Marcel Proust

"Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees."

Quartetthaus.

I have just managed to squeeze in two last events before the Melbourne Arts Festival concluded.

Provocateur: The Rebellious Text. The final in a series of rehearsed readings of radical and politically inspired modern playwrights. The '7 Stages of Grieving' featuring Wesley Enngoch, presented an Indigenous woman's experience of grief, lose and "that feeling of... of nothing... just nothing".

Then Quartetthaus.

For the benign passer by, the Quartetthaus venue situated outside the Malthouse, Chunky Moves and ACCA courtyard in Southbank looked like a contemporary art installation. Or simply a featureless wooden crate. Inside, however the atmosphere was instantly captivating, intriguing and suspenseful. As black theatrical curtains slowly shifted, the audience eagerly entered the arena and sat in an intimate circle around a slowly moving central stage, inches away from the string quartet.The whole experience created an engaging rapport with the three memorable ensembles and the students from the Australian National Academy of Music. The most heart stirring piece for me was Jean Sibelius (1865 - 1957): String Quartet in D minor, op. 56 "Voces intimae".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA5dl88BM30

Interviews with the musicians from Quartetthaus.
http://vimeo.com/29761921
http://vimeo.com/29994035

Forecast of 30 degrees

It's mid October and already the temperature is scheduled to soar to 30 degrees. I can't believe it! I'm so excited and so ready for summer' sun kissed bliss and alfresco play-time....

New beginnings

... through the lens of the Intensive Care Unit.

Site Unseen

Tonight I participated in the Melbourne Arts Festival "Site Unseen" project.

As the glorious sun set over the beach of St Kilda and people gathered to bathe in the sunshine and evening delight, I joined a group of thespians and humanitarians on a journey into the lives of homeless people. A moving and thought provoking experience.
Site Unseen

http://www.siteunseen.com.au/ 

Journeys of love and more love

Created by motiroti

Writer, director, videographer & performer Ali Zaidi

For the Melbourne Arts Festival "Journeys of love and more love", we entered the Art House in North Melbourne and took our seats at an elegant dinner table adajecent to a large video screen illustrating kaleidoscopic frangipani. The ambience created made participants feel as though they were a guest at a close friends wedding.

Then Journeys of Love's creator Ali Zaidi (''Indian by birth, Pakistani by migration and British by chance'') welcomes us and begins to walk about the room telling us his story. His journey from Bombay to Lahore to London is interlaced with vivid and emotional evocations of people and accompanyed by documentary footage, family photos and interviews with international histroians, philopshers who discuss their views on food, love, migration and cultural identity.

The evening was presented in three parts; growing up as the middle child in India, acting in his director-father's movies in Pakistan, and his ''coming out'' after moving to London.

During the interludes Zaidi invites us to sample some of cu.sines from his history and experiences. Delicious selections of oriental food, exquisitely prepared, aromatically nuanced and beautifully shaped. Most signifantly, the sharing of food weaved a special magic and by the end of the evening, we started conversing with fellow companions at our table about our experiences and personal journeys.

Clarity unfolds

Sometimes, we need to be careful what we wish for.