Carriageworks has revealed its 2017 program of art, performance and music – including hyped shows from interstate and overseas, world premieres, and the return of favourite events including the queer performance/dance party Day For Night, Indigenous musical festival Klub Koori, and a new series of Night Markets.
Perhaps the most exciting component – announced earlier this year – is the inaugural edition of The National, a new biennial of contemporary Australian art focusing on site-specific commissions, and running across Carriageworks, the MCA and Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Carriageworks edition, curated by director Lisa Havilah and visual arts head Nina Miall, will run March 30-June 18, and include work by Archie Moore, Justene Williams and Richard Lewer, among others.
In terms of international treats, Italian theatre renegades Motus are bringing their hybrid show MDLSX to Carriageworks in mid-March after a short run at Adelaide Festival. Starring androgynous DJ Silvia Calderoni, the show blends her home videos and autobiography with Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel Middlesex and a DJ set to explore queer identity. It looks heady.
MDLSX by MOTUS from ALBAMADA on Vimeo.
In terms of anticipated inter-state works, Melbourne Festival hit Lady Eats Apple, by Geelong-based theatre ensemble Back to Back Theatre (behind internationally acclaimed shows Ganesh Versus the Third Reich and Superdiscount) whose core performers have a range of intellectual disabilities. Lady Eats Apple is an experiential theatre work with a spectacular staging effect that takes the audience on a “descent into the hatching of humanity.” Time Out Melbourne gave it four stars.
As in recent years, Carriageworks’ resident companies are part of the secret of the venue’s programming success, and 2017 will see new works by Sydney Chamber Opera, Performance Space, Erth and Marrugeku.
Sydney Chamber Opera, who had already announced their Sydney Festival show Biographica – a new Australian opera based on the life of Renaissance polymath Gerolamo Cardano – will also present a new production of Benjamin Britten’s postwar chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia, directed by new Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Kip Williams and starring Opera Australia’s Anna Dowsley (The Marriage of Figaro).
Carriageworks has also become an occasional venue for Sydney Dance Company, Bangarra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and NAISDA – all of which will present programs and/or performances there in 2017.
Music highlights include the Open Frame festival, curated by local experimental music imprint Room40 – which will feature, among other highlights, Xiu Xiu performing their album of adapted music from Twin Peaks (which was commissioned by Queensland's Gallery of Modern Art for their 2015 David Lynch exhibition); a triple bill of world premieres performed by acclaimed locals Ensemble Offspring, featuring US-based Australian soprano Jessica Aszodi; and a concert of contemporary international music curated by Australian composer Brett Dean, performed by Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Check out the full 2017 program, and see what's on at Carriageworks in the coming weeks.