blackhearts & Sparrows Co-Founder Jess Ghaie. And to top it off, your booking at *The Lighthouse* includes a ticket to [*The Wilds*](/festival-program/the-wilds) too.

If you're feeling lost, don't fret. We've done the hard yards to chart your course across our festival's districts.

Curated itineraries, just for you

2021 FESTIVAL GUIDES

A season is as much about the lapse or passage of time as weather events, climatic variation and cycles of flowering and decay. However intense or frightening or beautiful, a season passes and recurs. There are no permanent states, just invariable change. In this sound work - which riffs on the Kulin seasonal calendar - the key artists evoke a different way of knowing their Country with its extraordinary range of physical features, biodiverse habitats, ecosystems and climates. It is a way of knowing - a knowledge system - informed by the Ancestors.

What is it to experience seasonal change not as a natural phenomenon but as a cultural one? The cycles of flowering and decay, the movement of native game and their life cycles told the Kulin clans how to live and how they could enact their lives as cultural beings. Calendar time as we now know it was immaterial. The Ancestors could recall the past and project into the future, but the time-space they inhabited most consciously was the present - this moment. 

As SEASONS Key Artist Isobel Morphy-Walsh (Nirim Baluk/Taun Wurrung) explains “the seasons, the landscape, and the Country teaches you how to be. And it teaches you how to live well, how to grow and nourish… What is happening in the landscape determines what it means to be well and to grow well and to nourish, and that's different everywhere you are.” 

The highly-nuanced Kulin seasons are identified with certain plants such as the Kangaroo Apple. The movement and habitual behaviour of animals was also instructive and there are seasons for the short-finned eel, the wombat and even the tadpole. Other signs could be read in the night sky.  The key to understanding and managing Country lay in this seasonal knowledge and the ability to “read” Country for these signs. As managers and caretakers of the driest inhabited continent on earth, the Ancestors possessed that key. 

This close observance of the natural world also incorporates traditional land management practices such as cultural burning and extreme weather events. The clans of the Kulin marked their calendar with a fire season every seven years and a flood season every 28 years – when cycles would be disrupted.  

Across Kulin territory and throughout this continent, plant and seasonal knowledge was the key to life. The ebbing and flowing of wild game, the running of fish and the life cycles of plants tell a story every bit as instructive as a book. 


Catalogue Text

Seasons in Blak Box

The sleepy coastal town of Dromana plays host to a challenging, celebratory and sex-positive night at the flicks, when Sandi Sissel,  Willoh  Weiland and James Brennan's *Deep Throat Drive-In* ([book your tickets here](/festival-program/deep-throat-drive-in)) beams out onto the screen at the local drive-in. But before you dim your lights and tune your dial, here's where to break up the drive to Dromana, and ideas for how to build a night at the movies into a weekend break by the beach.

### OFF THE FREEWAY 

Passing through Langwarrin on the Mornington Peninsula Freeway calls for a visit to McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery. The 16 hectares of bushland are home to over 100 sculptures and the Colin Munro- and Philip Sargeant-designed gallery. For $6 you can take your time exploring the grounds and gallery, where McLelland's 50th anniversary exhibition—featuring works from Patricia Piccinini, George Tjungarrayi, Lisa Waup, Sanné Mestrom, Ron Mueck and more—is on until 15 August. 

[mcclellandgallery.com](https://mcclellandgallery.com "McClelland Gallery website")

### DINNER IN TOWN 

Book a table ahead of time to spend an early dinner on the deck at Alatonero in McCrae. The flavours and feeling of Santorini are infused in every inch of the airy restaurant. The menu features smokey grilled meats, saganaki and seafood—and if you don't order the warm pita and dips to start, you've done it wrong. As a failsafe, go for the 'Greek feast' menu option to feed your carful of friends, then roll the 10 minutes up the road to the drive-in. 

[alatonero.com.au](https://alatonero.com.au "Restaurant website")

### BEFORE THE SHOW 

Not all drive-ins are created equal. Dromana 3 really makes your drive down to the Peninsula worth it, with a diner that's equal parts pit stop for snacks and attraction for movie fans. You can order from your phone to get food delivered to your car—but it's more fun to visit Shel's Diner in person. Make your way through the displays of memorabilia before you get to the heart of the retro diner. There are the famous burgers and hot dogs, as well as cinema classics like choc tops and popcorn. (You can even buy a blanket or mozzie repellant if you came unprepared for movie watching in the elements.)

[dromanadrivein.com.au](https://dromanadrivein.com.au "Droman Drive-In website")

### STAY THE NIGHT 

Don't hurry back too quickly. A few minutes up the road is a cheap and friendly spot to stay the night. The Bay Motel is run by local couple Josie and Frank and guests come away from a stay with plenty of love for the tidy rooms, whirlpool baths, suites for families (or friends who've just had their jaws pulled to the ground at the drive-in) and proximity to the beach. In the morning, order breakfast to your room or head up the road to Mt Martha to grab coffee and pastries from Via Batisti, Higher Ground or Milkbar & Co. Enjoy them at the beach—it's just across the road.
If you book a stay at The Bay Motel through their website and use the promo code RISING, you'll also receive champagne on arrival. 

[thebaymotel.com.au](https://thebaymotel.com.au "Bay Motel")

### ON THE WAY HOME 

Hop in the car for about 10 minutes, past Arthur and his Seat, and you'll arrive at Polperro Winery in Red Hill. For the past seven years, it's been pouring and pulling bottles from the cellar to complement a seasonal menu. Sip on some sustainably produced varietals over lunch, have a walk through the 25 acres of grapes, and pop some in the boot to take home—you'll be back within the hour.

[polperrowines.com.au](https://polperrowines.com.au "Polperro Wines website")

### Get Directions
[Link to the map](https://goo.gl/maps/e4rnk8nqgqYz5deb8 "Google Maps Itinerary")


Before you dim your beams and tune your dial, here's where to break up the drive to Dromana. 

Road Trip down to Dromana for Deep Throat Drive-In 

*The Dispute* brings us words spoken in a direct, unflinching way on the subject of divorce. In the play, acclaimed French theatre director Mohamed El Khatib invites children of parents who have split up to take to the stage and give their own points of view. In this conversation, the children point the microphone towards El Khatib and Jackson Castiglione, director of the performance in Melbourne.

See [*The Dispute*](/festival-program/the-dispute) at RISING from Thursday 27 May.

In discussing divorce, children ask why their voices aren’t heard

with Theatre directors Jackson Castiglione and Mohamed El Khatib

Podcast: The Dispute

Comedian John Safran is no stranger to religious controversy, yet, as he steers a conversation about a Hindu god’s attempt to reclaim the Swastika from the Third Reich, the controversial problem of identity politics takes centre stage. For context, Hindu academic Dr Vikrant Kishor intervenes. Under the spotlight, Back to Back theatre’s director Bruce Gladwin and performer Scott Price are interrogated.

[*Ganesh Versus the Third Reich*](/festival-program/ganesh-versus-the-third-reich) is part of RISING’s retrospective of Geelong’s pioneering Back to Back Theatre, along with [*Food Court*](/festival-program/food-court) and [*small metal objects*](/festival-program/small-metal-objects).

In a play led by neuro-diverse performers, a Hindu god reclaims the Swastika from the Third Reich. Whose story is it to tell?

Podcast: Back to Back Theatre with John Safran and Vikrant Kishore

In 1983, Sandi Sissel was behind the camera filming sex workers in a legal brothel in Nevada. Annie Sprinkle was at the frontier of America’s golden era of porn. Decades later, Sissel’s prolific career as a filmmaker and Sprinkle’s Ecosexual life as an activist intertwine in a conversation about sex work, the porn industry and female agency.

Sandi Sissel is the voice of Deep Throat for [*Deep Throat Drive-In*](/festival-program/deep-throat-drive-in) happening on Friday 4 and Saturday 5 June. Be schooled, scared and guided beyond the cinematic male gaze.

Female agency in the golden years of pornography

Podcast: Deep Throat Drive-In with Annie Sprinkle and Sandi Sissel

Acclaimed opera singer Deborah Cheetham AO imagines the bodies of water, the Birrarung and Maribyrnong, as she channels their significance in her song, remembrance and calling for The Rivers Sing. In a conversation with journalist Daniel Browning, we hear how the lapping water evokes the tides of a tragic history for First Nations people and ask who is really listening?

The voice of the rivers, the Birrarung and Maribyrnong, converge in colonial tragedy

Podcast: The Rivers Sing with Deborah Cheetham and Daniel Browning

Tony Buck earned his stripes as a jazz drummer in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music before forming cult improv band The Necks. Jim White earned his chops as a punk drummer in raucous Melbourne pubs throughout the early days of noise rock trio The Dirty Three. From opposite ends, their rhythms lay the foundation for the best instrumental bands in Australia. This is the story of how it all unfolded.  

As RISING’s band In Residency, The Necks perform across multiple venues and formats—their only shows in the world in over a year. As a unit, they send piano, drums, percussion and bass strings swirling around [the Comedy Theatre](/festival-program/the-necks). They provide an escalating, dramatic live score to Back to Back Theatre’s restaging of its seminal work [*Food Court*](/festival-program/food-court). And in solo performances, band members [Chris Abrahams](festival-program/chris-abrahams) and [Tony Buck](/festival-program/tony-buck) play the Melbourne Recital Centre.

How two drummers, from Australia's most iconic instrumental bands, found their rhythm

Tony Buck, Jim White and Woody McDonald

Podcast: The Necks and The Dirty Three

Over two months, RISING’s monumental new sonic artwork, *The Rivers Sing*, will wind its way along the Birrarung and Maribyrnong rivers. To commence its maiden voyage, *The Rivers Sing* will make its debut at the TarraWarra Biennial 2021: *Slow Moving Waters*, curated by Nina Miall.

This major new RISING commission comes from acclaimed Yorta Yorta/Yuin composer and soprano Deborah Cheetham AO, with artists Thomas Supple and Byron J. Scullin. Its layering of river sounds and the voices of singers from the Victorian music community unites the urban environment, Country and the people who call them home. 

The Rivers Sing is an evolving artwork, recomposed at several points on its journey to, and at, each sunrise and sunset during RISING. Experiencing it first at the TarraWarra Biennial 2021 will be a one-off opportunity. Positioned at seven sites throughout the grounds of the TarraWarra Museum of Art, specially designed, cutting-edge speakers will emanate the first iteration of the work before it continues to build, on its journey to RISING.

The TarraWarra Biennial 2021’s title, *Slow Moving Waters*, comes from the translation of the local Woiwurrung word ‘tarrawarra’, after which the museum, and its surrounding Yarra Valley area are named. For the museum’s 7th biennial, 25 artists from across the country have created new work exploring ideas of slowness, deceleration, drift and the elasticity of time.

*The Rivers Sing* begins its journey at sunset at the TarraWarra Museum of Art on March 27 and 28, for which the museum will extend its opening hours to 7pm. The TarraWarra Biennial 2021, *Slow Moving Waters*, runs from 27 March—11 July 2021.


“The Rivers Sing seeks to reframe our relationship with the two major rivers that pass through Melbourne … Deborah Cheetham is the source of inspiration. Beginning with her own connection to our waterways, combined with language and knowledge granted by Boonwurrung and Woiwurrung Elders, the work seeks to embody ideas found in the ongoing connection between water, Country and people.” 


Dates and tickets:  
27 & 28 March  
TarraWarra Museum of Art extended opening hours: 11AM to 7PM.  
*The Rivers Sing* is presented at sunset.  

Admission: $10 Adults; $8 Seniors; $5 Concession and Students; Museum Members and children under 12 free.

[Tickets will be on sale Monday 22 March 2021 at 9am](https://www.twma.com.au/exhibitions/tarrawarra-biennial-2021-slow-moving-waters/ "Tickets will be on sale Monday 22 March 2021 at 9am").  

Location:  
[TarraWarra Museum of Art](https://www.google.com/maps/place/TarraWarra+Museum+of+Art/@-37.6593999,145.4692055,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xf840c950a7be3c6?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj70vjxz6HvAhU-8HMBHeQpCykQ_BIwE3oECCMQBQ "TarraWarra Museum of Art ")  
313 Healesville-Yarra Glen Rd  
Healesville  
VIC 3777

The first outing of RISING’s large-scale, sonic celebration of the Birrarung and Maribyrnong rivers. Experience it first at TarraWarra Museum of Art.  

Opening at the TarraWarra Biennial 2021

The Rivers Sing 

Gregor and Sweet Whirl released two of 2020’s best albums — Destiny and How Much Works. 

Destiny’s full of left-field observations and intimate confessions from Gregor, one of Australia’s true pop eccentrics. Like a painter’s palette, its colours and moods bleed into one another, drawing you into its epic and engrossing psychedelic world. 

And on How Much Works Sweet Whirl’s Esther Edquist stakes her claim as one of the country’s best songwriters, using heartache as a tool to move forward, rather than dwelling in its pain. It’s full of vintage drum machines and waves of organ.

We think the two work so well together, that we asked them to team up for our new RISING: SINGLES CLUB release. They’ve come up with a downbeat cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain’. 

The pair’s take flips the Americana classic on its head with dusky synths; a deep, loping bassline; and sharp, synthesised hi-hats. Edquist’s spoken/sung call and response adds an element of danger, before the song opens up as the singers join for its melancholic chorus. Gregor and Sweet Whirl’s ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain’ takes you from the original track’s wide-open plains all the way into the twilight zone. You might even get to see them perform it live under a full moon, soon.

Gregor and Sweet Whirl, flagbearers of textured Melbourne pop, take a Creedence classic into the twilight zone.

RISING: Singles Club

 Gregor and Sweet Whirl

It’s tempting to look abroad on a journey of musical discovery. But come back here for a second.

As Melbourne’s major festival of the night, we’re giving you a snapshot of the city’s music as it stands right now. RISING’s music team has trawled the city’s crevices and unearthed a selection that speaks to the myriad talents bred in Melbourne’s nooks.

Hit play and you’ll lift the lid on the alternate-reality music box of Time For Dreams’ ‘A World of Your Own’; thrumming bass and keening organ from Sweet Whirl; and a cascading take on ‘70s soul from Karate Boogaloo and Danielle Ponder.

For now, everything your ears need is right here on home soil.

Discover Melbourne’s musical riches-of-the-moment with this genre-jumping set of tracks.

Playlist: A World of Your Own

At the start of 2021 we wanted to slow down for a minute, look up into the sky and take a big, deep breath of night air.

To soundtrack this moment of reset and contemplation, we commissioned the Kulin Nations-based singer Kee’ahn to deliver our next RISING: SINGLES CLUB release. She’s chosen an early deep cut from Moses Sumney, ‘Man on the Moon’, which the Californian singer originally recorded in his bedroom, straight to cassette tape, on an ‘80s 4-track recorder.

She says that Sumney was one of the first artists who inspired her as a teenager, when she first picked up a guitar. She remembers hearing him say he wanted to become a “one-man choir” — a goal she has since strived for in her own music.

For her take, Kee’ahn — a Kuku Yalanji, Jirrbal and Torres Strait Islander woman originally from Northern Queensland — has kept Sumney’s stripped-back approach but clarified it sonically. Her voice rings out rich and clear over delicately plucked steel guitar and swelling cello, while harmonising with her own multi-tracked vocals.

Fill your lungs and exhale. Kee’ahn’s got the purifying oxygen to keep your heart clear and free.

Take a deep exhale with Kulin Nations-based singer Kee’ahn’s spacious cover of the Moses Sumney deep cut ‘Man on the Moon’.

Kee’ahn

Making a festival takes a village, a constellation or a technicolour collision.

Next month, we’ll be making our first program announcement and before we do, we would like to take a moment to acknowledge some of the people and the place we call Naarm, Birrarangga or Melbourne.

We set out to make a festival that couldn’t come from any other city, anywhere in the world. In July 2019 we enlisted a group of brilliant minds, from both Australia and abroad, to help us determine what Melbourne’s major festival could be.

In our early town square meetings were a collection of artists, directors, musicians, dancers and journalists. From Australia there was Jeff Khan, Genevieve Lacey, Amrita Hepi and Daniel Browning; and reporting in from further afield were Stefan Schmidtke (Berlin), Michael Morris (London), Rachel Chanoff (New York), Claire Verlet (Paris) and Kristy Edmunds (Los Angeles).

Later on, we formed RISING’s curatorial team: Woody McDonald, Hayley Percy and Paul Gorrie on music; Grace Herbert in visual arts; Gus Carmichael taking care of food and wine; and Kimberley Moulton as Artistic Associate. It’s a broad and rowdy church.

A few things emerged immediately: Melbourne is more than an environment or a stage to present a series of events. Its character, and the stories it holds, are defined by the ancient and living culture of First Peoples and colonisation. It’s a city built on immigration with a contemporary culture of progressive thinking, knowledge, music, art, food and footy.

Collectively, we set out to make a program with teeth and heart — a collection of sublime, philosophical, intellectual, beautiful, painful, social, and just straight up fun experiences. It has been pulled together, picked apart, reassembled and refined so that it’s genuinely relevant to this place and this moment in time. And oh, what a time it is.

Right now, 946 individual artists are preparing; 27 brand new commissions are being made; thousands of trees are being grown; wine is fermenting; bands are writing and rehearsing; music is being composed and the RISING team is flat stick.

All will be revealed on 29 March, with our first major announcement coming on 26 February.

In the meantime, we’ll keep on with the sage advice of artist Jenny Holzer revolving in our heads: “To break boundaries, work hard, be generous, don't be a creep.”

Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek
RISING Co-Artistic Directors

## A Broad and Rowdy Church

### GENEVIEVE LACEY

Genevieve creates and performs sound-based works encompassing public art, dance, film, installation and digital works. She is artistic advisor to UKARIA Cultural Centre, was Adelaide Festival’s chamber music curator 2019 and Melbourne Recital Centre’s 2018 Artist in Residence. Her works have won ARIA, Helpmann and Green Room awards, Churchill, Freedman and Australia Council Fellowships, the Melbourne Prize for Music and the Sidney Myer Individual Performing Arts Award.

### AMRITA HEPI

Amrita, of Bundjulung / Ngapuhi territories, is an artist working with dance, choreography, video, performance, installation and objects. Her work considers the body’s relationship to personal histories and the archive. From 2019—2020 she was a RISING artistic advisor, is a Gertrude Contemporary artist in residence and is currently working with Kaldor Public Art  Projects/Serpentine UK as a participating do it artist. In 2018 she was named in Forbes Asia’s 30 under 30 list.

### JEFF KHAN

Jeff is a curator and writer working across performance, dance and the visual arts, with a particular interest in interdisciplinary projects and experimental practices. He is Artistic Director & CEO of Performance Space, Sydney.Previously Jeff was Artistic Director of Next Wave Festival. He has held roles and undertaken guest curatorships at Gertrude Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, John Curtin Gallery and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

### DANIEL BROWNING

Daniel is an Aboriginal journalist, radio broadcaster, sound artist and writer. He produces and presents the Indigenous art and culture program Awaye! on the ABC Radio National. Daniel is the Editor of Indigenous Radio at the ABC and supervises podcasts including Thin Black Line and the forthcoming music series Song With No Boss. He is the inaugural curator of Blak Box, an award-winning, architecturally-designed sound pavilion commissioned by Urban Theatre Projects. Daniel is a descendant of the Bundjalung and Kullilli peoples of far northern New South Wales and south-western Queensland.

### STEFAN SCHMIDTKE

Stefan is the Artistic Director for the Festival Theater der Welt 2020/2021 in Düsseldorf. He is the Artistic Director of forumfestwochen ff at Wiener Festwochen, where he is also the drama department Artistic Director and Chief Dramaturg. In 2007 and 2008 Stefan was director of Theaterformen (Hanover and Braunschweig) festival; and from 2011—2014 Chief Dramaturg at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. From 2016—2018, he built up the program and event department of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.

### CLAIRE VERLET

Claire is responsible for the dance programme at Theatre de la Ville, Paris.  She was artistic advisor at La Filature, Scène nationale — Mulhouse from 1995— 2000; and a consultant at Institut Français, which appointed her head of its dance section in 1999. In 2000 she joined the Centre national de la danse as Director of creation and programming until 2008. She has strong links with colleagues, institutions, artists and companies all over the world.

### RACHEL CHANOFF

Rachel has worked in performing arts and film for 35 years and is the founder and director of THE OFFICE performing arts + film, her New York City-based programming, consulting and production company. She is the Curator of Performing Arts and Film for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Rachel holds directing, programming, consulting and advisory positions at major festivals and organisations including the Sundance Institute. Through the Theatre Development Fund’s Open Doors program, she works to introduce underserved high school students to the theatre.  

### MICHAEL MORRIS

As Co-Director, along with James Lingwood, Michael has established Artangel as an international commissioning agency producing extraordinary art in unexpected places by Clio Barnard, Jeremy Deller, PJ Harvey, Roni Horn, Miranda July, Mike Kelley, Michael Landy, Steve McQueen, Rachel Whiteread and many others. Since 2007, Michael has been Artistic Advisor to the Manchester International Festival and served in similar advisory roles for 14-18 NOW, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center in Long Island, the Pina Bausch Foundation and as a Trustee of Longplayer.

### KRISTY EDMUNDS

Kristy is an artist, curator and  keynote speaker. She’s currently the Executive and Artistic Director of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance and a leading presenter of contemporary performance. In recognition of her contribution to the arts, Kristy was named a 2016 Chevalier (Knight) de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government and was the inaugural recipient of the Berresford Prize by United States Artists in 2018. Kristy has previously held positions at acclaimed institutions in Portland, Australia and New York.

Not long after RISING’s inception in July 2019, we brought together a group of fearless thinkers, to help us determine what Melbourne’s major festival could be. These are the minds, from Australia and abroad, that met at those first town hall meetings — A Broad and Rowdy Church.

A Broad and Rowdy Church

Australia’s colonial history is often written from a European perspective. Ever since the anchors of the first fleets dropped, and the sovereignty and land of the country’s First Peoples was stolen, migrant stories have been woven into Australia’s concept of itself as a nation.

In this film, you’ll see Melbourne-based visual artist Atong Atem create her ambitious new video work Banksia, which explores the lesser-known history of African settlers.

Banksia, commissioned as part of RISING’s A Call To Artists program, is based on Atem’s research into Australia’s first African migrants — a colonial history that started long before her own family arrived from South Sudan in 1997.

This is a first look at Atem’s vivid new turn to working with the moving image, before Banksia premieres in RISING’s 2021 program.

A first look at the Melbourne-based visual artist’s investigation into Australia’s first African settlers.

In the Making Atong Atem

Melbourne is a city built on the lands of the Kulin Nation peoples; Traditional Owners who continue to maintain deep connections to their country, kin and waterways that have existed for tens of thousands of years.

Along with Victorian Traditional Owners, the place now known as Melbourne is home to many First Peoples from across the country.

The city transforms every day, but beneath the concrete foundations ancient waterways continue to flow. The old gums, scarred with the lines of canoes, stand tall alongside towering skyscrapers, and fresh and salt water continue to meet in estuaries with the moon’s tidal pull.

While the city is changing, country and First Peoples culture is all around us. From the earth to the sky and the stories in the stars, to the built environment, tramways and laneways.

# NITTY GRITTY

We are inviting Victorian Traditional Owners and First Peoples artists to respond to Melbourne and the multiple layers of history, country, diverse community and connections across Victoria.

There will be six trams for the 2021 First Peoples Art Trams Project. The project aims that four trams will be allocated to artists who identify as Traditional Owners of Victoria and two trams to First Peoples who live in Victoria. We encourage artists from both the city and regional Victoria to apply.

Submissions should add positively to the public experience of commuting in Melbourne. Please note that the trams are not a flat canvas, so the initial creative concept should consider that trams are different shapes and sizes. It’s important you consider you design to all the types of tram classes—this will facilitate the tram allocation process.

Please read the Tram Design Considerations and FAQs below for more detailed information on this.

## WHO CAN APPLY?
To be selected as a 2021 Melbourne Art Trams artist:

- You must be a Victorian Traditional Owner 
OR
- First Peoples artist where Victoria is the primary location in which you live and work 
OR
- First Peoples artist whose practice or body of work over the last five years has primarily taken place in Victoria

Artists who submitted an Expression of Interest in previous years but were unsuccessful are encouraged to submit a new idea for 2021.

Artists must have the capacity in the first three weeks of February 2021 to provide final artwork for the project.

## HOW TO APPLY
There are two ways you can submit your artwork of the five (5) tram designs:

- Fill in the form below and upload your artwork and supporting material 
OR
- Email arttrams@rising.melbourne with your artwork as an attachment (please be mindful of file sizes and consider using a file-sharing link ensuring you include any passwords so we can access them). 

You’ll also need to include the following information about yourself:
- full name
- phone number
- language group
- your artwork file + file-sharing password
- an outline of your artwork idea (300 words)
- supporting material to illustrate your idea
- artist bio (300 words)
- website link

Submissions close 6PM, Monday 1 February 2021. 

If you have access requirements that will cause difficulty submitting online, and you need assistance submitting your idea, please call 03 9662 4242, Monday to Friday, between 9AM–5PM. We are only able to respond to accessibility enquiries at this number, for all other queries please askus@rising.melbourne. 

### TRAM DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
- Imagery should not be offensive to the general public

- Be aware that the artwork needs to be appropriate for display on a moving vehicle, most impressions of trams are 3—5 seconds

- Note that there are reflective yellow strips at the base of each door for accessibility

- Artwork graphics are not to be applied on shaded areas on the tram wrap grid, these areas are kept clear for safety. Sections of windows that are covered by the artwork will be printed on a semi-transparent material

- Perforated vinyl is used on windows, at night this becomes more transparent with the interior lights on

- During warm weather the windows will be open, shifting the wrapped element with it

- Artworks which are reflective, predominantly black or which resemble streetscapes would be a road hazard when applied to a tram and will not be able to be selected for safety reasons

- Tram ends should remain visible for safety reasons (avoiding black)

- Designs that include black and dark colours are possible, particularly when featuring high contrast

- Artwork can be different on each side of the tram

- No artwork will be placed on the front/back of the tram 

### DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS 
[Download](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CIU2_wsH4zaCSsQ0-9-LrPp-QHIMeYrd) and apply your designs to the tram templates. Please provide your artwork and supporting material as either .JPG, .PNG, .TIFF, .GIF, or .PDF files and include your name in the file name. Eg. SURNAME_FIRSTNAME_1.jpeg

__No          Class__

Tram 1      A
Tram 2      B
Tram 3      B
Tram 4      C1
Tram 5      D1
Tram 6      D2

Download these [tram templates](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CIU2_wsH4zaCSsQ0-9-LrPp-QHIMeYrd) and place your artwork onto the line drawings of each tram type presented on page two. These Illustrator templates are for the purpose of the EOI application only. A graphic designer will work with you to translate your design into final artwork for the trams.  

If you’re not familiar with using Adobe Illustrator, please provide detailed artwork imagery with indicative examples of what your work would look like on the tram – think colour palette, design and layout. You definitely don’t need to be a graphic design whiz to apply.

## WHO DECIDES?   
Submissions will be assessed by curator and RISING Artistic Associate Kimberley Moulton (Yorta Yorta) and the Melbourne Art Tram Partnership Group comprising representatives of Creative Victoria, Department of Transport, Yarra Trams and RISING. This group will be made up of a majority of First Peoples with additional members to support technical and marketing requirements.

The following criteria applies:

- Strength of the creative vision
- Originality of response to the creative brief
- Technical feasibility
- How the artwork responds to its context (ie. riding the tramlines each day)

## WHAT YOU WILL GET 
Six (6) successful artists will each receive a commission of $10,000AUD for their artwork.

## WHAT HAPPENS   
Successful artists will be notified in early February 2021 and publicly announced soon after.

Selected artists will be allocated a tram type in order to finalise their artwork before it is transferred to the vinyl wrap. The curator and graphic designer will be available to assist artists with this and in digitising work where needed. Artists must be available during this period – first two weeks of February – to complete the project.

Selected artists will then review the digital proofs to ensure that the final product is an accurate and an acceptable rendering of their artwork with the physical vinyl samples reviewed by Yarra Trams and the Melbourne Art Trams curator.

Yarra Trams and the Melbourne Art Trams curator have final decision on tram selection for the selected artists for health and safety and design purposes.

Artwork will then be printed and applied to the trams, culminating in the launch of one of the Melbourne Art Trams to mark the opening of RISING 2021, which artists will be required to attend. Other Art Trams will be released over the following weeks. Trams will be run on the network for 12 months (unless impacted operationally).

RISING, Public Transport Victoria and Creative Victoria invite First Peoples artists to submit artwork ideas for the 2021 Melbourne Art Trams.

FIRST PEOPLES CALL OUT

2021 Melbourne Art Trams

We needed an anthem at the end of 2020 — what was by all accounts a godawful year — something to help us stage dive with full hearts and flailing limbs into 2021. So we asked beloved Melbourne punk rockers Amyl and the Sniffers to join us in raising a middle finger to 2020, as part of our commissioned track series RISING: SINGLES CLUB. Their contribution is one for the ages — a cover of Patrick Hernandez’s disco belter, ‘Born to Be Alive’.

Hernandez’s track went all the way to #1 on the Australian charts in ’79. Allegedly it started out as a hard rock shredder, before morphing into a disco banger, which means Amyl and the Sniffers’ take has come full circle. Kind of like those full moons we’ve been harping on about. This new version’s got lead singer Amy Taylor’s joyous and irrepressible cheek, thundering drums and heavy riffs. It’s a brick through 2020’s window.    

We’re born to be alive. Make it count.  

‘Born to be Alive’ by Amyl and the Sniffers is a RISING: SINGLES CLUB commission. For more full moon tunes subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on Spotify.

Amyl and the Sniffers flip the bird to 2020 with their riotous cover of a 1978 disco belter.

RISING: SINGLES CLUB

Amyl and the Sniffers

There’s no need to harp on about 2020 — we all know it was rough. That’s why we thought it was essential to have a high bpm, high catharsis mix to carry us through to the new year.

To keep the night kicking past 4AM, we asked Naarm-based DJ C.Frim to deliver a mix of sub-bass frequencies, electro, rave and percussion-heavy techno. This one’s for the dedicated party people, who squeeze every current of energy from the night, and run the dancefloor till the wee hours.

Turn it up loud.

A high bpm mix from Naarm-based DJ, C.FRIM. One to shake the shadows and carry you through the night.

IT'S OVAH MIX

C.FRIM

Calling 2020 a rollercoaster would be an understatement. So to match the year’s twists, turns, peaks and troughs, we’ve got this freewheeling mix from Milo Eastwood, host of PBS FM’s The Breakfast Spread.

There’s ‘90s hip-house, vocoder boogie, Latin funk, big-hearted disco and even a kookaburra. These two hours of unbridled musical optimism will reinflate your inner balloon animal and kickstart the new year with a double-shot, positivity cappuccino.

Head out on a genre-jumping audio journey with this mix from PBS FM host Milo Eastwood

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES MIX

Milo Eastwood

On November 30, 2020, Melbourne’s skies were blessed with a second full moon in a month. In the spirit of rare, celestial, occurrences we decided to give away a super limited run of 100, specially commissioned, artist-designed t-shirts.
During a time in which international travel is limited, we wanted to share our double-moon auspices with our creative friends. So we enlisted local designer — and HTRK band member — Jonnine Standish and Massachusetts-based artist Emma Kohlmann to collaborate on a transcontinental, cotton curiosity, to slip over your torso when the wind is warm and the moon glowing bright.
The design is printed on high-grade, organic cotton, AS Colour t-shirt and to nab one of our blue moon babies, entrants had to finish the following sentence in 25 words or less:
“Once in a blue moon, I…

To celebrate November 2020’s rare, double full moon, we asked artists Jonnine Standish and Emma Kohlmann to collaborate on a special t-shirt as a free gift for you.

GIVEAWAY

Blue Moon T-Shirt

Here’s round two in our series of specially commissioned night-time mood music, RISING: SINGLES CLUB.

This time we’ve enlisted Melbourne dream folk duo Luluc for a release timed with the rare cosmic occurrence of November’s double full moon – and yes, you guessed it, they’re taking on the storied 1934 song ‘Blue Moon’.

Made of band members Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett, Luluc have accumulated some famous fans with their three critically acclaimed albums, including Aaron Dessner of the National, Lucinda Williams and Dinosaur Jnr’s J Mascis. Iconic Seattle label Sub Pop allegedly signed the band 48 hours after hearing the master tapes of their second album Passerby. High praise.

Many icons have tackled the track including Billie Holiday, Dean Martin, Sam Cooke, Cyndi Lauper and even ol’ “Blue Eyes” himself, Frank Sinatra. Luluc have reimagined it as a sonorous soundtrack for a warm summer night. There’s a moseying bassline, Hassett’s gently plucked strings and Randell’s resonant voice rising above the heat of the day.

You know when the clouds part on a warm summer night, letting the moonlight sparkle in your lover’s eyes? It’s just like that, we promise.

Follow RISING on Spotify or subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to hear our next full moon release.

Let the Melbourne dream folk duo, Luluc, serenade you with their sonorous, stripped back cover of ‘Blue Moon’


Luluc

Our program’s still under wraps, but during November's knife-edge, global political moment, we hosted a very special guest: the anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, pro-community, artist, activist and Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova.

For this live-streamed event, Tolokonnikova was joined by First Nations artist, choreographer and RISING curatorial consultant Amrita Hepi to discuss empowering art and political expression. 

Read the [transcript](https://exhibitionist-rising.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/Wormhole+images/rising-live-conversation-nadya-tolokonnikova-transcript.pdf) of the conversation. Nadya Tolokonnikova in conversation with Amrita Hepi took place on Monday 16 November, 5PM ADST. 

## NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA

As a member of provocative street art group Voina and the punk-rock feminist performance artists Pussy Riot, Tolokonnikova has been an unwavering challenge to oppressive conservatism, first in her home country Russia and now the world.

Her art and activism saw her imprisoned by the Russian state at the notorious IK-14 penal colony, where Tolokonnikova was forced to long, gruelling days sewing police uniforms, subjected to violence and where she undertook hunger strikes to protest the treatment of herself and her fellow inmates.

Tolokonnikova has now taken her activism global. She has written protest songs in support of the Black Lives Matter movement; and written music and toured with the musical production Riot Days, based on a book of the same name by fellow Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina. In 2018, she released the book Read Riot: A Pussy Riot Guide to Activism, based on Pussy Riot's prison experience and Nadya's advice to fellow activists on how to make effective protest actions. She has also founded an independent Russian news service, MediaZona, and an NGO focused on prison reform and protecting prisoner rights, Zona Prava. Her ongoing work encourages societal change through the sharing of personal narratives, collective protest and community building.

“I believe that only if we unite to protect our interests will we have a chance to win. Because the people with who we are fighting with, people who express racism, violence, are promoting global inequality – those systems are building global alliances all the time” — Nadya Tolokonnikova, Fact Mag 2020 

## AMRITA HEPI

Amrita Hepi is an award-winning First Nations choreographer and dancer from Bundjulung (Aus) and Ngāpuhi (NZ) territories. As well as a RISING curatorial consultant, she is part of the festival’s A Call to Artists program supporting bold new commissions as a panellist.

Hepi ‘s choreographic practices combine dance and movement with visual art, language and participatory research. Although her work can take many forms — from film to performance, sculpture and text, lecture to installation — it always begins with the body as a point of archive, memory, dance and resistance.

The iconic punk activist will join First Nations choreographer and artist Amrita Hepi, for a major livestream event brought to you by RISING.


Live Conversation: Punk Prayers with Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova

One of the most extraordinary flowering curiosities, the RISING music team, lives here, in the lush rainforests of Victoria. Their playlists only flower once a month, on the full moon…

Pull up some grass, crack a tin and tune in.

A flirtatious, frightening and fertile mix for spring, by RISING’s pop pollinators. The bees are buzzing, and you will too.

PLAYLIST: BACK TO THE WOMB

__"Globalization and conceptions of a new world order represent different sorts of challenges for Indigenous peoples. While being on the margins of the world has had dire consequences, being incorporated within the world’s marketplace has different implications and in turn requires the mounting of new forms of resistance.__

Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples 

“Essential” is a defining word of 2020. Since COVID-19 hit Australia earlier this year we’ve been asked to assess what’s essential for our survival; what’s an essential reason to leave home; what’s the essential infrastructure for safe commuting and social interactions. We’ve also been asked to permit essential testing of our bodies and allow essential development of regional landscapes and our Ancient ecologies. For many, this last point, means a non-essential destruction of Country and disrespect of First Peoples.

As we come to understand and control COVID-19, at least in Australia, we continue to battle the enduring disease of racism in society. A pill of denial has been swallowed by powerful factions across the world who, in a collapsing world, refuse to quell the rise of white supremacy and disastrous climate change. People of Colour and First Nations peoples are feeling the full force of this toxic fire fuelled by greed, power and narcissistic charlatans masquerading as leaders.

In our new world we’ve had to consider what’s needed to survive and what must change. Art in diverse forms has saved us this year. Author Benjamin Law summed it up well: “In our most dire hours, art keeps us sane, lights the dark and ensures we stay human”.

It’s through art that we can communicate and explore which actions are vital for the continuation of humanity–actions that go beyond how many toilet rolls we need. I would argue that First Peoples artists, and other communities that have historically been on the margins from the “white centre”, have always made art about what is essential.

In Australia this lineage stretches from the very first Ancestor artists who painted and engraved designs of Country, seasons and kin connections on cultural objects and rock sites, to movements of painting and new media in the regions and the city.

First Peoples art has always been about continuance, resistance, survival and celebrating all that is strong in our cultures, particularly given that this is not our first pandemic. In 2011 the prolific Australian artist and Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang man Richard Bell said: “I’m an activist masquerading as an artist”1. The political entwined in art and identity is a common thread across First Peoples’ artistic practice.

This is largely because in a world where we continue to have to fight for representation, for sacred sites on Country, and for identity, our existence is inherently political. It is not to say that all First Peoples in the arts should, or do, make political work, but for many decades, art has been the vessel for essential action and awareness, and it will continue to be.

Two years ago, The New York Times ran the article ‘What Do We Mean When We Call Art Necessary’ that critically looked at the ideology of “necessary art” being widely used by critics, and suggested that descriptor “constrains more than it celebrates” particularly when it comes to marginalised peoples. The author argued that: “What has become truly necessary is stating the obvious: No work of art, no matter how incisive, beautiful, uncomfortable or representative, needs to exist”.  This statement does not consider Indigenous experiences of art making and the multiple layers of politics, self-determination and representation of culture that are, in fact, absolutely necessary.

Now more than ever, it is time to consider how art is crucial to all of us for our health and the empowerment of marginalised peoples. It is also important to reflect on what defines essential art. I have until recently considered it a privilege to be completely neutral in contemporary art making. However, in the “new world order” (that Linda Tuhiwai Smith speaks of, not the conspiracy theory), if you have a platform, to abscond from addressing the world’s diverse realities and intersecting issues is to perpetuate major inequities. Neutrality is a myth and First Peoples do not have the luxury of tapping out of reality in our art making.​

In her essay for the 2018 exhibition Sovereignty at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Wemba Wemba and Gunditjmara artist and academic Paola Balla said: “First Nations artists awaken a sense of responsibility rarely seen in settler art or curatorial work. There is a collective consciousness and obligation, to make work that is, as Toni Morrison wrote ‘at its thrust, yes political but also irrevocably beautiful’”.2

Our voice and our art, in all of their beauty and politics, are essential — now.

RISING’s artistic associate Kimberley Moulton reflects on essential First Peoples art.


Essential Art and the New World Order

Destiny Deacon is one of Australia’s boldest and most acclaimed contemporary artists. This November, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is holding the largest retrospective of her work to date, DESTINY, featuring more than 100 multi-disciplinary works made over a 30-year period. Before the exhibition opens, NGV and RISING are giving viewers a preview online of one of her seminal works, Home Video.

A descendant of the Kuku and Erub/Mer people from Far North Queensland and Torres Strait, Deacon is internationally known for a body of work depicting her darkly comic, idiosyncratic worldview.

Below you’ll find an excerpt from the book DESTINY: The Art of Destiny Deacon by the National Gallery of Victoria’s Curator of Indigenous Art, Myles Russell-Cook.

*“The character of Delores repeats in a number of Destiny Deacon’s video works, including in her 1987 video collaboration with Lisa Bellear and Tommy Peterson, Home video. As always, Deacon’s performance is manic, intensely funny, and frankly nothing short of comic genius. Delores lacks empathy, and will do anything to avoid making life easier for her co-stars. She uses acerbic, high-energy dialogue to take the piss out of the negative stereotypes that persist about Aboriginal people. How? By becoming the most extreme version of one. In the same way Deacon uses dollies and photographs to reflect and parody the world around her, Delores (the character) exposes uncomfortable stereotypes about Aboriginal people, by presenting an extreme, narcissistic, outrageous and shameful version of herself. 

*In Home Video we see Delores with her son, played by twelve year old Tommy Peterson. The sketch starts with Tommy coming home from school hungry. Eventually Delores smacks Tommy for smoking, and Tommy is taken away and put in a hostel. Delores explains to her friend (played by Lisa Bellear), while down the pub: that “the Government took him away and put him in a hostel full of Abos, [what for?], cos they reckon I am not a good mother and that. They said I’m always in the pub and I’m not looking after him. But he loves the pub”. Eventually the story takes a somewhat Shakespearean turn, and Delores stabs her friend to death with a knife. Now on the run, she breaks into the hostel, reunites with Tommy, and together mother and son raid the safe and escape the city with plans to change their names and move to either Alice Springs or the Murray River.”***

DESTINY opens to the public Tue 23 November at NGV Australia and runs until Mon 14 February, 2021. Entry is free, but registration is required for timed entry. Bookings open Mon 16 November

RISING and NGV co-present a preview of Destiny Deacon’s 1987 work 'Home Video' ahead of her 30-year retrospective exhibition at NGV Australia.

DESTINY DEACON’S 'HOME VIDEO'

Being a voice for change isn’t always a choice. For many people, the personal is political; and communicating that experience is the only way to come up for air.

This mix from RISING music producers Hayley Percy and Paul Gorrie finds empowerment in celebration. There are important messages behind the music for sure, but it’s also just a bass-heavy mix stacked with bangers, that reinforces the party as its own site of protest.

There’s Malyangapa, Barkindji rapper Barkaa’s hilariously brutal takedown of white privilege; Mo’Ju’s monolithic, righteous, ‘Native Tongue’; downbeat meditations from new-era Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rappers Water Streets; skittering jazz-hop from Noname; and Afro-funk, from the inimitable Fela Kuti and Roy Ayres.

Turn it up.

An hour of empowering bangers from hip-hop to Afro-funk, that reinforces the party as its own form of protest.

PLAYLIST: LAND BACK

With one of the most polarising US elections ever to take place happening this month, not to mention local and state elections happening across Australia, we decided to take a look at how the personal and political are intersecting in 2020.

This insightful piece from The Guardian discusses the work In Plain Sight, in which 80 artists and activists used skywriting planes to spread messages protesting mass incarceration above detention centres, prisons, immigration courts and historically significant sites across the USA on the fourth of July — otherwise known as Independence Day.

In Plain Sight was founded by the Canadian artist Cassils, and the American artist rafa esparza. Both artists have used their own bodies’ politics in their work. Esparza’s recent work bust: indestructible columns Act II, 2019, involved the self-identifying brown and queer artist chiselling himself out of a concrete column in front of the White House. And Cassils, a transgender person, uses their own body as a sculptural material by employing performance and bodybuilding to challenge visual gender stereotypes.

But with In Plain Sight Cassils and esparza draw attention to the bodies of the incarcerated and detained — people whose bodies are restricted, chained and profited from — to question the meaning of liberty and independence, while working to immigrant detention and the culture of incarceration.

[READ NOW](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jul/07/in-plain-sight-skywriting-project-targets-us-culture-of-incarceration-we-have-a-brief-moment-of-clarity)

A deep dive from The Guardian on 'In Plain Sight' — an artwork that saw anti-mass incarceration messages flown over dozens of US cities, courts and detention centres.

In Plain Sight, Cassils and rafa esparza

Art and artists are in a precarious place. But with help they have the power to regenerate, mutate and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

In this submission for RISING’s A Call To Artists (ACTA) program, theatre-maker David Woods imagines work on a gigantic, mud-drenched scale. It’s Heironymus Bosch meets infected cruise ships, for a 9-hour performance reclaiming culture, justice and democracy.

RISING launched its ACTA program as a response to the pandemic. We asked for bold ideas that can begin work now. From more 1100 applications we have seed-funded 101 concepts and 22 creative developments.

In his A Call To Artists submission video, David Woods imagines mud-drenched chaos on a massive scale.

DAVID WOODS ANSWERS THE CALL

Want to be a part of the making of a new tradition for Melbourne? What a coincidence, that’s what we’re doing – and we need your help. Complete this 5-min survey and we’ll be in touch.

For a more accessible, cream version of the survey, [head here](https://risingmelbourne.typeform.com/to/IFndXvWs).

### [Volunteer](https://form.typeform.com/to/bWFTcBIu?typeform-embed=embed-widget&typeform-source=rising.melbourne&typeform-medium=embed-sdk&typeform-embed-id=49432)

If you're a maker of things or even just enthusiastic, we want to hear from you.

CALLING ALL SPACE CADETS

__Who are you and what do you do?__

I am a curator writer and proud Yorta Yorta woman, originally from Shepparton in country Victoria. I come from a family of creatives, educators, and political activists. 

Recently I joined RISING as Artistic Associate, along with continuing my role as Senior Curator South Eastern Aboriginal Collections at Museums Victoria. 

__How did you get into this art business?__

I write a lot. My cousin, Uncle Wayne, taught me to use "the spear of the pen", to use our voice to create change, inspire and remember. My Dad taught me the importance of healing and cultural strength through art, so it's very much a part of who I am.

I think that's where I developed a sensibility around curating, as it's really storytelling; interpreting histories and seeing the potential in what the artist or object can express and creating an experience around that.

I am passionate about supporting First Peoples cultures from Australia and the world and interested in anti-colonial curatorial methodology and First Nations representation in spaces like museums and galleries and platforms like festivals.

__What has been your career journey as a curator?__

In my practice I work with knowledges, histories, and futures at the intersection of historical collections and contemporary art and making.

I have worked in curatorial roles at Melbourne Museum for over ten years working with the Victorian Aboriginal community and the collections. In 2018, I was the museums lead curator for [Mandela: My Life](https://museumsvictoria.com.au/media-releases/mandela-my-life-the-official-exhibition-opens-at-melbourne-museum/), an exhibition on Nelson Mandela at Melbourne Museum in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and IEC exhibitions.

Over the last ten years I have critically engaged through fellowships and curatorial projects with collections, archives and contemporary art discourse across Australia, Europe, United Kingdom and North America and have independently curated shows in various art museums across Australia and the USA.

__What interests you about RISING?__

The potential of the multiple layers of story, theme and connection to place is what excited me when I first began discussing RISING with co-artistic directors, Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek, and their team.

The artistic vision they shared inspired me and having been a part of the A Call To Artists (ACTA) process, I got a sense of the rigour in their work and refreshing creative projects that will provide Melbourne and local artists meaningful experiences.

The artists that came through the ACTA process are seriously amazing. It's a privilege to be able to sit and read through applications and talk with creatives at the seed planting stage of ideas.

__What drew you to joining the RISING team?__

What drew me to work with RISING was the commitment to challenging the status quo of curatorial models and power dynamics.

It's a curatorium of brilliant minds working to properly embed First Peoples creatives into the festival. There is respect for the knowledge and Sovereignty of the lands they work on, and the community they work with, across the team, which is really encouraging.

I was also really drawn to the thematic approach and its links to our cosmologies, the lunar motions of cycles, and regenerative experiences that have an incredible sense of togetherness.

Right now, art like this is so important. It nourishes us; it takes care of us and calls to account the rubbish behaviour in society. We need all of that more than ever.

An introduction to RISING'S new artistic associate, Kimberley Moulton.

RISING: PEOPLE KIMBERLEY MOULTON Q&A

October’s full moon marks the beginning of the Mid-Autumn Festival – well, spring for us Downunder – a special time for family gathering, thanksgiving, prayer and moon worship.

Mooncakes represent the moon and are the signature dish of the festival, symbolising harmony and longevity. RISING invited Kay-Lene Tan, Coda and Tonka’s Executive Pastry Chef, and visual artist Jason Phu (part of RISING’s Call to Artists) to reinterpret the mooncake of their childhood.

Jason and Kay-Lene came up with a modern take on a mooncake designed as a lotus flower, a symbol of hope for the times we find ourselves in.

The mooncake’s flavours are a mixture of Jason and Kay-Lene’s childhood memories, smoked and salted egg yolk, matcha and red bean mousses and some creative license.

Mooncakes are everywhere right now. But not like this.
Kay-Lene Tan, executive pastry chef at Tonka and Coda, and visual artist Jason Phu collaborated on an update on the signature dish.

RISING: COOKED MOONCAKE MEMORIES

RISING: SINGLES CLUB is our monthly full moon release of lunar-themed tunes. A series of specially commissioned, celestial space jams, from some of our favourite musicians.

SINGLES CLUB kicks off with retro-futuristic psych-pop duo The Green Child and their majestic cover of Canned Heat’s Poor Moon.

Conceived and created during Victoria’s infamous lockdowns, the cover was recorded by Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Total Control and Raven Mahon of Grass Widow, in their beachy basement studio in the seaside town of Rye. It’s the duo’s first release since 2018.

Originally released by Liberty Records in 1969, ‘Poor Moon’ made an appearance on Canned Heat’s Hallelujah record as a bonus track. Young and Mahon’s take is a synth-pop sojourn to a dreamy, dark future.

With the music industry currently at a standstill, SINGLES CLUB is one way we're supporting artists – alongside the commission, artists will also retain 100% of the music rights. 

Follow RISING on Spotify or subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to hear our next full moon release.

The Green Child’s Mikey Young and Raven Mahon, wrangle cosmic spring grooves for their cover of Canned Heat’s ‘Poor Moon’.

RISING: SINGLES CLUB THE GREEN CHILD

The jasmine’s blooming right now. Grab a big bunch and rub it all over yourself. Stuff it inside your face mask and let its perfume overwhelm you. Rub it on your neck and other places, so that its delicate pink petals get stuck in your pubic hair. It’s a natural aphrodisiac that stuff. Its smell is winter saying goodbye, to be replaced by pungent, sticky new life.

As Melbourne’s newest cultural propagator, we’re flying through flirty October air, experimenting with intoxicating fertility, mating rituals, blossoming art and regenerative lunar cycles. We’re pollinating the plot in preparation for our inaugural festival in May 2021.

Art and nature swell with new life, sights, smells, tastes and textures. When spring springs, erogenous zones get their first kiss of fresh air in months, and it’s even warm enough to let your skin taste the moonlight. Vibrations start humming through bodies—like the tiny male peacock spiders who’re currently performing elaborate, spring courtship dances in this time of peak-horniness.

One particularly rare peacock spider named after the stars, maratus constellatus, is found among the vast orange rocks of Kalbarri, Western Australia. Its mesmerising arse is covered in iridescent purple, indigo and yellow scales—which it likely uses to attract a mate—and bears a striking resemblance to Vincent Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night. The unlucky-in-love artist considered the painting a failure, which is sad really, because had he the confidence of maratus constellatus, he might have found a mate, too.

New love is hard won right now—if you’re not a spider. It’s hard to feel the spark when romance is confined to dating apps, or chaste walks in overlapping parks. The intimate vision of Patricia Piccinini’s bedsheet-wrapped hybrid lovers is out of reach for many.

Creators are struggling too, particularly in Melbourne. Audiences have been placed under forced hibernation in their homes through winter. For some it’s been hard to spend money on a livestream when you’re longing for a mosh pit or just don’t have any to spare. To make matters worse, federal government stimulus packages have left many artists without the wherewithal to let their fresh buds bloom. And changing restrictions mean that planning album tours, theatre or exhibitions (and yes, festivals) feels almost impossible.

But as Sun Ra said: “The possible has been tried and failed. Now it’s time to try the impossible.”

Inspiring words there from the celestial jazz voyager. Life started with a Big Bang after all, in a pressure point of infinite creation that connects us across eons and oceans. As you read this, the Zhuang people in southern China are eating Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes while staring up at a pregnant moon, soon to become crescent again after giving birth to more stars. From chaos comes creation — and cakes.

Art has been dormant, but with help it will regenerate. Even when they’re buried in a slurry of wintry mud and ice, artists can’t help but incubate their ideas. Tendrils are starting to rise from our Call To Artists program, in which we asked Victorian artists for bold ideas that can start growing now. From more than 1100 submissions we’ve seed-funded 102 concepts and 22 creative developments, that have already started sprouting through the topsoil.

Here’s the thing: art wants to grow, twist and spread its vines. It’s a lusty beast that wants to sweat, mount and convulse. We know there’s signs of life in these chaotic, fertile grounds. Its heart’s beating away in the golden yolk of the eternal cosmic egg.

So we’re here, ready to usher it into the world, where it will unfurl like a blossoming moonflower at dusk.

Art's a lusty beast.
It may have been dormant, but this spring we're helping it regenerate.

SWOONING MOON, SPRING PERFUME

After the sun goes down hit play on this this playlist, put together by RISING’s music muscle. It’s a top to bottom exploration of the night and what moves within it.

You’ll find a neon-hued Simon & Garfunkel cover, synth soundscapes from masterful horror director and film composer John Carpenter, ‘80s Milky New Way-ve from Midnight Man, horizontal dub from Midnight Tenderness and electro heartache by way of the river Nile from The Egyptian Lover.

Sleep is not an option.

An after-dark soundtrack of neon reveries, horror synths and dark club anthems.

PLAYLIST: SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK

Sometimes the mind’s active with waking dreams and sleep just won’t come. Or maybe you work in the shadows—the cover of dark is necessary for some. Call The Nightline to tell your story.

The Nightline is a creative audio project by acclaimed audio-theatre maker Roslyn Oades and sound artist Bob Scott about the city at night, built around the voices of its sleepless residents.

Shift workers, insomniacs, night owls and dreamers are invited to call The Nightline to share stories about what keeps them up at night. 

To share your night tale, call or send a recorded voice memo to 0457 910 843 between midnight–6AM.

The Nightline is supported by RISING.

If you’re an insomniac, night owl or dreamer, acclaimed audio-theatre maker, Roslyn Oades wants to hear what keeps you up at night.


The Nightline

For our first episode we checked in with Richmond institution [Jinda Thai](http://jindathai.com.au/). Filmed during hard lockdown, they used iPads supplied by RISING to film the rituals bonding the family-run business in times of hardship during the pandemic; and the authentic, comforting, generation-spanning recipes the Thai diner has built its following on.

In the clip, Jinda Thai co-owner Premika Tanpapat tells us about Jinda’s pork noodle soup, that uses a decades-old recipe conceived at her grandmother’s noodle shop in Bangkok. Watch the video then go order one for yourself.

RISING: COOKED is our series unearthing the rituals, tastes and culture of Melbourne’s treasured dining scene.

Family and Ritual at Jinda Thai

RISING: COOKED Family and Ritual at Jinda Thai

In this episode of his Wireless Nights podcast, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker leads you through his show’s archives to find moments of relief from isolation.

Listen for a Robert Frost poem about the loneliness and expansiveness of the night; tales from a tiny, dark, electricity-free island; an account of getting snowed in at a pub for weeks on end; and meet a man that sends radio signals to the moon.

[LISTEN NOW](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jfzq)

Be soothed by Jarvis as he potters around his home and shares his favourite stories of isolation and endurance.


Jarvis Cocker’s Wireless Nights

When you step outside after nightfall, there’s a moment in which your constricted pupils fail you and the other senses are heightened. Night time’s possibilities start to coalesce around mysteries and myth. It watches as we work up sweats of lust and abandon, try on new disguises, or remove the ones shielding our true identities. So given RISING’s a festival of the night in a 24-hour city, for the month of September, we’re investigating the night’s shadows.

The dark of night is precious, but increasingly its possibilities are endangered by the creep of light. Right now, in the City of Melbourne, at least 3700 streetlights fitted with smart LED bulbs buzz and illuminate our empty sidewalks. Their stray light particles shoot into the sky and scatter, obscuring the galaxy stretching beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

In built up cities across the globe, light pollution’s persistent glow disrupts the flight paths and mating patterns of nocturnal animals. It’s conceivable that some people living under its net will never in their lives see unadulterated stars; and with so many stories told in the night sky, it can even distort history.

On a clear night, bright constellations like the Southern Cross wink through the light pollution. Early European explorers viewed the Cross through a lens of ancient-Greek celestial traditions, focused almost exclusively on stars. But First Peoples astronomy pays attention to the dark nebulae between the stars too.

There’s a patch of dust and gas in the Milky Way where the Wotjobaluk people of western Victoria believe the menacing emu Tchingal was killed. The emu’s feathered head rests just next to the Southern Cross but can’t be seen through Melbourne’s lights. As the Earth rotates and the Milky Way seemingly moves across the sky, Tchingal is seen in a standing pose and on its side, symbolising its journey from life to death. Rather than a simple series of static motifs, Tchingal’s story is a real-world animatic.

When electric lights obscure the sky’s deepest blacks, a creation story involving white men in boats with telescopes is amplified. But another, involving a massive flightless bird that feasts on the flesh of humans and created Roses Gap in the Grampians, with the furious stomp of its feet, is muffled.

Other First Nations people have stories about, and different names for, the emu too. For thousands of years, it has helped the Wiradjuri people of central New South Wales to locate home and friends; and chart passing time, seasonal changes and the behaviour of wildlife. People everywhere overlay their stories onto the night sky. The Pleiades star cluster is significant to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation as well as people from Aotearoa/New Zealand, India, Japan and more. To know a clear night is to know your neighbour.

Melbourne’s 8pm curfew means that the night’s riches are only available to a few permitted workers right now. But if you can, try to look past the living room lights and city glow. Picture the night’s deepest black, and all the subversion, exploration and experimentation it holds. It’s a cloak woven thick with histories, characters and yet-to-be-discovered futures.

We’ll wrap you in it again soon.

Investigate the night’s shadows with us. Hidden stories, nourishment and subversion await.

Brightest Light, Blackest Night

The 15-minute video collage is part of an irrepressible dancefloor continuum. It traces a hedonistic timeline across UK dancefloors, from the speed-fuelled ‘70s Northern Soul scene, to MDMA-charged raves in the ‘90s. But its influence has stretched beyond the art gallery and the internet to inspire new forms of dance music, too.​ 

The clip’s Kraftwerk-sampling audio has itself been heavily sampled — most notably by Jamie XX on his 2014 track [‘All Under One Roof Raving’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk28cgCG3Ho&ab_channel=Jamiexx). ​

Twenty years on since Fiorucci, Turner Prize-winning Leckey h[eld a major exhibition at the Tate Britain](https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/mark-leckey) — featuring a life-sized motorway underpass — and continues to host a characteristically dense, genre-jumping, monthly show on [NTS Radio](https://www.nts.live/shows/mark-leckey)

In 1999, video and sound artist Mark Leckey believed the music video was the era’s most vital artform. His response: Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore.


Mark Leckey’s Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore

In this essay for The New Yorker, writer Paul Elie describes how 2020 was a year typified by crowds: from protesters gathering in their tens of thousands, to presidential rallies to lines of people waiting at food banks.

Elie also says it was a year which showed the injustices that can occur when law enforcement treat citizens as members of a group or crowd rather than individuals with rights and emotions. He describes how racist US city planning gave space to white people in the suburbs while forcing black Americans to crowd together in public housing projects.

He also explores how an economy that relied on crowds to make its airlines profitable and its sports stadiums full, has been decimated by a global pandemic, allowing crowds to channel their energy into protest movements like Black Lives Matter.

Elie asks more questions than he answers, but his writing provides a moment to reflect on what’s been missing this year and something we can take for granted — the ability of crowds to reshape the world.

[READ NOW](https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-present-belongs-to-crowds)

A reflection on how the pandemic has put a halt on crowds’ profit-making power, paving the way for them to reclaim political power.


The Present Belongs to Crowds

When we first shared this podcast from The Guardian journalist Dan Hancox in August 2020, Melbourne was a month into its second lockdown of the pandemic. With the city under curfew, shops shuttered and public gatherings heavily restricted, we decided to examine what was missing — mass gatherings.  

In the podcast, Hancox suggests that historically crowds are sometimes dangerous, but resilient and hard to disperse, too. He recounts the emotion he felt hearing Scottish soccer fans singing in unison and how he misses festivals like the Notting Hill Carnival. Nonetheless, Hancox says that a history of congregation stretching back to 13,000-year-old, “conga line” cave paintings will inevitably return.

[LISTEN NOW](https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/jun/26/the-power-of-crowds-podcast)

In this podcast, The Guardian’s Dan Hancox tracks a 13,000-year history of congregation that suggests the power of crowds is hard to resist.

The Power of Crowds

In August 2020, Melbourne was heading into its second pandemic lockdown. We felt it was a time to remember the power of crowds and what it means when they’re absent. We wanted to remember beach throngs of sun-bronzed bodies, the thrashing front row of rock concerts, the ruffle of club kids’ costumed plumage at parties, and the bellow of thousands at sporting events.

In this playlist from RISING’s music team, you’ll find football chant funk and World Cup anthems, from the Barmy Army and New Order; frantic electro-dub from Vanessa Worm, whose track ‘Satisfaction’ moves with the swirling ebb and flow of the dance floor; and stirring cinematic grandeur from Ennio Morricone.

We’ll come together soon.

Crowds are a sea of emotion and experience; individuals making up a collective consciousness. This eclectic playlist embraces the movement, chaos and exultation that coalesces when people come together in unison.


PLAYLIST: FAR FROM THE MADDENING CROWD

Climb aboard our moon module, we’re taking you away to the big silver rock that lights up the night.

In this moon-themed playlist by RISING’s music team you’ll hear bubbling electronics by Japanese pop god Haruomi Hosono; iconic folk guitars from Nick Drake and Neil Young; and midnight blues from Howlin’ Wolf.

Disengage from gravity, kick up some lunar dust and float away — the trip’s on us.

Wormhole

Flow State at Home

Getting Heavy:: An Introduction to Melbourne's Sound System Culture

RISING at Home

Golden Square Program

Q&A: Food Court: Sarah Mainwaring

Q&A: Red: AMBER HAINES AND KYLE PAGE

Top Five: Jacinta Parsons

Jason Phu's Chinatown: An artist's guide to food and drink

2021 FESTIVAL GUIDES: Curated itineraries, just for you

Seasons in Blak Box: Catalogue Text

Road Trip down to Dromana for Deep Throat Drive-In

Podcast: The Dispute: with Theatre directors Jackson Castiglione and Mohamed El Khatib

Podcast: Back to Back Theatre with John Safran and Vikrant Kishore

Podcast: Deep Throat Drive-In with Annie Sprinkle and Sandi Sissel

Podcast: The Rivers Sing with Deborah Cheetham and Daniel Browning

Podcast: The Necks and The Dirty Three: Tony Buck, Jim White and Woody McDonald

The Rivers Sing : Opening at the TarraWarra Biennial 2021

Gregor and Sweet Whirl: RISING: Singles Club