Darebin City Council has released the Autumn program for FUSE, Darebin’s new biannual arts festival. The line-up spans an impressive array of artistic events, performances, and exhibitions that embrace and reflect the Darebin community. FUSE is a unique festival that moves in step with our times, connecting contemporary art to a growing and changing community in ways that inspire, inform, entertain, gratify and provoke.
The FUSE program includes 20 events across live music, visual arts, and performance that showcase Darebin’s dynamic hub of creativity from Thursday 11 – Sunday 28 March 2021.
“I’m delighted to announce that, for FUSE Autumn 2021, a range of exciting, COVID-safe events and performances have been programmed and can be enjoyed by audiences in real life. The program brings together a fabulous array of events, from theatre, the visual arts, music and more. FUSE continues to support our local artists and our local community. This festival truly is a celebration of our creative community,” said Darebin Mayor Councillor Lina Messina.
FUSE is a multi-arts festival that promotes First Nation artists, is artist led with bold and contemporary offerings and celebrates the vibrant cultural diversity in Darebin.
Festival highlights include:
Paradise Lots, 19 – 21 March, 7pm. Location: Darebin Carpark, free
We’re creating a new world order. It looks just like the one you created. It still has concrete and cars. It still has money and hunger and greed. It still has slurpees. But it’s not your world. This world was born from the one you watched die.
Experimental theatre company Pony Cam is teaming up with a group of young artists to transform an urban car park into a large-scale performance space. Paradise Lots is an experience trapped between teenage cynicism and middle-aged optimism.
The Art of Storytelling in Song, 19 March, 7pm. Reservoir Bowls Club, free
Mick Thomas (Weddings, Parties, Anything) and Jessica Lloyd (Mission Songs Project) will perform will be in conversation with ABC Radio’s Jacinta Parsons on how songwriters tell their story, and how this differs from other art forms. They will also share some wonderful musical interludes.
Suburban Vintage, 20 – 27 March. Darebin Arts Centre, free
A suburban winery beyond the doorstep, this exhibition celebrates the link between wine, culture and the migrant experience. Award-winning Darebin photographer Laki Sideris visited the homes of regular entrants in Darebin’s homemade wine competition. Illuminating the personalities of these talented makers, he captures their joy in honouring their traditional skills. The result is beautifully atmospheric work that is part portraiture and part documentary.
Enlightenment, 10-20 March, Northcote Town Hall, tickets $25-35
Part romantic comedy, part crime saga, and part cosmic fever dream, Enlightenment is a dark, hilarious and moving parable from one of Australia’s true renegade artists. Don’t miss its premiere production by acclaimed Melbourne theatre makers Elbow Room, designed by Perth artist Cherish Marrington, and featuring illustrations by renowned artist and activist 巴丢草 (Badiucao), the subject of ‘China’s Artful Dissident’. Performed in English with Mandarin surtitles.
I liked it, but I didn’t know what the #@!% it was about, 24-27 March, Wesley Anne
A performance-cum-conversation with Aboriginal artist and raconteur Joel Bray. Modelled on the successful ‘Politics in the Pub’, “I Liked it…” will bring the familiar – drinking a beer at Darebin’s much-loved Wesley Anne – to demystify the unfamiliar – contemporary arts. He’ll pull back the curtain on how work is made, why it’s important and how to ‘read’ it; releasing potential audiences from their fears of ‘not getting it’ and empowering them to be curious.
Local Darebin musical duo Come Heavy Sleep will play songs, and chat together about making art, COVID times and share a dance-and-music improv jam.
TAKEBACK! 27 March, 6pm and 8.30pm, Northcote Town Hall, free
Women, femmes and gender-diverse people of colour often experience micro aggressions, full blown harassment, verbal abuse and intimidation in public spaces, both digital and physical.
TAKEBACK! is a new multi-platform arts project examining and dismantling the racialised gaze. TAKEBACK! is a collective intervention- reclaiming space, voice, visibility and truth-telling. It brings performers, visual artists, writers, theatre-makers, cabaret stars, poets, lyricists, videographers and filmmakers together to create a fierce, full-bodied response to the everyday aggression of patriarchy and white supremacy. With live performances and digital content.
A Fight for Survival, 20-27 March Northern College of the Arts & Technology, free
A Fight for Survival is collective story about Aboriginal Identity, resilience and celebration. The Exhibition presents photographs, artworks from former students, and other historical material from the period and reflects on why this school meant so much to so many people.
FUSE is a merging of Darebin’s previous major festival events and, running annually every Autumn and Spring, invites artists to develop their work over multiple seasons.
The full program will be available on 18 February 2021.
FUSE Darebin – Autumn Festival 2021 will be in the City of Darebin from Thursday 11 – Sunday 28 March 2021. For more information visit https://www.fusedarebin.com.au/
