The 2016 lineup for Mona’s midwinter festival, Dark Mofo, has been announced.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The event will take place from Friday June 10 to Tuesday June 21.
Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael said they are very excited about a number of the initiatives in this year’s event.
“The central one being the collaboration with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG). Deeply Tasmanian themes and ideas inspired directly by the exhibition Tempest are running right through the entire Dark Mofo experience,” Mr Carmichael said.
Highlights will include an expanded Dark Park, lower entry fees to the Winter Feast and a major exhibition named Asylum.
Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman said Dark Mofo has taken Tasmania by storm.
“Dark Mofo transforms our darkest days into a cultural beacon, drawing tens of thousands of locals and visitors to our state,” Mr Hodgman said.
DARK MOFO FIRST WEEK
Wednesday 8 June - Tuesday 14 June
The Dark Mofo opening night party will kick off on Friday June 10 at 7:30pm with a compelling cocktail of electronica and deep house music by ZHU.
Dark Park, Dark Mofo’s industrial public art playground at Macquarie Point on Hobart’s docks, will display an array of international artists from Friday June 10-19.
Installations:
Our Time - United Visual Artists (UVA, UK) This London-based collective creates a grid of pendulums, suspended in a huge warehouse, and set into unified motion. Mind your head. (Free).
Bodystorm - Grupo EmpreZa (Brazil)
This bracing Brazilian performative group will create a physical installation inspired by sandstorms, tornadoes and other windy phenomena. (Free)
THUNDERHEAD - Tina Havelock Stevens
You may know her as ‘White Drummer’, performing in the waters off Little Frying Pan Island near Mona. Here, Havelock Stevens will drum up some apocalyptic meteorological drama with an improvised one-off live response to a video of the perfect storm along Highway 54 in Texas. (Free).
The Cloud - Patrick Hall
The artist who created Mona’s “I love you” drawers (When My Heart Stops Beating, 2011) celebrates our brief time here with hundreds of illuminated faces hanging overhead in bottles, weeping into a thin skim of water on the ground below. (Free).
Anemographs, 2016 - Cameron Robbins
Complementing his Mona exhibition, Field Lines, Robbins’ ephemeral LED light drawings will transcribe the patterns of the wind. (Free).
House of Mirrors - Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney
An elaborate chamber of kaleidoscopic reflections create a disorientating installation in which to lose yourself—and your friends. (Door sales $10).
Divination - Nancy Mauro-Flude
A thirties-era DaDa cabaret crossed with cypherpunk internet café, peopled by talkbots and other data-driven non-humans. (Maiden voyage: Friday 10 June, 7pm. Register for the event in advance: http://divination.cc. Installation continues until Sunday 19 June, 5-10pm. Free).
The Labyrinth - Mayonaize
An experience that will morph and evolve throughout the festival in a joint project between calligraphic Melbourne street artist Mayonaize and Richmond Maze. (Door sales $10).
A Galaxy of Suns - Michaela Gleave & Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Constellations are transcribed into scores, as members of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus sing the stars with lead artist Michaela Gleave, composer Amanda Cole and programmer Warren Armstrong. (Friday 10 + Saturday 11 June, 5pm, Free. Exhibition ongoing).
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery will showcase their major winter exhibition Tempest.
Curated by Juliana Engberg, Tempest will feature historic works from TMAG and other state collections alongside works by Tacita Dean (UK/Germany), Rodney Graham (Canada) Fiona Tan (Indonesia/Holland), Victor Alimpiev (Russia), William Kentridge (South Africa), Hernan Bas (USA), Mariele Neudecker (Germany/England), Valerie Sparks, Rosemary Laing, Pat Brassington, Paul Wood, Ricky Swallow, Kit Wise and David Stephenson.
Event for a Stage is presented for Tempest; the Australian premiere of a new stage-to-film work at the State Cinema by the celebrated Turner Prize-winning ‘Young British Artist’ Tacita Dean OBE. The Biennale’s artistic director Juliana Engberg will open the interaction on Thursday June 16 at 6pm.
Black Box is a pop-up performance space for some Dark arts in the MAC2 Backspace, Macquarie
Wharf, near Dark Park. Opens Saturday 11 - Sunday 19 June. Performances below:
● Ryoji Ikeda- supercodex [live set] Saturday June 11 at 9pm, $29 +BF.
● Lustmord (Australian Exclusive) Sunday June 12 at 7pm, $29 +BF.
● RBMA presents Ephemera (Live) with Tim Heckerand Marcel Weber(MFO) Wednesday June 15 at 6pm, 8pm, $29 +BF.
● The Bacchae featuring an ensemble of young performers and musicians, Fraught Outfit and St Martins Friday June 17 + Saturday June 18 at 7pm, Sunday June 19 at 1pm, $39 +BF.
Artists for Dark Mofo’s Blacklist, an irrepressible late-night art party, are yet to be announced. June 11-12 and 17 – 18 at 10pm till late. Tickets $39 +BF, door sales $45 subject to capacity.
Visual arts highlights: Telling women’s stories through women’s songs, Shellie Morris, Emma Donovan, Deline Briscoe and Ursula Yovich of our Aboriginal nation are the Songwomen of Black Arm Band, joined by True North; a performance in sound, light and language from Tim Moriarty of the Yanyuwa people of the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cynthia-Louise Dellit with Baroque flute, at the Odeon Theatre.
Sunday June 12 at 2.30pm. Tickets $19-$59 +BF.
Dhāraṇī: Tom Vincent Octet will perform an extended jazz composition, unifying ancient and contemporary music forms at Moonah Arts Centre.
Tuesday June 14 + Wednesday 15 June, 7.30pm, $59 +BF.
Dark Mofo Films curated by Nick Batzias and James Hewison will include Australian premieres of Tasmanian filmmaker Sean byrne’s The Devil’s Candy and English director Jim Hosking’s The Greasy Strangler.
DARK MOFO SECOND WEEK
Wednesday 15 June - Tuesday 21 June
Hymns to the Dead – Cult of Fire’s, Tribulation, Dead Congregation and Melbourne’s Inverloch, all shaking the stage and possibly some plaster off the ceiling, at the Odeon Theatre. Wednesday 15 June at 7.30pm, $49 +BF. 18+.
Itchy-O: a Denver-based avant-garde marching band with LED-lit sombreros who will make surprise ruckus at different venues.
The Funeral Party - Dark Mofo’s debauched gothic gala costume ball in the sanctity of that glorious parlour, Turnbull Family Funerals. Thursday June 16 at 8pm, tickets $89 + BF by ballot.
Chelsea Wolfe – Friday 17 June, 7.30pm, $49 +BF. 18+.
Savages (UK) bring their rocking lust for life to the Odeon Theatre. Saturday 18 June, 7.30pm, $49 +BF. 18+.
Symphony No. 3, Henryk Górecki’s melancholic meditation, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, will be performed at Federation Concert Hall by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Featuring soloist Greta Bradman and conductor Otto Tausk, Chief Conductor of Theatre St Gallen (Switzerland) and regular guest at Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam). Saturday 18 June at 7.30pm, $69-$99 +BF.
Rivers and Streams is a hypnotic incantation from Lubomyr Melnyk, the Ukranian maestro of continuous piano. Witness the fastest concert pianist in the world, in his only Australian show, at the Federation Concert Hall. Sunday 19 June, 2.30pm, $59 +BF.
Solstice night: The longest night of the year in the southernmost city of Australia. The Heart of Darkness soars with soprano and strings to Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, Tavener’s Akhmatova Songs for Soprano and Cello, and Sculthorpe’s String Quartet No. 12 (From Ubirr, sans didgeridoo), with soloist Allison Bell at St. David’s Cathedral. “Come,gentle night, come, loving, black-browed night” - Juliet. Monday 20 June, 8.30pm, $39 +BF.
The Nude Solstice Swim returns after the longest night of the year on Tuesday 21 June at 7.42am at Long Beach, Sandy Bay. The Solstice Swim is a contemporary ritual enacted as the sun rises, to welcome back the light. People shed their inhibitions with their clothes and brace themselves for a new year. It's not a spectator sport - it's a rite of passage, and a lot of fun. “O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!” - Romeo. (Free; register online).
Ongoing from first week:
○ Dark Park at Macquarie Point;Mike Parr’s Asylum at Willow Court;
○ Cameron Robbins’ Field Lines at Mona; ○ Tempest at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery; ○ Black Box at MAC2 Backspace;
○ Exhibitions around the city; ○ Blacklist at the Hobart City Hall.
Tickets go on sale Monday April 11 at 11am AEDT. For more information head to darkmofo.net.au/
