Cirrus@Austlit

'It’s a wintry Tuesday night in Melbourne – dark, damp – but Lara Thoms and Mish Grigor, co-artistic directors of APHIDS, are out and about. It’s a busy time: both currently have works on in the Rising festival, including an all-night performance called 8/8/8/: REST, the second part in a trilogy about the eight-hour work day. Lara Thoms, who is dramaturge on this production, is running late.' (Introduction)

'Sarah Aiken and Rebecca Jensen were thanking the volunteers for showing up in unexpectedly large numbers: forty workshop participants, they said, would give them a great opportunity to test some scenes they could only have imagined on their own. !ey were already standing in a circle in Dancehouse; gently, out of a bag emerged objects, passed around one by one: an apple, a fan, a banana, a straw hat. !e pace picked up, soon exceeding what two hands can hold. !e objects were now coming from both directions at once - participants holding three, four apples each - vaguely guilty of causing bo and lenecks in this human chain.'  (Publication abstract)

 (Introduction)

'Hannah Gadsby’s new show, Douglas, is not earth-shattering the way Nanette was; but then, nothing could be.'  (Introduction)

'At a certain point in life, it becomes very hard to work in theatre and remain impartial to aesthetics. The Critic watched Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. at the Malthouse feeling very personally aggrieved by its failures. Janice Mueller’s direction drew deliberately and consciously from the arsenal of directorial gestures that were specific to central and northern-western European postdramatic theatre between 2000 and 2007, to the point where it could have been a painstaking historical reproduction, had it been intentionally referenced.' (Introduction)

' 1.in which we doubt former certainties "I was listening to a program on oral poetry, on Radio National," said Liz, one morning over breakfast. "You know what they said about Australia? They said that there is one classic genre of poetry missing from the Australian tradition, and it's love poetry.' (Introduction)