What's the latest in the Sydney cultural scene these days?
--The Sydney Festival is on this summer, but it doesn't look as great as in summers past. The festival first night, for instance, has been diminished significantly and now seems to revolve around a (albeit kind of cool sounding) rubber duck in Darling Harbour ... but nothing else.
--The St. George's Open Air cinema is going to open up again soon! It's one of my favorite special summer treats, though I don't think their line-up has been announced yet for this year.
--The Short and Sweet festival is just closing their auditions for actors, which I think means it'll be running around February 2013.
--There's a Dr. Suess exhibit on at the Opera House -- which would be an awesome spot to pick up a real Dr. Suess print if you happened to have a spare $1000 lying around. (If you do, would you mind picking me up one too?)
Showing posts with label sydney festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sydney festival. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
quicko: symphony in the domain
Sorry, guys, blogger is being silly and not letting me upload the video of the 1812 Overture. It was awesome, though! Anyway, these aren't really the same, but they're the best consolation prize I have to offer. Blogger also insists on putting them in reverse order. Sigh. Maybe you could YouTube 1812 if it'd make you feel better. Might help me.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
photos: festival first night
I finally made it to a Festival First Night! I've been meaning to go for years and just hadn't made it before -- it was lots of fun. There was live music, dancing in the streets and a huge sort of beach ball to bat around, plus lots of other stuff I didn't get to see. So cool!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
the only road to minto
Last Thursday I was having a bad day and texted my friend Katie to see if she wanted to hang out. She did, and suggested checking to see if there were any free events on for the Sydney Festival.
Dutifully I checked and decided that the only one that looked interesting was Minto Live, which I read on the website "takes audiences through the streets of Minto to experience contemporary theatre, dance, film, music and song, before culminating in a pyrotechnic-based performance." Pyrotechnics are really my cup of tea, so I figured we couldn't go wrong.
Ha, ha, ha.
Anyway, neither of knew how to get to Minto so I started asking around my staffroom if anyone had heard of Minto or had a clue where it was. Of those who did, they weren't exactly jumping out of their skins in jealousy of my upcoming adventure.
"Minto? Why do you want to go to Minto?" they asked.
"It's part of the Sydney Festival," I said. "And there are pyrotechnics."
They looked skeptical.
"So how far is it?" I asked. "Is it pretty close or a bit of a hike?"
Evidently it was a bit of a hike.
"When does it start?" they asked about 4:15 pm.
"Six," I said.
"Hmmm," they said.
"Well, I suppose I should run then," I said. "See you tomorrow!"
"We'll come looking if you're not back in time for work," they said.
I stopped for an emergency Nutella crepe (it was a bad day, if you recall) on the way and met Katie in Glebe, where she'd been buying a telescope for her father's birthday. We pulled over and examined the map.
Minto, it seemed, was not exactly next to Sydney. It was far, far down and over on the other page of the map to the southwest.
"It can't take more than an hour!" we said, and off we went.
Getting to Minto in rush hour traffic is not exactly the quickest, but it appeared to be our only option. We persevered. Fortunately, I had plenty of time to tell Katie about my day.
In the midst of conversation, we got a wee bit lost. But not for long! In a miraculous feat of surprise masculinity I managed to navigate us -- using the sun!! -- southwest to the proper path to Minto. I was very proud of myself, and Katie was very relieved, seeing as she'd been driving and I'd been going "there! there! take that road NOW! To the -- there's the sun! -- left!" for about five minutes straight. We'd have stopped for a break to compose ourselves if we hadn't been in such a rush.
As we tore madly across the Australian bushland (okay, suburbs) I began to consult with the map regarding how precisely to get from the Green Road to Minto. It was a wayward little dot, you see, just sort of off on its own.
I turned to the precise page of the map Minto was on and discovered that there was only one option: a road called Ben Lomond. Minto, it seemed, was surrounded by Scotish landmarks, but we hardly had time to ponder them. Finding Ben Lomond was our primary objective, though it wasn't nearly as tall as you'd have thought.
Once we found it, we realized that the little town of Minto was not all that big and the next 30 seconds of our journey needed to be mapped very carefully immediately. It's all a bit of a blur, but before long we ended up precisely where we needed to be in the Minto Mall parking lot (er, carpark). It was 6:15 and we were ridiculously proud of ourselves.
By the time we'd gotten off the main highway (the Green Road) we'd developed a slight feeling? premonition? that perhaps Minto Live wasn't quite the opera in the Domain. Katie threw a blanket over the newly purchased telescope and we made sure all the doors were locked.
As we approached the far end of the parking lot, the festivities were just beginning to get underway.
Now, this is the part of the story that shows how very much more polite and tasteful Katie is than I. I believe I rather embarrassed her a bit, but try as I might, after our hour-and-fifteen-minute trek to Minto, I watched the first act -- a senior citizen choir in the parking lot singing what was presumably something Aboriginal, but what sounded exactly like "chihuahua -- chihuahua -- chihuahua" -- and burst out laughing.
You'd laugh, too, if it happened to you.
Around this time, our ominous premonition became a reality and we read the program's description of the upcoming events a bit more literally. When it said six families of "non-dancers" would perform, it wasn't kidding. Neither was the invitation to their thresholds, as we had first imagined, metaphorical.
Indeed, following the chihuahua song, a huddled mass of about 200 traipsed through the streets of Minto and stopped at various houses to watch the inhabitants dance -- culturally, liturgically or otherwise -- in their front lawns, streets, or grassy knolls.
I tried not to giggle and Katie tried not to look like she knew me.
Our tour of Minto lasted quite awhile -- long enough to get us thoroughly lost regarding the whereabouts of the car at least, seeing as the sun had set -- and ultimately we ended up at a big park sort of area. The residents very kindly provided tons of blankets for everyone to use to sit on and there was food for sale as we heard a few local trumpeters play before the final act of the evening.
The final act was actually quite good -- a thought-provoking bit of performance art billed as stand-up comedy, but that joke was on us. There was a guy of Indian heritage who'd grown up in England along with two Minto residents who were from Pacific Islands but had grown up in New Zealand talking about what it was like to be of one culture but in another. It was mostly the English guy talking about his search for identity through learning Indian music, which was incorporated quite significantly in the act.
It was getting late, though, so we left shortly before it was over -- having read in the truthful program that the pyrotechnic display was "breathtakingly short" and would last "only the length of one firecracker."
Thankfully we made it out to Ben Lomond before we cracked.
Dutifully I checked and decided that the only one that looked interesting was Minto Live, which I read on the website "takes audiences through the streets of Minto to experience contemporary theatre, dance, film, music and song, before culminating in a pyrotechnic-based performance." Pyrotechnics are really my cup of tea, so I figured we couldn't go wrong.
Ha, ha, ha.
Anyway, neither of knew how to get to Minto so I started asking around my staffroom if anyone had heard of Minto or had a clue where it was. Of those who did, they weren't exactly jumping out of their skins in jealousy of my upcoming adventure.
"Minto? Why do you want to go to Minto?" they asked.
"It's part of the Sydney Festival," I said. "And there are pyrotechnics."
They looked skeptical.
"So how far is it?" I asked. "Is it pretty close or a bit of a hike?"
Evidently it was a bit of a hike.
"When does it start?" they asked about 4:15 pm.
"Six," I said.
"Hmmm," they said.
"Well, I suppose I should run then," I said. "See you tomorrow!"
"We'll come looking if you're not back in time for work," they said.
I stopped for an emergency Nutella crepe (it was a bad day, if you recall) on the way and met Katie in Glebe, where she'd been buying a telescope for her father's birthday. We pulled over and examined the map.
Minto, it seemed, was not exactly next to Sydney. It was far, far down and over on the other page of the map to the southwest.
"It can't take more than an hour!" we said, and off we went.
Getting to Minto in rush hour traffic is not exactly the quickest, but it appeared to be our only option. We persevered. Fortunately, I had plenty of time to tell Katie about my day.
In the midst of conversation, we got a wee bit lost. But not for long! In a miraculous feat of surprise masculinity I managed to navigate us -- using the sun!! -- southwest to the proper path to Minto. I was very proud of myself, and Katie was very relieved, seeing as she'd been driving and I'd been going "there! there! take that road NOW! To the -- there's the sun! -- left!" for about five minutes straight. We'd have stopped for a break to compose ourselves if we hadn't been in such a rush.
As we tore madly across the Australian bushland (okay, suburbs) I began to consult with the map regarding how precisely to get from the Green Road to Minto. It was a wayward little dot, you see, just sort of off on its own.
I turned to the precise page of the map Minto was on and discovered that there was only one option: a road called Ben Lomond. Minto, it seemed, was surrounded by Scotish landmarks, but we hardly had time to ponder them. Finding Ben Lomond was our primary objective, though it wasn't nearly as tall as you'd have thought.
Once we found it, we realized that the little town of Minto was not all that big and the next 30 seconds of our journey needed to be mapped very carefully immediately. It's all a bit of a blur, but before long we ended up precisely where we needed to be in the Minto Mall parking lot (er, carpark). It was 6:15 and we were ridiculously proud of ourselves.
By the time we'd gotten off the main highway (the Green Road) we'd developed a slight feeling? premonition? that perhaps Minto Live wasn't quite the opera in the Domain. Katie threw a blanket over the newly purchased telescope and we made sure all the doors were locked.
As we approached the far end of the parking lot, the festivities were just beginning to get underway.
Now, this is the part of the story that shows how very much more polite and tasteful Katie is than I. I believe I rather embarrassed her a bit, but try as I might, after our hour-and-fifteen-minute trek to Minto, I watched the first act -- a senior citizen choir in the parking lot singing what was presumably something Aboriginal, but what sounded exactly like "chihuahua -- chihuahua -- chihuahua" -- and burst out laughing.
You'd laugh, too, if it happened to you.
Around this time, our ominous premonition became a reality and we read the program's description of the upcoming events a bit more literally. When it said six families of "non-dancers" would perform, it wasn't kidding. Neither was the invitation to their thresholds, as we had first imagined, metaphorical.
Indeed, following the chihuahua song, a huddled mass of about 200 traipsed through the streets of Minto and stopped at various houses to watch the inhabitants dance -- culturally, liturgically or otherwise -- in their front lawns, streets, or grassy knolls.
I tried not to giggle and Katie tried not to look like she knew me.
Our tour of Minto lasted quite awhile -- long enough to get us thoroughly lost regarding the whereabouts of the car at least, seeing as the sun had set -- and ultimately we ended up at a big park sort of area. The residents very kindly provided tons of blankets for everyone to use to sit on and there was food for sale as we heard a few local trumpeters play before the final act of the evening.
The final act was actually quite good -- a thought-provoking bit of performance art billed as stand-up comedy, but that joke was on us. There was a guy of Indian heritage who'd grown up in England along with two Minto residents who were from Pacific Islands but had grown up in New Zealand talking about what it was like to be of one culture but in another. It was mostly the English guy talking about his search for identity through learning Indian music, which was incorporated quite significantly in the act.
It was getting late, though, so we left shortly before it was over -- having read in the truthful program that the pyrotechnic display was "breathtakingly short" and would last "only the length of one firecracker."
Thankfully we made it out to Ben Lomond before we cracked.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
photo: 1812 overture at sydney festival
It was a Shakespearean symphony, followed by the 1812 Overture. I have a lovely little video, but it doesn't seem to want to upload itself. Take a photo as a consolation prize. As a bonus sidenote to the evening in general, my friend Melissa was singing in the performance!!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
photos: to minto and back
Our trip to Minto deserves more time than I've currently got to write about -- but for now, here are some pictures.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
photos: mirazozo
I don't really know what more to tell you -- it's art outside the Opera House. Check it out!
(Take $10, but it's worth it!)
Saturday, November 8, 2008
quicko: summer lovin'
Sydney absolutely loves summer. The whole city comes alive and everyone's in the best mood. There's festivals, tons of free stuff and the beach! Yay!
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