Underbelly Arts has nothing to do with the TV show. It won’t confront you with guns or nudity – frankly, it’s too cold. It’s an arts festival. An arts festival which dares to ask two key questions:

“What would happen if you brought up to 150 artists together under the one roof for ten days to develop new work?

What would happen if you then opened this process to the public, allowing them behind the scenes of art in the making?”

Saturday. A blue-sky winter’s day, it’s cold and I’m grateful for my coat and sunglasses in equal measure. I have reserved the day to be a cultural tourist, adventuring to an island in the middle of Sydney. Accompanying me is a retired magician, who happens to be a fascinating conversationalist and an irrepressible artist in his own right. Though I am not overly familiar with this style of performance (hybrid/dance/devised/visual/installation/alternative etc…) I have been put in charge of our adventure to Cockatoo Island. It’s a caffeinated whirlwind. I’m not certain of all the details – but I figure that with all the buzz around the festival, if I get lost/stuck/confused someone will help me.

I am completely uncertain of what I’m doing. Firstly of the ferries – I had a schedule – it flew out the window as soon as I was swayed into a veggie burger lunch with James Waites post Tim Andrew’s Art talk in The Rocks…

And like all good adventures, uncertainty is part of the fun. It’s the extra zesty something that keeps us living, I believe, It keeps us gripped to the seats of our own lives as we wonder “how on earth did I get here, and how is this going to pan out?” I live so much of my week strictly scheduled and tightly wound – sometimes uncertainty creeps in… but mainly it is scheduled. So today – an alternative art consumption philosophy – “Be aware, be prepared and surrender your plan.”

This blog post will be full of names… I’m warning you… this is not because I am deliberately trying to be annoying (that’s a surreptitious motivation) … you’ll see my point at the end…

The aim was to head to the island, but before long I certainly found myself running and frolicking about to catch the 3.10pm ferry from circular quay with Clare Grant… on the ferry there was Pip Smith, TK Pok, Talya Rubin, Larry Heath, Rosie Fisher, Brad Syke… to name a few- media, artists, producers, punters, academics all squashed together on a boat as we dipped into the crannies of the harbour. Balmain. Woolwich. Cockatoo Island.

We escape into a sprawling fan onto the island in direct hunt of our tickets.

Bumping into Nerida Woods.. I even spy Alice Osborne – I don’t say hello – It’s just nice to see her there…

When we arrive the security and festival volunteers including Rowan McDonald are yelling that the island is at capacity and we have to wait. I can’t wait. I’m on a mission to see 100 years of Lizards! We are let in, we head to registration, Julia Lenton publicist extraordinaire has wrist bands at the ready – we are banded like artistic doves and race off to witness art.

100 YEARS OF LIZARDS
Patrick Lenton has a bizarre brain and I love it. Prolific and passionate and wildly imaginative, Lenton’s gift is for winding stories up into a tight ball of yarn and threading through it bizarre and brilliant unexpected figurines and puns that curl up into tendrils of circumlocution. “Scientists, a ranger and an ancient race of Lizards live and love on an island”… if you think of Jurassic Park. Then you stop thinking about Jurassic Park and you start thinking about Margaret Thatcher and what she would look like dancing to the Bee Gees… and then you force some mildly cheesy flashbacks – you get close to what this piece is like. Still in it’s infant stages, but with inventive costumes hand mastered ( or collected, and curated) by Bridget Lutherborrow, 100 YEARS OF LIZARDS was perhaps the most traditional of the performances, drawing on a rich tradition of vaudeville and revue comedy.

then.. bumping into the director of 100 YEARS OF LIZARDS, Scott Selkirk… we were off to have a look at an installation -

XUAN (Spring)
A vietnamese soup kitchen hemmed by a moat of yellow cherry blossom trees and purple decorative cabbage..as people made soup and handed it out to the patient or the stubborn.. a Vietnamese spring flower festival, on an Australian Island in winter… wha? “Wha” indeed. That’s the whole point… the unexpected displacement…

Then racing to -

INFLATE MY HEART WITH 1000 GUSHES OF WIND
OK. I was uncertain with this one. which I think we missed or perhaps I lead us to the wrong place… a large white inflatable art work twisted in the space – video art projected on the wall – I felt small and wanted to touch it.

walking past

SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANORMALIES, SPATIAL DISTORTION & THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION.
Domestic objects frozen on pedestals, re-contextualised with sound and video smashing around them.

A quick hello to Chris Ryan and Clare Britton…

Then in the street I bumped into Jess Bellamy and Chris Summers (playwrights) we babbled and bantered – they recommended a show by Jimmy Dalton. I scheduled it in… but not before a refreshment stop in 124… Little Creature Pale Ale.. more chatting in line (the horrendous queues are wonderful for chatting)…

DATA_SHADOW
In a long room had a large and brightly coloured video art installation. A coloured flickering quad sectioned display of colour – an installation as an ode to digital photography – claiming to be about memory – I think it’s also about mind-clutter. It seemed fun – and too much.

INFLECTION THE BROKEN RECORD
In the opposite room – something was happening. Bits of story pinned to the wall. Written in texta. There’s a narrative i don’t have time to read. Clearly I should have spent more time preparing for this. There are people standing around a mannequin, there’s gaffa tape, black plastic bags, junk. Men in hoods and dark masks – interchangeable. There’s photography happening but I’m uncertain if it is a part of the piece or greedy voyeurism. It’s dark and intense. there is throbbing sounds – electro-static hum. I’m not sure where I’m supposed to stand – or what to do. So I lean up against a wall and watch. It feels as claustrophobic as fight club. A blonde woman half screaming, half singing forces sound out of pain clenched mouth. It’s intense. there are dolphin torches. And then there is an explosive moment in a vase with red liquid. I walk out wishing I had known more before I’d walked in the room. My mind races – what did I just witness? A ritual, a death? Abuse? I’m uncertain.

Leaving there I nod at James Beach, say a quiet hello to Alice Cooper and make my way to see something up and around the hill…

A hike up the hill with Cat Jones, we banter and chatter and share the things we’ve done and seen at the festival – it’s clear I’ve not scheduled very well – somehow I’ve missed Julie Vulcan’s SPOTLIGHT BUNNY – the car’s battery was flat – and anyway, it was for an exclusive audience of 4. So I missed it.

V
There’s a large and grateful preamble by Jeff Stein listing all the contributing artists to this performance. There’s a huge video projection – video art. A being in a large chicken/rabbit suit made of white bin liners – feels like Donny Darko, that is, if Donny Darko’s dad was a chicken. There’s a book with a V on the cover. Chanting. Pulsing, hypnotic – an aria? Latin? pages are torn from the book of V… puffs of smoke hiss out of a sandstone building. It’s beautiful, mesmerizing and spectaular – and to me a comment on doctrine and history – but then again I’m not certain that’s the intention.

by this time the sky is the type of dark navy blue that often is mistaken for black… we walk down the hill… it’s time for beer and a bite to eat… and more art. I wait in line for food and beer say g’day to James Winter… say hello to Emily Morrison and Max Rapley… it’s light conversation until:

AWFUL LITERATURE IS STILL LITERATURE I GUESS
It’s the fun and cool Applespiel folk as they dance a dance of books – as thick, trashy tomes hang above us like the knotted ropes that hang off walls of a boot camp. They dance. They confess. They question. They explain. They’re patient when the drunk old guy starts singing into a microphone unexpectedly. They read erotic sections from trashy novels. They’re cool. I’m not. That’s ok. It’s something I am certain about.

There’s a wolf whistle and there on an inflatable couch is Caleb Lewis and Melissa Mathiesion. Sitting there, Scott Selkirk takes a photo of us sitting on the black inflatable couch – Michal Imielski, Melissa Mathison, Caleb Lewis and me… there’s an interesting chat about the failures of theatre brewing… but it’s time to see more art…

RUN!

SHIMA
And there it is…
A woman in a long white dress moves as the heavy machinery melts and warps behind her… a square of light… she wrestles with her own hypnosis. I’m breathless twice over. I find a seat, I settle down. On the seat. I settle in myself. It’s soothing. To watch her is to feel love for your own ability to see. Two artists from two very different islands – David Kirkpatrick (Australia) and Anna Kuroda (Japan) – create a visual expression about feeling home… sleep, restlessness, ritual, energetic boundlessness. The minute and lyrical detail of her hands -beautiful. The sound washes and hold us. We are alive in this moment as this figure glows and spins and weave… it feels… it feels.. it feels like pre-sleep thinking. She picks a posie of flowers light with LED lights and we watch. Dance and sound perfectly matched and married.

Afterwards congratulating David and Anna, chatting to Howard Matthew (Shopfront’s new co-Artistic Director), Saskia Vromans…

Marveling at the attendance – all the people I saw and spoke with, listened to, was helped or guided by, entertained by, exposed to… what an incredible community. What a breathtaking event… what a festival! What a celebration of art and expression and ideas and love and bravery and silliness and opportunity!

There is a feeling of uncertainty still washing over me… had my strategy been silly? What was it I just experienced? What did I think? What did I feel? What did I like? What does it mean? What is it for? Why do we do this, we humans? Who stand around standing and talking and pretending and making?

You know, I’m not completely certain about that either.

But there is one thing I am certain of – regardless of the reasons for and against, and the lines of enquiry, we (the arts community – punters and makers alike) are bound to each other through common experience of exaltation, joy, visual delight and also uncertainty.

And that is one of the most beautiful things I have come to realise.

No matter how tenuous and uncertain, life, art, career, love, friendship, stability is – art happens. And you’ll deal with it.

Comprising of three projects- Entitlement by Faustina Delany, Evol by Bits & Pieces (Joanna Erskine and Flip Nicol) and The Seance Project by Mark Pritchard and Sophie Webb, this is work which has been developed without any firm outcomes or performance indicators to answer to- this was time and space without restrictions and what was yielded was a fascinating adventure into the unique flavours of the developing artists.

Delany’s piece Entitlement was inspired by an excerpt from Baudelaire- “It is an immense joy to set up home in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of fugitive and the infinite. To be away from the home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home.”
In a room hemmed with people (more than seemingly anticipated as many sat cross legged on the floor) a woman in a slip lies on the floor witha square of light illuminating her torso- a pomegranate rests ontop. Within minutes a sound of an aeroplane landing- repeatedly- and we are locked in darkness. with only the faint green glow on the exit sign- she is naked and moves violently in the darkness we can hear her feet thudding the floor and her arms slapping in flailing desperation. Silence. She is clothed- the lights return. With some stunning imagery and a languid reading of a loveletter (or perhaps a farewell note) Delany’s piece was surprising and visually beautiful- a coil of salt created with a hard bristled broom which wound bigger and bigger with each circumnavigation only to be trampled carelessly underfoot. Alot of interesting moments which may have ressonated longer if we were allowed more time with them- as opposed to the momentary peepshow of the ideas. This is not usually my field (being such a text based obsessive) so having slightly browning pomegranate shoved into my mouth was surprisingly confronting- and I was confronted alot by this piece… but in a way which made me interrogate more rather than shut down.
Evol was next- a travelling multi-stationed adventure about Love and the miscommications that it can illicit. Lead by two group leaders around the space- Carolyn Eccles and Cameron Ellis the audience was divided- labelled, ranked and lead through a series of vignettes- puppetry , a monologue made of cliches, awkward kitchen flirtation, group painting session, the room of lost love and an audience blind folded dance sequence resulting in popcorn and movie night made of the lovestories of the people of Carlton (which was perhaps one of my favourite moments). A huge amount of work and many ideas were associated with this piece… again moments of audience invasion which seemed utterly appropriate since love is often a very invasive emotion/pursuit.

Finally we are solemnly ushered into a room for only the believers- a cabaret seance for Sophie Webb- a startlet, an actor cut down in her prime in New York who can only talk to our host who manages to channel Sophie’s talents… her singing, her piano playing, her tap dancing- her love for performing. A candle fringed room with a piano, and plastic roses- a few items of Sophie’s scattered amongst the audience (a dress, black jelly beans ). A seance with members of the audience- and a wall of headshots of Sophie. Leading us through the ritual of the seance and occasionally summoning Sophie is (hilariously) Sophie herself. We watch as though completely perverse- like those watching endless footage/news reportage of the announcement of Heath Ledger or Michael Jackson’s death… ending in a wholely breathtaking kareoke rendition of “I Will Always Love You”- this is cabaret kitch and self-referential entertainment which explodes the self-indulgentness of celebrity and starpower in an age when acting is synonymous with either celebrity or failure.

All in all- a wonderfully diverse night where we can see what is ticking over in the minds of some brilliant emerging artists… I’m glad I went. And I went not as a board member of Shopfront nor as a reviewer but as a curious punter. This was a fabulous acheivement of the YAK committee- namely David Kirkpatrick and Arnab Ahmed who did a stunning job -and I was utterly impressed with the quality and the smooth curation of the evening.