Neighbourhood

Let’s flashback to a few weeks ago, when we kicked off the inaugural Neighbourhood contemporary art festival with a bang! 

So far, we’ve taken to Nicholson Street mall to celebrate local food, wine and music. We’ve soaked up the spirit of the Nile with some of jazz music’s finest musicians (and some equally exceptional Ethiopian coffee). And we’ve dabbled in making our digital avatars corporeal, teaching our motion capture and CG animated selves how to dance. 

With the festival winding up on Sunday 27^th November, there’s one week left to enjoy the melting pot of arts, culture, theatre, music and performance that is Neighbourhood. If you haven’t snapped up your tickets already, don’t miss out on these stellar events:

Keen to make your own mark on Neighbourhood? I Am Carisma is a joyful collision of dance performance, word game and audience participation. 

Choreographed by Green Room award winning artist, Jonathan Homsey, I Am Carisma is an ode to a loved one. Inspired by the passing of Jonathan’s close friend, Carisma – a fellow community member and dancer in the 2000s – this production touches on resilience, female empowerment and freedom. 

Waackers MaggZ and Marnie Newton and locker Kerrtu Luik will flip the street dance tradition on its head by responding to musical, emotional and anatomical instructions. Prior to each performance, audience members can submit their prompts through an online form, and ten lucky attendees will be chosen to present their own story of Carisma. If the stars have aligned, you will be invited to participate the day before your chosen performance.

Looking for a one act performance that packs a punch? ‘Whose Gonna ‘Love Em? I am that I AM’ is an absurd group therapy session and post-traumatic masterpiece. 

Written and directed by Kamarra Bell-Wykes and winner of the 2021 Patrick White Playwriting Award, this production is a hypnotising interrogation of grief and trauma, exploring how we move through these experiences and the difficulty of healing intergenerational wounds on colonised land. 

Performers Maggie Church-Kopp, Corey Saylor-Brunskill and Maurial Spearim are accompanied by smallsound with a live improvisational score, masterfully structured to convey rage, ancestral resilience, and hope. Come and dissect the shadow wound of humanity’s collective heart, cleanse out the toxic pus and redress it anew. 

In the mood for something classic, but with a modern twist? Lele is a readaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone, and a fierce exploration of the immigrant experience in Australia.

Two brothers who couldn’t be more different kill each other in a moment that can never be undone, setting off a butterfly effect that explodes through a Samoan family in Australia. Part Samoan siva and part drill rap concert, Lele is a story of family, honour and the motherland. 

This Western Edge production was developed by artists Chanella Macri and Rexson Pelman and is brought to life by an ensemble of six Samoan performers. An electric reckoning with tradition and identity, it is not to be missed. 

Want to be one of the lucky ones who saw it first? Composer Lisa Lerkenfeldt presents the world premiere of her new work, With Water Up To Her Knees. 

Set in present day Naarm, within an amphitheatre of abandoned infrastructure, this art installation draws from Lerkenfeldt’s field work and electroacoustic practices. Created in collaboration with video artist and film director, Tristan Jalleh, it’s a blend of performance, animation and sound; piano and tape arrangements light up lost chambers and underground histories, revealing a patchwork of instrumental composition and surreal cinema.

Be one of the first to explore this densely detailed hyper reality of hidden rooms and underground networks. 

Looking for more options? Explore what remains of the Neighbourhood program.