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Mama Alto’s Melbourne Fringe Lucky Dip

In the lead-up to the Melbourne Fringe Festival throughout late September and October, Fringe artist Mama Alto (Porgy & Bess Project) presents this lucky dip vox-pop tour of just nine of the 315 shows at this year’s Festival. 

BLOODLINES – A Gothic Cabaret

Bloodlines – A Gothic Cabaret is a side-splitting and pants-wetting joyride through realms of darkness and nightmare with the innocently demonic Bradley Storer. Using tales drawn from the dusty crypts of his own family history, Bradley explores the boundaries between past and present, imagination and reality and the nature of evil – laced with hints of insanity and cyanide. This gothic-indie cabaret, with songs from artists ranging from Rodgers & Hammerstein to Regina Spektor, will tickle your funny bone then tear it out for good measure.

BODY OBSCURE OBJECT: On the Intimacy of Seeing

Innovative in technological design and style, choreographer Shian Law has teamed up with video artist James Wright, designer Matthew Adey and composer Duane Morrison to deliver an interdisciplinary experimentation, BODY OBSCURE OBJECT. The new media dance work explores the polarities of the spectacular and the intimate, mediated through the physical body both en masse and in solitude. Part live performance, part cinematic experience, the piece explores the body as a site for visual spectacle and ritual.

DANCE+ANECDOTE 

Devised by two independent Melbourne dance-makers, dance+anecdote presents contemporary dance in an immersive installation experience. The audience engages with sensuous live and video works within a unique, vast and expressive warehouse space. Co-deviser Maximilian explains: “When we first started the project, we already had choreographies developed, but as soon as we saw the venue, all that went out the window. We started making site-specific work that also embodied the performers. The results are surprisingly intimate, dynamic and funny.”

DasSHOKU SHAKE!: A Japanese Australian Butoh Cabaret Extravaganza

DasSHOKU SHAKE! is the fourth work in the award winning, nationally and internationally sold-out DasSHOKU repertoire. Butoh Punkess Yumi Umiumare ignites her next infamous DasSHOKU Cabaret, bursting from the shaking earth. Osaka’s Theatre Gumbo, Japanese guest artists plus four of Melbourne’s shock-toy acolytes create a funky cross-cultural bizarre emo shake-up! Jap-pop and white mysticism assault Buddhist Heart sutra!

THE FOUR ACCORDIONISTS OF THE APOCALYPSE 

Frigg, Norse Goddess of Fertility, descends to Earth to see why she’s no longer worshipped and to address a crisis in human fertility. There she finds her wayward husband Woden, God of Death and Storms, busy with the El Nino effect, global warfare and seducing mortals. An absurdist original work with musical score by Sofia Chapman, directed by Jo Loth and featuring ARIA award winner Zulya Kamalova’s exquisite vocals, The Four Accordionists of the Apocalypse brings disparate elements such as music, humour and symbolism together in its premiere production.

PORGY & BESS PROJECT: Jazz Interpretations of a Legendary Classic

Mama Alto’s very own show! Surrender yourself to timeless songs interpreted by a unique voice that defies gender. Mama Alto purrs and smoulders in an atmospheric temple of kitsch and cabaret, The Butterfly Club. Porgy & Bess Project is an evocative dialogue between the immortal songs of Gershwin’s monumental work and the unique and haunting jazz countertenor vocals of Benny ‘Mama Alto’ Dimas, accompanied by the piano stylings of Tiffanni Walton.

THE SÉANCE 

The Séance is an intimate performance encounter where audiences of only 10 people attempt to make contact with the ghost of a dead celebrity, conducted in a secret location by NO SHOW, the team behind Next Wave’s Shotgun Wedding. Sitters will commune with a restless spirit that may be trying to send a message from the Other Side. The experience is a compelling and darkly funny dream of pop excess, media mythologizing, and the allure of self-destruction.

THE WELL

When the earth’s magnetic poles flip and the planet falls out of orbit, life on the ground gets colder and crazier. Long extinct civilizations turn up in the drive through, ex-girlfriends turn into crude oil and the end of the universe is a giant super-charged cloud of candy floss.

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS: A WEASEL’S TALE

So you think you know the story of The Wind in the Willows? Well… this is the real story: The Weasel’s Tale. This classic gets turned on its head as the baddies turn good and the goodies turn bad. Step into the Wild Wood and follow the weasels on their raucous adventure to reclaim the family home.

For dates, times and bookings of all these shows, plus 302 more, please visit www.melbournefringe.com.au 

Lot's Wife Editors

The author Lot's Wife Editors

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