Liminal's Top Picks for Mapping Melbourne
It’s our favourite time of year! Multicultural Arts Victoria presents Mapping Melbourne. over 16 days, and 14 venues, this festival seeks to create new perspectives, new possibilities and new expressions through a series of intercultural, multi-artform events in the heart of Melbourne.
Of course, we’re incredibly excited to present LUCKY, a night of Liminal poetry and music.
As this is obviously your top pick, we’ve also picked another nine events for you, in no particular order.
Sat 8 December 8pm, ferdydurke
LUCKY
Lucky like a star. Lucky like a golden dime. The luckiest penny in the well, all is well, oh well. Get lucky, stay lucky, good luck! Lucky like rubbing a statue’s belly, like the number 8. Lucky like a clover, plucked like a daisy, lucky like a flower in the concrete. Honk twice if you’re lucky, like a rabbit with its tiny feet still attached, like finding a wishbone, or a plastic waving cat.
Liminal Magazine and Small FRY come together to present a night of poetry and music. Featuring poets Chi Tran, Heather Joan Day, Jennifer Nguyen, Madison Griffiths, Manisha Anjali, Non Chalant & Tanya Ali, and followed by music by Chunyin, Tracy Chen, AIYA and SAL.
This night might just be the luckiest night of your life.
Friday 30 Nov 6pm, MPavilion
Mapping Melbourne Launch
Join the Mapping Melbourne team and performers for a special preview as they launch the 2018 program. Featuring The Echoes Project, L@NDLESS, and UB, with more to be announced.
sun 9 December 5pm, Fairfax Foyer, Arts Centre Melbourne
im/modesty
with Liminal interviewee Shoeb Ahmad
A staple of the Canberra underground music scene, Shoeb proudly identifies as a person of Bangladeshi heritage and a transgender woman. Her music is known for exploring deeply personal experiences and vulnerabilities, in an evocative mix of acoustic and electronic indie pop.
Her latest project im/modesty will premiere as a live performance work with contemporary music ensemble, Australian Art Orchestra. Originally developed as a multi-speaker installation during a residency in Kerala, Southern India, this work is inspired by the cultural barriers people from the Indian sub-continent face when exploring their sexuality.
This ground-breaking work features text spoken by three voices in different stages of life – interspersed with electronic music and atmospheric recordings from the streets of India.
Sat 1 Dec 6pm, chunky move
Ma3ka - THE TRIAD SUPREME
with forthcoming Liminal interviewees Dr. Anita Ratnam, Dr Nirthya Nagarajan & Interviewee #36, Dr. Priya Srinivasan
A dance theatre solo and artist talk by Dr. Anita Ratnam. Using Vedic hymns, singing, silence, drumming, contemporary mythology and a distinctive movement vocabulary, MA3KA is the performative expression of the Holy Trinity of Hindu goddesses: Saraswati, Knowledge Mother; Lakshmi, Prosperity Mother; and Meenakshi, Warrior Mother refracted through the prism of personal narratives.
The performance will be followed by an artist talk and moderated panel with Dr. Anita Ratnam, in conversation with Dr. William Peterson, previous Liminal interviewee Dr. Priya Srinivasan and forthcoming interviewee, Dr. Nithya Nagarajan.
Fri 7 December 6pm, Testing Grounds
MURTI
MURTI, (‘moor-thee’) is a communal participatory installation about worship and ritual in our contemporary age. A Sanskrit term, ‘murti’ is an embodied icon of the Divine. Reflecting on the ancient Hindu ritual of bathing stone idols in water and milk, MURTI invites people to pour vibrant paint upon a large-scale sculpture that reimagines the most revered and abstracted Hindu icon – the Lingam. Conceived by visual and performance artist Devika Bilimoria, MURTI is an invitation to an experiential interpretation of consecration that gives people an opportunity to reconnect with paint, intention and their body.
All audience members will have opportunities to pour paint upon the idol throughout the opening night. The installation is available for viewing throughout the evening and a week to follow.
tues 4 Dec 6pm, space @ Collins
The Depth of Simplicity
with Liminal interviewee #54 Ellen YG Son and #35 Pimpisa Tinpalit
The Depth of Simplicity presents the works of four contemporary artists based in Melbourne: Annette Chang, Supina Bytol and Liminal interviewees Ellen Yeong Gyeong Son and Pimpisa Tinpalit.
The artworks in this exhibition are inspired by each artists’ life experiences. Utilising different techniques and mediums, each artist involves themselves deeply in the project by imprinting their own feelings and thoughts then expressing them through visual installation presentations.
Thurs 6 Dec 7PM, 8PM, 9PM, The Mission to Seafarers
The Seafarer’s Welcome
Meeting at the Seafarer’s bridge on the Yarra, you will be welcomed into a little-known site nearby, a sanctuary for seafarers for the last 100 years and a symbol of old-world generosity amidst the rapidly shifting landscape of the Docklands. A journey through the quirky spaces at Mission to Seafarer’s site through a compelling contemporary ritual performance. The Echoes Projects artists evoke fragments of stories embedded in this site through mesmerising live soundscapes, movement and imagery.
Ria Soemardjo, Janette Hoe and Pongjit (Jon) Saphakhun collaborate to create an ongoing exploration of contemporary rituals in response to urban sites in Australia. Based in Melbourne, their contemporary performance work draws deeply from their personal connections to Thai, Chinese and Indonesian ceremonial traditions. Featuring Intricate rhythmic compositions inspired by the rich heritage of Indonesian and Middle Eastern musical traditions, performed by Ron Reeves and Matt Stonehouse – two of Australia’s foremost world music percussionists.
sat 15 Dec 7:30pm, MPavilion
SAtheCollective
Art may be time and culture specific, but sound and sight knows no limits. The artists of SAtheCollective create their own sensescapes, exploring all possibilities not bound by time or culture.
SAtheCollective presents a unique blend of sounds and sonic-inspired visuals that reflects a Southeast Asian sensibility. Growing up in post-colonial Singapore, the artists explore their identities through an inquiry into sound and visuals. They value being in the moment: fleeting, transcendent.
Thurs 13 Dec 7PM, Beckett Theatre, The Cooper’s Malthouse
Metamorphosis & Beyond the Stillness
Metamorphosis, the second instalment of I Am the Silk Road by composer Mindy Meng Wang, uses modern composition method, western musical instruments, electronic music samples, Chinese folk music, religious music, ancient court music and opera elements. It seeks true harmony and to connect eastern and western music by taking elements of Chinese philosophy and arts into a contemporary context that reflects Wang’s cross-cultural life experience. Wang is a guzheng virtuoso and part of a significant movement of Chinese musicians redefining their musical traditions while at the same time reinvigorating them.
Like the Silk Road in ancient times, this project is a space where cultures meet and intermingle, trading culture and ideas.
Friday 14 Dec 7:30Pm, Melbourne recital Centre
The Sound of Shadows
Juxtaposing the joy and the destruction that food can bring, this immersive concert celebrates endangered Indonesian instruments whose primary function is centred around food production.
Luqmanul Chakim‘s performance of instruments of the working class – Bundengan (duck herder’s rain shield and zither) from Java, Rantok(polyrhythmic rice pounding), and Gule Gending (fairy floss street vendor’s steal pans) from Lombok, will be complemented and contrasted by the Sindhen vocals (Javanese Court style) of internationally acclaimed Peni Candrarini. Bianca Gannon, performing post-minimalist piano and gamelan, propels this exchange into a contemporary art music context. This major work is further magnified by digitally enhanced shadow puppetry. The result is a bilateral dialogue around timely issues.