Soon more media people arrived, e.g television channels, planning on filming for a short advertising clip. There was another photographer there, from another local tv channel. The crew and dancers discussed what routines they were going to go through.

The lights dimmed and the dancers got into position, at this time, there were two dancers doing one specific intimate scene, they did it again and again until we, the media, were happy with the lighting/ got good shots. It was great, an entire theater were stopping things for me? Cool! I felt selfish even considering such a thing.

That particular scene passed, and the next group of performers where ready to do their part. This time there was no chatting between people in the audience. The dancers moved elegantly to the music for a good 5-10 minutes. They repeated it again and again, with different lighting and different positions, for our preference.

As we were leaving the woman who invited us to the media session, invited us to come along to the real, official show that night. With two free tickets! Hellzyeah! We were super psyched and thanked her heaps.

We took my ratty car from Palmerston, to the city that night, to see the show. I didn’t think my car would make it there and back. We left at 7.10 to make it at 8.00. We got there late, unfortunately, halfway through, almost at the end of the introduction performance. We took our seats, trying as least as possible to disturb the near audience. I saw a brief performance of two pacific girls doing cultural dances and then the audience applauded.

The lady sitting next to us told us we’d missed out on the brilliant introduction. But that was all okay after seeing the next hour of performance. There was a very brief break and small chattering, then the lights dimmed. The curtain was raised. The intense music began slowly and everyone suddenly went quiet. The lighting was focused on particular dancers, doing synchronized moves. And lone dancers in the background, moving at the same pace as each other.

An hour later I was in aw, and it’s obvious the rest of the audience felt the same. The clapping went on for a good five minutes. People stood up, whistled, cheered. The show I had just seen was definitely deserving of such a welcoming audience. It was great to watch, and behind that was a confusing, intense story unwinding, a mind teaser.

All in all, I had a great experience and am very appreciative of seeing such a wonderful group of dancers. It was entirely synchronized with not a foot out of step. I highly recommended seeing these guys if you ever get the chance, you can check their website out here:

www.sydneydancecompany.com

Thanks for reading guys!

FUN RUN is a scintilating mix of spectator sport and overblown comedic theatre in which the character Humphrey (played by Tristan) runs a gruelling 42km on a treadmill, a symbolic representation of the ancient Greek story of Pheidippedes. For more information on FUN RUN and other Festival happenings, head to www.darwinfestival.org.au

What made you become an actor and visual artist?

Um… yeah. It’s not… it’s something that I’ve always thought about doing, so I’m not too sure that I really had a choice. I’m no good at anything else, so I have to do those things! I’ve sort of been born to do all of that sort of stuff and love performing and creating things that sort of change people.

What do you try to achieve with your art?

Well, especially with FUN RUN it’s about trying to connect. Different community groups and artists and audiences together, in an event that transcends the everyday so that they have an experience that is a bit of something out of this world. So that they take home things that they can really resonate with.

Wow, that sounds Great! I n your opinion what are the best paths for a young actor to take after finishing school?

Well… I’ve taken a different path in that. My path is now more about theatre-making. I am more of a theatre-maker and director as opposed to actor, but, I think it’s about continuing doing what you love, so that you always create your own opportunities – and that’s how you can get a lot of work.

So you’re on the JUMP mentoring program website as an artist – can you tell us some more about that?

It’s a program that’s run through the Australia Council that you can apply for – I think there’s applications going up fairly shortly – it’s about being able to choose someone that you like to work with closely and it’s open to people throughout Australia.

Are you a mentor or a mentee?

I’m being mentored by someone who I work quite closely with. It’s open to anyone under 30 in the first couple of years of their practise – I’ve chosen to enter that project so that I can work closely with someone who I really respect, who is actually the producer of FUN RUN. She’s the choreographer in Melbourne, Bec Reid, and it’s really just an opportunity so that we can work together in a more intimate and close way.

So talk us through the FUN RUN and how the idea came up.

The show is called FUN RUN, it’s an outdoor spectacle for the whole family. We set up a large outdoor sporting stadium, with huge LED walls, lights fireworks and all things grand and ridiculous, and in the middle of the sporting stadium is a treadmill, with a character that is attempting to run a marathon. It’s like what happened in the original story of Pheidippides where he ran a marathon to Athens. So we’re trying to mirror that story.

But it’s really a community arts project in that we involve a whole lot of groups form Darwin; we have dancers, performers, people from Monkeybar Gymnasium, and Fernwood Fitness, and Traxx Dance. It’s a real celebration of endurance but also spectacle.

Have you been to Darwin before?

Yeah, a couple of times, I can’t remember the exact dates, ’97, something like that… Been there about three times I think.

How do you feel about the status of the Saints as one of Australia’s seminal rock bands?

Gee… It’s not something you can go into knowing how these things are going to pan out. I formed the Saints when I was in high school, and it was what I wanted to do then, and it kind of lasted even after the original band split up, after my involvement in the band finished. Those records didn’t disappear… Yeah, they have had some kind of resonance….

Yeah, I bought I’m Stranded on vinyl the other day actually…

Oh really? Yeah probably in a lot of ways those recordings, it’s the best way to hear them, on record. I don’t know, it’s something about music that’s made at a particular time, and the way it goes with the media that’s contemporary to it. Yeah, they sound good on record.

Yeah look, has [The Saints] impacted on me in music that I’ve done outside of it? I mean most of my life has been outside of The Saints. I formed the Saints in 1973 in my last year of high school, and the band split up in 1978. So we’re talking about something that is ancient history in some ways; the fact that people are even still connected with it is fantastic – it astounds me that it could have lasted that long. But most of my life has been doing something else.

I hear the Saints stuff occasionally, and I think, “s*** that sounds good”. I don’t think about it in terms of “that’s me”, just as something else almost.

What do you think the most important changes in the music industry since you started playing?

Oh, there’s always changes happening. Some things kind of stay the same: it’s always been a hard job to do to make money, to make a living out of. That hasn’t really changed. I guess the things that have stayed the same are probably more profound than the things that have changed.

One thing I suppose that is significantly different now is that when The Saints started, one of the things we did that we were credited for is doing things ourselves. We were probably one of the first bands in the country to release our own record.

Nowadays you say that to somebody and they shrug and “say so what? Everyone does that.“ And that’s true – a lot of people do that now, but back then it was fairly unique, in fact it was completely unique. So that’s a big change.

The perception of the control that record companies had, because the Saints proved that you could do it anyway. You’ve always been able to do that, but now that more people are doing it… In some ways things haven’t really changed, it’s just the numbers of people that do things differently have shifted.

Can you talk a bit about what inspired the changes between genres you’ve made over the years? You moved from punk to jazz influenced post punk with the Laughing Clowns, and then to grunge and all sorts of other things with The Aints and more….

When I moved to England with the Saints, we moved there I guess to enable ourselves to continue recording, one of the things I kind of got exposed to when I was living in London was a whole lot of music that I wasn’t too familiar with, growing up in Brisbane. I just ended up with some things which I guess you could loosely call Jazz – but I’m hesitant to use that term because I know it’s one of those musical terms that gives people the wrong idea. The Laughing Clowns were not jazz. Whatever people’s interpretation of ‘jazz’ is, we weren’t it. And yet there were some things that were influenced by avant-garde jazz, which was sort of incorporated in the sound.

I guess it was more a development of what I was doing in the Saints. I mean, if you listen to the first album, and then listen to the second, and by the time you get the the third one, you kind of see a line developing towards the Laughing Clowns first album. To me it was just a fairly logical continuation of ideas that I was pursuing. Maybe some people thought I was jumping around a bit, but it was just that a lot was done in a short period of time. It becomes more cohesive as you step back from it.

After the Clowns broke up I went through a slight re-appraisal of what I wanted to do as a solo musician. In the Clowns I would always write songs with the band members in mind. But when The Clowns split up I could write anything I wanted to, without having to write a horns line or whatever it was. That’s kind of been my approach ever since.

With the Aints, that was sort of a little side project really, where I wanted to take some ideas that I thought I hadn’t developed enough from the early Saints and Clowns days. I never saw the Aints as a grunge band really, it was more like, if The Aints was influenced by anything it was by The Saints or The Laughing Clowns.

What have been your best moments or proudest achievements in your music career?

Oh, look, there’s kind of a lot of them. And then I kind of feel s***ty because I don’t remember all of them, or don’t regard them all equally. But I guess, when I did the first record, that was kind of a high point. When I did the first recordings in a fairly good studio in London that was a high point. Yeah, it just various bits and pieces, there are a number of things that I’m proud of, but I don’t dwell on it too much. Maybe that’s something I’ll do when I retire or something.

So what can we expect at the show ‘Rearranged’?

The show we’re doing in Darwin is myself and Mark Dawson, Mark plays drums. It’s going to be kind of loosely based around a recording that we did quite some years ago called Today Wonder, which is sort of treated acoustic guitar, vocals and drums. It’s an ambient acoustic thing, I think I’m quoted as having described it as ambient rockabilly and in a way that’s kind of accurate. It sounds like itself really, I’m not sure I can refer it directly to anything else that I’ve done. It was an important record for me, so we’re drawing on a bit of that stuff, but not exclusively. The main thing is that we’re playing a range of songs with that instrumentation arrangement. I think we’ve got a few local Darwinians joining us on backup vocals as well.

You were fairly young when you started The Saints and released I’m Stranded. What sort of advice would you give to a young band these days?

Oh man, I think there’s always a lot of people who are going to tell you you can’t do things, it’s hard, but you have to have a strong belief in what you want to be doing artistically. You just need to pursue it; if you feel you’re right, there’s a good chance you are. When The Saints started there were a lot of people who basically told me ‘you can’t play guitar, the songs are s***house, the worst load of rubbish I’ve ever heard’ and you know, maybe all that stuff’s true, but we continued, kind of made a thing about it.

Last weekend GRINDonline caught up with Scott Maidment the co-creator of Cantina, the fantastic circus show at the Darwin Festival this year (read GRINDonline’s review here). Scott is also the artistic director of Strut n Fret Production House; the company that produced the show.

There are still a few performances of Cantina left, so hurry up and get some tickets at www.darwinfestival.org.au

How did the show start out?

Basically we do shows in all different types of places, like tents, and this (The Lighthouse) is like a tent, so we wanted to create a show that had a really wide audience and this was the one we came up with.

What can you tell audiences to expect at Cantina?

Cantina is like a circus so there’s great actrobatics, there’s tricks, there’s tightrope walking that happens in the first five minutes of the show! There’s heaps of great music so the acts are linked by the theme and the feel, and the world of Cantina.

What was the inspiration for the show?

The inspiration was, imagine that the Cantina is a bar or a place to be, for all these characters to meet, and it’s about the intertwining relationships, and the love and lives of all the different characters that inhabit this bar, the Cantina.

Let’s talk about the music in the show. What sort of quirky instruments are used?

We’ve got a pianola, which is like a piano that you don’t play with your fingers; it has a scroll that runs through it. We’ve got a musical saw, ukuleles, we’ve got old fashioned music boxes, we’ve got all kinds of crazy percussion instruments so there’s a whole range of old fashioned instruments. As well as, the musician has made his own guitar, which is played in the show.

What’s it like to work with the cast and crew?

The cast are really focused as performers – some of them have been doing circus acts since they were five years old, so they’ve had years and years of training. We’re really excited about this show because we’re playing here in Darwin, and then we’re going straight to Europe, then we’ll come back to Australia and back to Europe again all in the next few months.

It’s a pretty exciting lifestyle but it is hard work for the acrobats – it’s a really intense show – and it’s a really dangerous show.

What’s it like playing in different areas? I mean, Darwin would be different from Melbourne, and Melbourne different from Europe…

Absolutely. I guess one of the things are that while people are really different, and the places are really different, everyone’s a person, at the end of the day. There’s not really any language in the show, or any talking, so it talks in a physical vocabulary – which is the circus acts. Everybody is really excited once they see the show, and it’s great to be able to take the show to these different places and have such a great response.

How’s the rehearsal process? Is it very physically (or emotionally) exhausting?

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things we’ve found is the more shows we do, the more we really need to allow time for the cast to rest, and not exert themselves too much, because it is a really emotionally charged show, as well as a really physical one.

So all in all, how has the tour been going so far?

Touring has it’s challenges, because not only are you in new cities every week sometimes, but you’re touring with the same people – living in each other’s pockets. That’s a skill in itself, but luckily we’re touring the show to lots of exciting places, so that’s really amazing. You get to see a lot of the world, so that’s cool.

Are there any highlights that we should really look out for at Cantina?

I would look out for the tightrope that happens in the first five minutes of the show, that’s amazing. And it ends with people walking on broken glass, so there’s a lot of cool stuff in the show.

Thanks heaps for the interview Scott.

Cheers guys.

The play starts with the ‘Kelly’, Ken Lee, played by Kin Leong, who begins to set up a small Chinese Ceremony. However, he is interrupted by Marshall Cookson, a descendant of James Cook, who is following a trail across the top end of Australia that his descendant was alleged to have taken. The pair begins discussion of their ancestors, and the audience is treated to a showing of Ned Kelly himself, played by Nick Powers, and James Cook, played by Daniel Cunningham.

Before their discussion can get much further, Queen Elizabeth, played by Gail Evans, interrupts them. Initially thought of as crazy, the pair realise they are in fact dealing with royalty. Jess Devereux, playing the younger version of the queen, shows the audience the last time she was in the Northern Territory. As the play continues, each of the three main characters discuss their ancestors, or themselves, and what they have to do with the Territory. Meanwhile, dancers act out the past events the trio are discussing, resulting in a dynamic dance play, a show which few criticisms can be made of.

So, while the play has stopped showing, there are still a few events left in the festival calendar of similar calibre, and there will be future shows from Dance Tracks NT. Hope to see you there!

Another year, another Darwin Festival. And the festival’s line up is looking bigger and better than last year’s frankly awesome line up. We managed not only to get a sneak preview on the festival’s program, we also managed to get an interview with Joe Duffy, the artistic director of the festival. There is also a snippet of what to expect from the festival as well, which we have put together into a short clip so you can see what Joe Duffy has to say and the interesting performance.

So what about the line up itself? Well, there are sorts of things, from the comedic genius of former ROVE Corinne Grant to the famous names of music like John Butler Trio and The Cat Empire, just to name a few. There are 75 events, 47 of them involve artists from around here! Similar to last year, there are plenty of free events, like Dancing in the sand, and the famous Teddy’s Bear picnic makes a return. There are dancers from all over the world as well as people from local areas. And aimed squarely at the youth of Darwin, events such as Silent Disco, Hip Hop battle and an all new event, En Route, based around mobile phones and IPods. All this will happen between 12th and the 29th August in Festival Park, otherwise known as Civic park, with the lighthouse, in the amphitheatre and other places. Tickets are to be sold online, and from box offices in DEC, Festival park and other places, so look out for places that sell tickets.

So watch, Grinders, and see you at the festival! And check out their website

Josefina: So Elana, is this your first time in Darwin?

Elana: Nah, we were here last year with a show called Broad which was run by Deborah Conway. So we were all together doing a show and playing each other’s music. It was amazing, I think we did two nights and then they asked me to come back.

Josefina: Awesome, so do you like Darwin?

Elana: Aha, yep. Haven’t really seen heaps of it apart from the festival but tomorrow we’re going to Litchfield on a ‘tour’ of some sort.

Josefina: Sounds like fun! So when did you decide you wanted to become a musician?

Elana: Ummm I don’t know, I’ve been playing since I was about five.

Josefina: Wow, singing since you were five. Did you play any instruments at that time?

Elana: Yeah I played piano. What about you Brian?

Brian: I decided I wanted to be a professional musician when I quit a job doing stage set-up for 50cent and bands like that. I just got tired of doing it so I recorded a lot of songs, played a lot of gigs and started performing a lot more.

Josefina: Nice. So who are your biggest musical influences?

Elana: Well both me and Brian really like this Canadian singer, piano player, song writer called Rufus Wainwright. Other than that it’s pretty much all the people that I play with, people like Brian, my brother who is a musician, and just a lot of really good friends who are really good musicians. And of course bands like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.

Josefina: What about you Brian?

Brian: Pretty much the same, except I’m really into metal.

Elana: Yeah Brian’s really into metal!

Brian: I am, I really like the technical side of metal… Sorry that’s my phone.

Josefina: It’s alright, it’s a really laid back interview, something about sitting on the grass makes it seem that way.

Elana: Yeah true! I’ve done interviews in the morning whilst still in bed.

Brian: Hung over and all. They get pretty bad.

Josefina: Haha! So what’s it like playing and working with different people? Does everyone get along?

Elana: Oh, sometimes? Yeah, that is, I found, the biggest challenge in making music and I’m sure it’s the same in other bands because in some situations bands seem to be like family, but sometimes it’s really intense because it’s a money making situation, so it’s almost like having a family business. My experience with my band has been that were incredibly close to the point where two members of the band have married now.

Josefina: Oh that’s nice.

Elana: Yeah because we’ve been through a lot together, we’ve been in Europe and we’ve all been broke, so it’s a matter of working out what role you take in the band, like in my band I’m the band leader so you have to be really clear about your ideas but also open to other people’s ideas and personalities. I’m in Brian’s band.

Brian: She plays the accordion.

Elana: Yeah so in that case I have to take orders as well.

Brian: I’ve only just formed a band. I’ve been playing by myself for six years and playing gigs as much as I can. When I gave up that job in stage crew I gave up everything, I just stopped working. I was just music, music, music all the time, which meant I was broke and ringing up people and going “hey can I borrow fifty bucks?” So I didn’t have anyone telling me what to do. Then you start forming a band and you realize that when you’re a band leader you have to find some way of working with people and their personalities, people who are in many cases divas, they want certain things to go a certain way and if they don’t get, I don’t know, a foot massage, they start getting frustrated. And know I’ve started a whole bunch of other bands that I play in and you realize just how big the difference is in being in a band and playing by yourself.

Josefina: So what has been the peak of your career? Like the best moment you’ve had so far?

Elana: Wow. You can go first Brian.

Brian: Yeeahh… (Starts eating again)

Elana: Hasn’t happened yet. It’s like when I look into your eyes on stage.

Brian: Sometimes I cry when you do that. (If you guys haven’t figured it out yet, they are very much a couple)

Elana: Umm I did this gig. I was at home cleaning my room and I got this call from Felix from the Cat Empire saying ‘we’ve had someone fall out, we’re on in two hours, do you think you can come and sit in with the band?’

Josefina: Wow!

Elana: And I was like “(censored) absolutely.” so I went and sang in front of like 2000 people just ‘sitting in’ for the cat empire. Their amazing musicians because they can just pick something up and do things on the fly and it was amazing, probably one of the best moments, just with the crowd, a big crowd can be really amazing, if they’re all on your side it’s just the best feeling. But then you have amazing little gigs where you’re just playing to ten people and it’s really cool. It just feels like all the rhythms are right and everything is just happening in the right way.

Brian: I thought of mine. My best moment was probably the first time I heard my song play on the radio. Weirdest thing ever and it felt awesome.

Josefina: When was that?

Brian: I was driving to work. I was working at a law firm at the time. I was driving at seven in the morning, eyeballs glazed and all, turned on the radio and I was like “Oh, it’s me.” That was a really cool thing. I mean I’ve never had my stuff played before and hearing that I was like “Oh, that car next to me might be listening to it!” But the guy was just picking his nose, and I was like “Nah. That’s not me.”

Josefina: So what is the best part about being a musician?

Brian: The fact that you can do what you like doing all the time, regardless of the work you have to do and knowing that the amount of work you put into it is worth it as opposed to say, working for wall mart.

Elana: Wall mart?

Brian: Where you could work your ass off and still not feel like your actually getting anywhere. Sometimes it might not seem like you’re getting anywhere, but regardless you know that it’s worth…

Elana: The effort.

Josefina: And you Elana?

Elana: Umm… I like having friends that I can play music with and going away with them, like coming to Darwin for 4 days with my really good friends, going on tours really fun, so much fun. People clapping when you’re on stage even though you’re singing about sad things that have happened to you. It’s pretty amazing, if it goes well. If it doesn’t go well you feel pretty bad, but you know, that’s that.

This was the point of the interview where a lady from (censored) walked right in and interrupted my interview saying that they had to be ready in three minutes for her interview. Although I was saddened by the all of a sudden end to my interview, the emotion was trumped by the hatred I was feeling towards the interrupter.

I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing this pair, and their performance was even better. These two do not lack in chemistry at all and they keep the audience entertained, engaged and feeling good. I strongly recommend investing in their albums,  I only brought them last night and they are already on full rotation on my iPod. If you enjoy catchy lyrics, jazz vocals and the all around ambience of good performers then I advise you to check out their next gig! An experience I will never forget, thankyou Elana and Brian!

Whilst thumbing this year’s programme I noticed 3 things:

1. It’s a good deal meatier than last year, there’s much more to see this August.
2. The acts are a lot more diverse, culturally as well as with intended audience, there is a LOT more for young people.
3. I was going to be incredibly broke by the end of this month, the quality of these performers astounds! I want to buy tickets for all of them!

Here at GRIND we are proud to be reporting on this year’s festival and will do our best to keep you up-to-date on the events page, with interviews with performers, and reviews of shows we loved.  Harriet and I had an afternoon chat with the festival’s artistic director Jo Duffy in anticipation of the upcoming cultural feast and we posed one BIG question to her on behalf of you all:

“Why should young people come to the Darwin Festival?”
Her response had us giddy and excited…

“Firstly”, She said “Because it’s the biggest cultural event in Darwin!” Well yeah, thanks Jo, but we had kind of figured that out already.  “Not only that, but we designed much of this year’s programme with young people in mind”….  Wait, really?  That’s awesome!  We had no idea; looking at the programme now though I can see what she meant.  There’s a veritable feast of talent for young people to ogle and boggle at, with tickets to cabaret acts ‘Tiger Lillies’ and ‘Meow Meow’ selling fast, Gothic Marionettes the ‘Grimstones’, Harry Angus from ‘The Cat Empire’, not to mention the spectacular ‘Morganics’ show about Hip Hop culture.  There’s short films for the littlies (9 years and above) and for those of us (myself and Harriet included) who like a bit of a dance there’s a silent disco on for only ten bucks a headset!  Jo was particularly proud of ‘Legal Walls’ a graffiti project showcasing young NT artists’ exploration of graffiti as “a legitimate means of cultural exchange” and there are many more free shows around town featuring a range of mediums that I can’t wait to explore.

Jo also had us grinning when she drew our attention to pricing; this year’s festival has many youth friendly events for much cheaper than usual and she told us it was specifically so that young people (on a tight budget as we are) can go to the festival!  Let’s all give Ms Duffy hugs I say, for fifteen dollar live music!  Not only that, but the Festival will be using our beloved Garden’s Amphitheatre a lot more than in past years as well as a brand-spanking-new venue ‘the lighthouse’ which Jo described as being “like a big top tent, only without the roof”, interesting description, but it will make for an intimate and fun new setting and is a major drawing card for this year’s festival which will be central to the Darwin CBD and Civic Park.

Personally, I can’t wait for this festival; I’ve already got my rather impressive pile of tickets and will be living off 20c noodles for the next two weeks because of it.  I hope to see you all there, look for me at the teddy bears picnic; I’ll be the fairy with the pink and green hair!

For more information about the festival and booking tickets you can pick up a copy of the programme at any library or tourist centre, check out their website www.darwinfestival.org.au or call 89434200