Welcome to the fourth and final issue of the VCAM enews for 2009, a year of significant evolution with the creation of the new Faculty of the VCA and Music. The year has also offered important challenges in our performance schedule as we bring together a rich blend of the many academic and performance outputs of our two “heritage” institutions.

As the academic year comes to a close, we are looking forward to exciting developments in 2010. I encourage you to attend some of the November and December screenings, exhibitions, concerts and performances featured in this newsletter which promise to reflect the diverse creative practice of this institution.

Professor Sharman Pretty

This year the School of Art will present two major exhibitions. The Graduate Exhibition comprises work by graduating students from Drawing, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture and Spatial Practice. This will be followed by an ambitious show of new work from the Master of Fine Art and Master of Visual Art programs. Read more >>

Graduate Exhibition 24 - 29 Nov
Masters Exhibition 8 - 13 Dec
Enter via the Margaret Lawrence Gallery, 40 Dodds St, Southbank
 

Over two weeks in December at ACMI cinemas, Film and Television present the 2009 premiere screenings of work by graduating students. This annual event features a compelling selection of short works in variety of genres including animation, documentary and drama.

10 - 13 & 17 - 20 Dec
ACMI Cinemas
Federation Square, Flinders St
Bookings: 03 8663 2583 or www.acmi.net.au
Enquiries: 03 9685 9000

On campus in November the Southbank Symphony presents our final orchestral concert for the year. Conducted by Marco van Pagee and Russell Davis, the classical program features rousing works by composers Mozart, Suk, Tomasi and Strauss. Read more >>
 

Thursday 19 Nov, 7.30pm
Space 28, Performing Arts Bldg
28 Dodds St, Southbank

body space time presents this year’s graduating dancers in a program featuring work by choreographers Sue Healey, Stephanie Lake, Antony Hamilton and Lina Limosani. This season, in collaboration with Production, is the culmination of the students’ practical training over the past three years. Read more >>

18 - 21 Nov, 8pm
Gasworks Arts Park

For the past four weeks, critically acclaimed New York-based Phantom Limb Company has been in residence at the School of Performing Arts working with production, puppetry and music composition students. Their creative development is based around the Phantom Limb production-in-development
69°S: The Shackleton Project. A showing, celebrating the shared process, will be presented on 7 November. Read more >>

Renowned Japanese printmaker Motoda Hisaharu has commenced a nine month residency at the printmaking studio in the School of Art. Hisaharu’s work explores the idea of the post-apocalyptic landscape and, after only two weeks in Melbourne, he has already started a work about Flinders St Station that imagines it years after a catastrophe has befallen the city. Read more >>

This annual celebration of Indigenous achievement will take shape in a luncheon at the Wilin Centre on Thursday 10 December. Outstanding jazz vocalist and Honours student Liz Cavanagh will perform, and the recipients of the 2010 Arthur Papadimitriou and Yvonne Cohen awards will be announced, honouring the creativity of Indigenous Australian youth.

In late November, London-based choreographer Wendy Houstoun is visiting the Faculty, as part of the 2009 Simplot International Masterclass Series, to share her artistry and expertise with students and alumni. Wendy’s practice is contemporary and innovative, exploring the intersections between text, movement and moving image. She will present Keep Dancing, a solo performance on 5 & 6 December. Information will be posted on the website as it becomes available.

The Graduate Dance Performance Season brings together five explorations as Claire Rosenhain, Gareth Hart, Ma Li, Andrea Patriau Hildebrandt and Rachel Vogel present their distinctive approaches to the creation of live performance.
4 – 6 November.
 

Masters of Theatre Practice students: Rinske Ginsberg, Sapidah Kian and Samara Hersch present three new contemporary works, linked by their different explorations of families in crisis and the terror which can be veiled by domesticity. 3 – 7 November.
More info >>

Keep an eye out on our website in December for the Master of Music and Master of Music Performance Recitals, happening at both Southbank and Parkville campuses.

Directed by Bagryana Popov

Win one of three double passes to Progress and Melancholy on Friday 20 Nov at 8pm, email vcam-enews to win!
 

A poetic new physical theatre work based on Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. This project ventures into new territory in that it brings together new performance and dance with a classic theatre text. Marrying the non-narrative beauty of dance with the emotionally connected power of theatre, Progress and Melancholy is humourous, fresh and surprising.
 

19 – 29 November
fortyfivedownstairs
45 Flinders Lane
www.fortyfivedownstairs.com

The NGV are pleased to offer VCA and Music Alumni concession priced exhibition entry ($7) to Ricky Swallow: The Bricoleur.

Follow this link to download the voucher for this offer.

School of Art alumnus and internationally acclaimed for his exquisitely crafted wood-carving, Swallow’s work pays tribute to the everyday, exploring themes of life and death, time and its passing, mortality and immortality.
 

16 October – 28 February 2010
The Ian Potter Centre
NGV Australia
Federation Square
www.ngv.vic.gov.au
 

Brett Dean’s 2009 Grawemeyer Award-winning violin concerto.
 

ANAM is delighted to offer VCAM student rush tickets for $15, available on the night, half an hour before the performance.
 

A deeply-felt composition, each movement is based on an excerpt from a letter written in the 19th century including Ned Kelly’s famous Jerilderie letter.
Haydn Symphony No. 82 in C major The Bear
Ligeti Cello Concerto
Brett Dean The Lost Art of Letter Writing - Australian premiere

21 November, 8pm
South Melbourne Town Hall
210 Bank Street, Sth Melbourne
www.anam.com.au

by Guy Rundle and Max Gillies

Win one of two double passes to Godzone on Sat 26 Dec at 4pm, email vcam-enews to win!

There’s a fervour in the revivalist tent, where Reverend Kevin of Rudd Ministries, in a sermon from the German translated via Mandarin, tells his congregation that religion is the new politics and vice versa. Max Gillies has been pricking pomp and slaughtering sacred cows for decades. In Godzone his trail of destruction continues with a new cast of victims.

5 December – 17 January 2010
Sumner Theatre

www.mtc.com.au