MonthJune 2021

I’ve Been Meaning to Ask You – The Street Canberra

Thursday 8th to Saturday 10th July 2021, 7:30pm
Saturday 10 July at 3pm
60 minutes
Q&A with Creative Team from The Good Room on 10 July at 6.30pm

I’ve Been Meaning to Ask You is a joyous and revealing one hour tell-all that tackles life’s big (and little) questions, designed in collaboration with, and performed by, young people.

The Street and Canberra Youth Theatre have joined to bring award-winning performance collective The Good Room to Canberra with their show full of questions asked by young people and answered by adults. Eighteen talented young people chosen from 50 auditionees bring the voices and ideas of young Canberrans to the stage in a genuine exchange between generations.

Barbie spoke with Cienda McNamara, Resident Director of The Good Room (pictured above)
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R.W.R. McDonald – Nancy Business

Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2021

Like The Nancys, the first in this crime series, Nancy Business delivers dark crimes in a small rural setting – murder, corruption and character assassination for a start.

But, and here’s the crucial thing, the story is driven by such clever humour and such likeable unlikely heroes that we have trouble feeling too appalled by the darkness.

Author R.W.R. McDonald talks about Nancy Business
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Wilding: The Secret Life of Urban Plants

A Tuggeranong Arts Centre Public Program
Postponed until further notice because of COVID restrictions – see TAC website

Wilding includes a wild edibles foraging workshop and a symposium on human relationships with nature.

Barbie spoke with Diego Bonetto about his wild edibles foraging workshop
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From the Vine – Film Review

Drama/comedy
English with some subtitled Italian language
Rated M, 94 minutes
Now showing at Palace Electric, Canberra

Lawyer and automotive company executive Mark Gentile takes a stand against a corporate policy he finds unethical. He resigns his job and ecides to travel to his childhood home, the tiny village of Acerenza in Southern Italy, to visit the vineyard where he grew up, finding it in a state of disrepair.

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Mandy Foot – Lucy and Copper

Lothian Books, Hachette, Australia, 2021

Artist-writer Mandy Foot has tackled some interesting and important issues in this beautifully presented work.

The surface story is of a little girl growing up and having to stop riding her beloved pony. The application of this to a wider context is clear – we all have to cope with change and loss and to support others as they do so. Lucy’s Pa is a gentle adult figure in the story guiding her through the difficult path to acceptance and the finding of new joy.

Mandy Foot talks to Barbie about Lucy and Copper
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Irma Gold and Susannah Crispe: Where The Heart Is

EK Books, an imprint of Exisle Publishing, Australia, 2021

This book is a perfect example of the capacity of the picture book to both enchant and inform us. Based on the true story of a remarkable relationship between a Magellanic penguin Called Din dim and Joao, the man who rescued him after an oil spill, Where The Heart Is is on first reading  a love story.

Irma Gold and Susannah Crispe talk about Where The Heart Is
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Invocation – creative development showing

Belconnen Arts Centre
8pm Saturday 26 June 2021
Suitable for all ages
1 hour, no interval

Invocation is an end-of-residency creative development about climate change, by Earthbound, a collaboration which brings together dance, visual arts, storytelling and music.

Eathbound’s five artists are the inaugural recipients of Belco Art’s Rhizome Performing Arts Residency.

Richard spoke to performer Glenda Cloughley and theatre consultant Elizabeth Cameron Dalman about Invocation
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Sharon Field – Only this and nothing more

Suki & Hugh Gallery
Bungendore NSW
Until 25 July 2021
Confirm opening hours with the gallery;  phone 02 6238 1398

Titled from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven, the works in this exhibition are from Sharon Field’s home studio in the rural setting of Burra, inspired by the local landscape.  

They carry a message of environmental conservation, speaking of the human bond with the plants, animals and insects around us. The exhibition questions how well life around us will survive with the impact of global warming and the actions of people more generally.

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Canberra connection for new Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre

Living Arts Canberra congratulates Daniel Riley on his appointment as Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre. He succeeds the long serving (22 years) Garry Stewart (pictured) at the end of 2021.

A Wiradjuri man, Daniel began contemporary dance as a 12 year-old at the invitation of ADT’s founder and first Artistic Director, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM, in Canberra. Elizabeth and her colleague Vivienne Rogis suggested that Daniel apply to Canberra based QL2 (then Quantum Leap).

Barbie talks to Ruth Osborne, Artistic Director of QL2 Dance Canberra, about Daniel Riley
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Win a family pass to Cranston Academy – Monster Zone

Rated PG
Running time 80 minutes
In cinemas from 24 June 2021
email [email protected] to win family passes

Bullied for his intelligence and struggling to fit in at school, Danny is a 15-year-old genius who is always coming up with crazy inventions. When he is unexpectedly offered a scholarship to Cranston Academy, a secret, prestigious boarding school for geniuses, Danny views it as a place where his intelligence will be recognised and where he will have a chance to fit in.

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Catherine McCullagh – Secrets and Showgirls

Big Sky Publishing, Australia, 2021

Catherine McCullagh’s fictionalised history joins a swathe of current works about the WW2 European experience under the Nazis. Whilst set in a Paris cabaret, Le Prix d’Amour, it interests itself largely with how the ‘normal citizen’ coped with the many privations and difficulties of Vichy France, at the time of the German Occupation and then under its total control.

Barbie talks to Catherine McCullagh about Secrets and Showgirls
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Arnan Wiesel – Clavichord Recital in Gunning

Sunday 18 July 2021, 2pm to 4.30pm
Gunning Courtroom, 101 Yass Street, Gunning NSW

Yass resident and internationally-known musician Arnan Wiesel plays J.S. Bach’s favourite keyboard instrument in this recital.  Wiesel will play a modern reproduction of Joseph Haydn’s circa 1790 instrument and will present the music of J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, Johann Forkel and others. 

The Courtroom’s acoustics and ambience are a perfect fit for the clavichord in this intimate concert.

There is a strict limit of 35 patrons for this performance.  Booking strongly advised.

GOLD 10th anniversary dance performances

Saturday 19 June 2021, 2.00-4.00pm at the National Portrait Gallery
Saturday 7 August 2021, 2.00-3.30 pm at Belconnen Arts Centre
Wednesday 18 August 2021, 2.00-3.30 pm Tuggeranong Arts Centre 
Wednesday 1 September 2021, 2.00-3.30 pm at COTA Hall, Hughes Community Centre

The GOLDs are a Canberra Dance Theatre dance class and performance group for movers and non-movers who are over 55. The focus is on fitness, mobility, sociability and creativity.

To celebrate their 10th anniverary, the GOLD dancers will be performing at a number of venues in Canberra to promote the benefits of dance for seniors. GOLD actively challenges stereotypes of older people and espouses the philosophy that dance is not just for the young!

Barbie talks to dancer Penny Richards and artistic director of Canberra Dance Theatre, Jacqui Simmonds
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