Cheeky From Bruns to Lismore
From the creative team behind the award-winning, internationally acclaimed circus/cabaret sensations La Soirée and Club Swizzle, with over eight million tickets sold worldwide, comes Cheeky, Brunswick Picture House’s smash-hit signature show.
With three years of sold-out performances at its much-loved home in Bruns, Cheeky is circus like you’ve never seen before. This genre-bending cabaret is cheeky, clever, and damn sexy, celebrating the weird, the wonderful, and the wildly entertaining, leaving audiences gasping for more!
Featuring a cavalcade of the world’s most talented acts in circus, burlesque, music, and new variety, Cheeky’s bold and brash reputation has rippled up and down the coast. Now, Lismore, Cheeky is coming for you!
Friday 16 and Saturday 17 July – 7.30pm
Lismore City Hall. Tickets $20–59. www./norpa.org.au
Be Moved and Inspired by Bandaluzia
The award winning flamenco ensemble Bandaluzia will be performing in Byron next month. Led by ARIA-nominated flamenco guitarist Damian Wright, Bandaluzia are presenting a spectacular new show that highlights contemporary flamenco dance and music while keeping the essential characteristics of the flamenco tradition. Bandaluzia are celebrated for their powerful performances, unique sound, and explosive displays of dazzling musicianship and virtuosity.
Wrights says that flamenco is an art form that is immediate in its impact. ‘A flamenco artist traditionally would approach the music as more of a visceral as opposed to an intellectual expression. Flamenco’s expression explores the full spectrum of human experience, from the darker sides to the most joyous and translates this into something cathartic and beautiful.’
Wright says that the relationship between the music, the musicians and the dancers is one of flamenco’s unique and most attractive elements. ‘The flamenco musician needs to understand the language of the dance and the singing and vice versa. Each artist needs to speak the musical language of flamenco fluently enough to have the freedom and spontaneity to create the flamenco atmosphere required for an authentically flamenco performance. The dancer, musician, and singer all have moments where they are leading the performance in their particular way and then will take it in turns to accompany the other. It’s a constant conversation throughout the performance which keeps the show alive.’
Joining Damian are the award-winning Bandaluzia dancers Rosalie Cocchiaro and Jessica Statham, who between them have 15 years of studying and performing in Spain. On percussion James Hauptmann, one of Australia’s most sought-after jazz and contemporary music drummers, is the spine of the show rhythmically. Rounding out the group on violin is Yuhki Mayne, whose performances have taken him from Opera Australia to the neo-soul of Ngaire.
In Bandaluzia shows the artists are referencing the rhythms and forms of flamenco as well as flamenco masters. ‘It’s important to us to always evolve ourselves artistically with respect to the tradition and to the greats who have made the art form what it is. The contemporary aspects come naturally as we are all from a generation that has grown up with access to a wide variety of influences from jazz, classical, rock, soul, Arabic, to latin and more, as well as contemporary dance, and we will often reference these influences in a way that is organic and enhances our performance and makes it personal and unique.’
For the audience flamenco is more than listening to music and dance. ‘It’s the feeling of sharing the experience, receiving the artists’ expression and connecting this to their own experiences. If performed well flamenco can be a transcending moment for all.’
Bandaluzia can be seen at the Byron Theatre on 27 August. Tickets can be found at: byron.sales.ticketsearch.com/sales/salesevent/11499.
You Just Can’t Get Enough Circus
Hosted at the Mullum Showground over September 20–26, the National Circus Festival boasts a dual program with two distinct streams, including a four-day National Training Program September 20–23, while the weekend of September 24–26 sees the public program go into full swing.
Leading the program announcement is Collision from two Brisbane powerhouse companies in Casus Circus and Mad Dance House, A B-boy. Hip-hop and Hula Hooper, Pop and Lock, a cross-pollination of contemporary circus and street dance are also on board.
The powerful cross point of visual art and circus is Jack Silvestro’s new work December – a captivating solo physical theatre performance marking Australia’s history and honouring those affected by 2020’s Black Summer.
International hula hoop artist Anna Fisher, and some of Byron Shire’s brightest stars from the world-famous bubble man, circus and sideshow artist, Dr Hubble, to Spaghetti graduate success story Hannah Richards are other highlights and Spaghetti Circus’s new troupe show: Bails of Hey!
Tumble on over the National Circus Festival website for more info: the nationalcircusfestival.com.
Who Will be the Last One Standing?
The 2021 RAW Comedy heats, presented by Melbourne International Comedy Festival, will be held at the Byron Services Club on Monday 19 July and Mullumbimby Ex-Services on Monday 2 August.
Some of the nation’s finest funny-makers have cannonballed into comedy acclaim through RAW Comedy – Hannah Gadsby, Ronny Chieng, Celia Pacquola, Matt Okine, Anne Edmonds, Becky Lucas, and Aaron Chen just to name a few. Heats are kicking off around the country! Who will be the last one standing? Only one way to find out. Book a ticket, grab a seat, and come see the future stars of Aussie comedy!
If you want to have a shot at performing you can get more info on RAW Comedy: head to rawcomedy.com.au. Otherwise to get a ticket to watch the heats – MCed by everyone’s favourite comedian-turned-politician, Mandy Nolan!
Byron Services Club on Monday 19 July and Mullumbimby Ex-Services on Monday 2 August – both shows are at 8pm for $15 with tix on mandynolan.com.au.
CINEMA
Spend Mid-winter with the Scandinavians
Palace invites you to go north this midwinter with the Scandinavian Film Festival. This year’s specially curated selection encompasses films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, including ten directed by women, with many screening for the first time outside of Europe.
The Festival will open with Wildland (Kød & Blod). Set in Denmark’s underbelly, Jeanette Nordahl’s striking Scandi-noir follows an impressionable teenage girl who is placed in the care of her estranged aunt (an incredible Sidse Babette Knudsen), the head of a family crime syndicate.
Other films includes Sidse Babette Knudsen in The Exception (Undtagelsen); Stellan Skarsgård and Andrea Bræin Hovig star in Hope (Håp), a stunningly acted relationship drama about a creative couple by director Maria Sødahl, which was Norway’s official submission to the 2021 Academy Awards.
A luminescent Laura Birn stars in Helene, a captivating portrait of Finland’s most acclaimed painter of the early twentieth century, Helene Schjerfbeck, while Tove is a fascinating depiction of the life and personal relationships of Finnish visual artist and author Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins.
This year’s special presentation is Tigers (Tigrar). Crowned Best Nordic Film at the 2021 Göteborg Film Festival, Tigers is the enthralling true story of Swedish football wunderkind Martin Bengtsson, a former Inter Milan player, who lifted the lid on a world where everyone has a price tag.
There are many more wonderful films on offer for the 2021 event as well as a celebration of its 50th anniversary, The Emigrants (Utvandrarna), which will close the Festival. The Emigrants follows a struggling farming family in mid-19th century Sweden who decide to embark on the arduous journey to new hope in America. Starring the late Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, The Emigrants was nominated for five Oscars and won Golden Globe awards for Best Actress (Liv Ullmann) and Best Foreign Film. The Closing Night screenings will feature a celebratory Scandi cocktail in tribute to acting great Max Von Sydow, who died in March 2020.
The full 2021 program has been unveiled and can been seen online.
Scandinavian Film Festival
Byron Bay: 16 July till 1 August, Palace Byron Bay
Tickets are now on sale at www.scandinavianfilmfestival.com.
Arakwal NAIDOC Week Short Films Screens Twice in Byron
This week will see the 14th Arakwal NAIDOC Week Short Films Screening Presented by the Arakwal Corporation, Flickerfest & iQ Inc.
This year’s program, which will be screened over two nights, is curated from recent Flickerfest favourites. It will take you on a special journey with some incredibly strong and powerful stories, whose compelling voices will inspire, move and delight.
Wednesday 7 July & Saturday 11July, 6.30pm, Byron Theatre. https://byroncentre.com.au
Federal Film Society loves Nomadland
The Federal Film Society is pleased to be screening the poetic character study on the forgotten and downtrodden – Nomadland beautifully captures the restlessness left in the wake of the Great Recession. Following the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad. The third feature film from director Chloé Zhao, Nomadland features real nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells as Fern’s mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast landscape of the American West.
Saturday 10 July. No pre-booking needed this month.
Doors open at 6.30pm for dinner; film starts at 7.30pm. Short- and long-term memberships are available at the door. www.federalfilmsociety.com.
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