OzAsia Festival 2019 starts this Thursday 17 October and runs to 3 November.
Among the events in the impressive program are some exhibitions, music, dance performances, and masterclasses and workshops with French links. 14 of them!
There are both free and paid events in the program. We tell you all about these below.
EXHIBITIONS
OzAsia Festvial has added visual arts to its 2019 free events program. Among the exhibitions on offer, there are two with French links.
Tabita Rezaire: Sorry for Real
17 Oct – 23 Nov 2019 (open Monday to Friday from 9am – 6pm and on Saturdays from 9am – 5pm plus Festival Theatre performance times).
Sorry for Real explores the questions of “What is the function of an apology and who really benefits?” “What power structures are hidden behind our apologetic age?”
Sorry for Real is said to be a virtual apology on behalf of the Western world from French Guyanese/Danish artist, Tabita Rezaire.
The exhibition features a video and five large light boxes filled with text message exchanges laced with barbed wire witticisms. Through these exchanges, the works interrogate the violent deeds of colonial histories and their legacies. While holding space for what still needs to be heard, healed, and accounted for, this cyber exchange unapologetically addresses the politics of ‘reparations’ and the need to decolonise our technologies and reconciliation strategies.
Sorry for Real is a confrontation of the apology-forgiveness narrative that will remain with audiences long after they leave the gallery.
31 Oct – 1 Dec 2019
Art Gallery of South Australia
Duration 30mins
Lee Mingwei is a Taiwanese-American artist based in Paris and New York. His work hovers in a space across poetry, aesthetics, and intimate human exchange. His invitational projects heighten the senses and remind us to be present.
Sonic Blossom offers the gift of song to Gallery visitors. The artist writes, ‘Like Schubert’s Lieder, our own lives are brief, but all the more beautiful because of this.’
Originally created for the opening of South Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sonic Blossom has been enjoyed by audiences at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Museum MACAN in Jakarta.
MUSIC
Fri, 1 Nov 2019, 8:00PM – Saturday 2 November 2:00AM
Nexus Arts
Adult$30.00
Concession$25.00
Founded and curated by Paris-based Lebanese producer, Hadi Zeidan, Beirut Electro Parade explores the underground sounds and portrays the modern soundscapes of Beirut, with club-style takeover events initially happening in Paris, Beirut and now for the first time, Australia.
The inaugural line-up for Adelaide includes an eclectic mix of electronic beats that define the progressive sounds of Beirut, a city known for its post-war pop-up venues, underground music and pioneering electro scene.
Featuring: Renata, June As, Jad Atoui, Jack the Fish, Hadi Zeidan
You can also read our interview with Hadi Zeidan here.
31 Oct 2019
Duration: 2 hours
Thu, 31 Oct 2019, 7:30PM
Nexus Arts
PRICES
Adult $35.00
Concession $29.00
Bring your friends and soak up the vibes with retro-style cocktails in a cabaret lounge that looks like it’s time-travelled directly from Lebanon’s golden age of music and cinema.
Shik Shak Shok immerses audiences into the colourful world of Beirut’s iconic retro music scene with unique visual projections and soundscapes. Lebanese-born, Paris-based producer Hadi Zeidan is set to transform Nexus Arts with a selection of Arabic and neo-Arabic grooves, including jazz, funk, disco, tarab and belly dance.
Grab a table or lounge, a cocktail and some hummus, and let the experience of Shik Shak Shok transport you to another time and place.
QBE OUTDOOR MUSIC SESSIONS: HADI ZEIDAN AND JAD ATOUI
https://www.ozasiafestival.com.au/events/hadi-zeidan-jad-atoui/
FREE
Sat, 2 Nov 2019, 7:00PM
Lucky Dumpling Market, Riverbank Lawns
Lebanon’s best-known DJ-composers join forces to bring you their boundary-breaking soundscapes. Shik Shak Shok online radio founder Hadi Zeidan favours electronica with a nod to bellydance and the golden age of Arab music, while sound experimentalist Jad Atoui has a weakness for ambient tones and incorporating biosensors. Witness their different influences melting together on the dancefloor in this intimate, experimental DJ set.
DANCE
17 – 18 Oct 2019
Duration 1hr
Thu, 17 Oct 2019, 11:00AM
Thu, 17 Oct 2019, 7:30PM
Fri, 18 Oct 2019, 7:30PM
Space Theatre
PRICES
Adult$45.00
Concession$39.00
Edgy hip-hop and high-octane breakdance meet contemporary dance under the sure-handed expertise of Anne Nguyen, a world leading choreographer known for bringing street dance culture into the spotlight of the modern dance world.
After years of studying b-boy style, capoeira, gymnastics and Brazilian jiu jitsu, Anne Nguyen seeks to promote the virtuosity of street dance. In Kata, the French-Vietnamese artist has assembled eight charismatic dancers who employ explosive dance moves, not only from the hip-hop scene, but also from other horizons.
Against an original percussive backdrop, the dancers approach imaginary adversaries, and confront one another in complex battle scenarios, channelling the warlike energy of breakdance. Following acclaimed seasons at Holland Festival, Tanz im August in Berlin and Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris, Kata finally makes it to Australia for this OzAsia Festival exclusive event.
You can read our interview with Anne Nguyen here.
WHAT THE DAY OWES TO THE NIGHT
22 – 23 Oct 2019
Duration 1hr 5mins
Tue, 22 Oct 2019, 7:00PM
Wed, 23 Oct 2019, 7:00PM
Dunstan Playhouse
PRICES
Adult$65.00
Concession$59.00
Combining strength, form and athleticism, 12 male dancers from across the Mediterranean Basin form spirals in fluid patterns of Sufi whirling, breakdancing, ballet and gymnastics that seem to defy physics.
Acclaimed French-Algerian choreographer Hervé Koubi has crafted a distinct style of movement, one that fuses extraordinary athleticism and acrobatic skill with contemporary dance, physical theatre, warrior culture and capoeira.
A deeply personal exploration of human migration and different cultures at the crossroads of east and west, What the Day Owes to the Night is at once beautiful, impossible, astonishing, and even dangerous.
With a score mixing Bach, Sufi rhythms and Egyptian influences, the dancers’ composition unfolds like an ancient desert ritual. Performed over 300 times worldwide, this is the Australian premiere and only chance to see award-winning Hervé Koubi’s most iconic creation.
Damien Jalet and Kohei Nawa
26 – 27 Oct 2019
Duration 1hr
Sat, 26 Oct 2019, 7:30PM
Sun, 27 Oct 2019, 5:00PM
Dunstan Playhouse
PRICES
Adult$69.00
Concession$62.00
In collaboration with Japanese visual artist Kohei Nawa, renowned Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet has created an experience that is truly out of this world. Paired with a surreal score by Marihiko Hara with Ryuichi Sakamoto, this breathtaking production is a pioneering work that brings together dance and visual art to create a futuristic and even science-fiction-inspired exploration of the human body.
Seven bodies on this hauntingly lit, floating stage conjoin into abstract sculptural dance, evoking a primordial, otherworldly metamorphosis. As the boundaries between what is human and what is not slowly dissolve a profound installation unfolds of writhing limbs and eerie figures amidst a reflective pool of water.
1 – 2 Nov 2019
Duration 1hr 20mins
Fri, 1 Nov 2019, 8:00PM
Sat, 2 Nov 2019, 8:00PM
Dunstan Playhouse
PRICES
Adult$75.00
Concession$69.00
Multi-award-winning choreographer Akram Khan kickstarts the next phase of his career and continues his passion for exploring old and new myths in the context of modern times with his latest production, Outwitting the Devil.
Inspired by the newly discovered fragment of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world’s earliest surviving great works of literature, Akram’s new work is a concentrated piece of dance-theatre about ritual and remembering. In a landscape of broken tablets and fallen idols, six characters trade their remaining wealth and stories, seeking to make whole the fragments of ancient knowledge lost and forgotten over time.
With a superb ensemble of dancers from Taiwan, Australia, Philippines, US and France, Outwitting the Devil invites us all to the table where life, death and our half-remembered myths are the bread we break together.
INTERACTIVE THEATRE
19 – 22 Oct 2019
Duration 1hr 50mins
Space Theatre
PRICES
Adult$49.00
Concession$44.00
You can read ‘lies’ in the title, or ‘eyes’, or Pound, Yen, Euro and Dollar. But whether falsities or currencies, it’s about money. £¥€$ invites you to get under the skin of the well-to-do 1%, the super-rich, the ones who pull the strings, the faces we never get to see.
For one night, you can take their chairs. You call the shots. You’re in the centre of our economic system. And who knows, you might make the world a better place, more fair, more responsible, because you’ll do things differently, or maybe the taste for greed will overtake?
Returning to Adelaide with a cast of performers from Belgium and Hong Kong, the acclaimed company behind popular shows such as Fight Night and The Smile off Your Face, Ontroerend Goed, aims at what you truly value: Money.
As interactive theatrical experiences go, Ontroerend Goed’s £¥€$ has got to be one of the best. The audience are sucked into a world of global markets, banks and the deals to be had, then hit square between the eyes with message about economics.
You can read our interview with Aurelie Lannoy of £¥€$ here.
MASTERCLASSES AND WORKSHOPS
OzAsia Festival has introduced masterclasses and workshops run by the artists to its 2019 program.
HIP-HOP FROM PARIS
By Valentine Nagata-Ramos
Wed 16 Oct 2pm
$20
B-girl Valentine has danced for leading hip-hop troupes around the world. She performed with the MTV dance crew and has won numerous breakdance battles.
Bookings via https://valentinenagataramos.eventbrite.com.au
You can read our interview with Valentine Nagata-Ramos here.
URBAN STREET DANCE, CLASSICAL DANCE AND THE WARRIOR
By Guillaume Gabriel
Monday 21 Oct 5.30pm
$20
This masterclass from Company Hervé Koubi co-founder Guillaume Gabriel will highlight the importance of quality movement, weight, balance, and provide guidance to work through challenges.
Bookings via https://guillaumegabrielhervekoubicompany.eventbrite.com.au
CONTEMPORARY DANCE IN VISUAL ART & FILM
By Damien Jalet & Aimilios Arapoglou
Sunday 27 Oct 10am
$20
Choreographer of Vessel, Damien Jalet will share his experiences in the areas of visual arts and films with his collaborator, Aimilios Arapoglou.
Bookings via https://damienjaletmasterclass.eventbrite.com.au
HADI ZEIDAN – LEBANON UNDERGROUND
Wednesday 30 Oct 2pm
FREE
Paris-based Lebanese music producer and curator, Hadi Zeidan, will share the storyline of Lebanon’s music scene from the retro era of late 1970s to the modern electronic scene of today.
Registration via email to [email protected]
Which events will you be attending at OzAsia Festival 2019?
