Ella Ferris Pell

Rising has yet to establish its voice – but this year's festival gave us significant and thrilling work by First Nations artists

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Australian Dance Theatre, Music, Sculpture, Painting, Capitalism, Exhibition, Yirrkala, Spirituality, Culture, Tanz, Policy, Aborigine, Arts Centre Melbourne, Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Light, Greg, Rising, White Night, Crime, Rink, History, Projection, Arrernte, Philosophy, Tracker, Flinders Street, Retirement, The Australian Ballet, Uluru, Spirit, Flinders Street railway station, Art, Time, Child, NSW, Comment, Wurundjeri, Ella Ferris Pell, Sound, First Nations, Knowledge, Colonialism, Indigenous peoples, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Memory, Nightclub, Entertainment, Interior design, Pottery, AC/DC, Euphoria, Food

The newest addition to the city’s festival scene, Rising replaced the much-loved White Night festival and the much-celebrated Melbourne International Arts Festival.

Key Points: 
  • The newest addition to the city’s festival scene, Rising replaced the much-loved White Night festival and the much-celebrated Melbourne International Arts Festival.
  • Led by artistic directors Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek, Rising 2023 was an eclectic mix of local and international work.
  • But I found the highlight of Rising to be the significant and thrilling work created by First Nations artists across dance, visual art, theatre and music.

Jacky

    • Jacky’s well-intentioned white boss (Alison Whyte) engages in culturally incompetent behaviour when she requests Jacky pretend he is from a local family group.
    • Jacky’s sex work client, Glen (Greg Stone), requests that Jacky participate in an act of racist role-play.
    • Titled in reference to Jacky Jacky, an Aboriginal guide who was awarded medals for his service to NSW, the play troubles ideas of subservience and collaboration within white and First Nations relationships.

Shadow Spirit

    • The exhibition Shadow Spirit brings together 30 contemporary First Peoples artists and collectives from across the country into an immersive exhibition, including 14 specially commissioned works.
    • Curated by Kimberley Moulton, Shadow Spirit weaves throughout the decaying and compelling site of the rooms above Flinders Street Station.
    • There is a giant sculptural bandicoot spirit animal; works that map the spirits and energies of Country, waterways and skies and speak to how ancient knowledges protect land and children; and works that directly address the space between what is known and tangible, and what is felt and intuited.
    • Shadow Spirit invites you to linger, to witness and absorb the breadth and depth of knowledge and culture and story threaded through each room in the space.

Tracker

    • A co-production between Australian Dance Theatre and Ilbijerri Theatre, Tracker is a remarkable piece of storytelling about Wiradjuri elder Alec “Tracker” Riley.
    • Blending contemporary dance, text, live music and a simple but effective 270-degree rotating set design of scenic painted curtains and greenery rigged around a circular ring, Tracker takes us deep into ancestral Country in the middle of the night.
    • As the remarkable stories of Tracker Riley’s success in finding missing children and bringing criminals to justice are revealed, three spirit guides appear (Tyrel Dulvarie, Rika Hamaguchi and Kaine Sultan-Babij).
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