Music and arts festival Mona Foma will extend its technicolour tentacles into more places in Launceston than ever before when it returns to the city for the third time in January.
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Locations such as the Elphin Sports Centre, the Cataract Gorge and Penny Royal will all host Mona Foma events, among many other spaces, when the festival hits on January 11-20.
Artists include Paul Kelly, Amanda Palmer, Flying Lotus, and dozens more.
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Here are the highlights of what's happening where:
Cataract Gorge
For the first time ever, the headline performance for Mona Foma isn't a touring artist but something commissioned by the festival itself. It's the performance festival director Brian Ritchie is most looking forward to and has put the most work into: the musical play King Ubu.
King Ubu an adaption of the 19th-century French political satire Ubu Roi set in modern day Tasmania, put on by a mix of larger-than-human-sized puppets and regular actors. It will include a cast of hundreds, original costumes, and a live brass band, taking place partly on a purpose-built stage over the swimming pool in the Gorge, and partly in the water of the swimming pool itself.
"It's very entertaining stuff," Mr Ritchie said. "It was originally performed in 1896 and has been put on ever since - it was very influential on dadaism, surrealism, futurism, theatre of the absurd ... and the reason it keeps coming back is that the main character King Ubu is a very buffoonish, dictatorial, aspiring political leader. And there are always plenty of those in the world."
Royal Park
At the 2019 Mona Foma, the giant, illuminated Man sculpture in the Cataract Gorge stole the show. But the 2020 edition will take the giant illuminations further again, with a maze of huge domes illuminated in different colours, connected by walkways at Royal Park.
Called the Daedalum Luminarium, by UK studio Architects of Air, the 19 domes are based on the Roman Pantheon and promise a "colour and light experience" that sounds highly Instagrammable. Original music by Midnight Oil's Jim Moginie will play as people wander around inside the installation.
Elphin Sports Centre
Mona Foma has a thing for taking spaces that are ordinary, utilitarian, and maybe even a little bit old-fashioned, and layering them with heaps of weird art. Last year, it was a kitsch fashion parade and alarming R-rated video installations in the Workers Club. This year, they've targeted the Elphin Sports Centre.
Fourteen video artists will seamlessly insert their sports-themed works into the centre, which will transform into one big avant-garde art exhibition for the duration of the festival. There will be a film of a guy playing tennis with himself, a film of ice skaters giving political diatribes, a film showing bodybuilding, and plenty more.
Penny Royal
The Dark Ride at Penny Royal - a ghostly, interactive, waterborne journey through convict history - already has quite a few Mona-esque elements. But the festival will be be taking it over and making it psychedelic for Mona Foma. There will be lasers, video art and a specially commissioned synth-soundtrack. It also includes Hypnos Cave, inspired by the Greek myths of the afterlife. It all sounds a bit like the terrifying-cool boat journey Gene Wilder takes his hapless competition-winners on in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - if that's something you want to experience for yourself.
Princess Theatre
Paul Kelly, Amanda Palmer, and concert pianist Ludovico Einaudi are all performing their shows at the Princess Theatre.
Paul Kelly's show will be Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds - poems by celebrated writers throughout history about birds set to music. Those who have seen it say it's a collaborative work of delicate beauty, created in the way only Australia's leading troubadour knows how.
The forever-groundbreaking Amanda Palmer will perform her latest album, There Will Be No Intermission. But she will also create a new work, based on the confessions of Launceston women. Palmer will hold workshops prior to the show where she will listen to the inner concerns of local women who have signed up to participate - which she will then turn into song.
Classical pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi will perform highlights from his immersive new project, Seven Days Walking.
The Workers Club
It would be a travesty if nothing was happening at the Workers Club at Mona Foma 2020, after it was the MVP of the festival in 2019. And what is taking place there next year is a perennial festival highlight: late-night dance party Faux Mo. A full line-up announcement for Faux Mo is due November 26, and all we know so far is that it runs from 9pm to 5am - an inversion of the office work day. It usually features drag queens, performance art, nudity, and a killer music line-up, so expect much of the same this January.
Trevallyn Nature Reserve
Aboriginal artists - from both Tasmania and the mainland - will present Food Through Time/kipli paywuta lumi, with bush tucker feasts prepared by a chef at set times, and visual and sound art at all times.
QVMAG and Albert Hall
Queen Victoria Museum, Launceston's leading cultural institution, will once again be the festival hub, with two outdoor stages in the spacey converted rail yard at Inveresk.
Music acts include Slovenian industrial pop band Laibach, who have been going for 40 years and who have "influenced everybody," Mr Ritchie said, playing their version of the songs from the Sound of Music. There will also be a corresponding variety show called My Favourite Things, with different festival acts playing their own, extremely unique, takes on the unmistakable ditty. It's Mona Foma's attempt at fulfilling a fundamental local need: "We know that Launceston loves musicals," Mr Ritchie said.
Also at the festival hub will be an all-girl Japanese pop-punk band Chai, rubber-masked country singer Orville Peck, Indigenous Canadian tenor Jeremy Dutcher, Holly Herndon and her collaborator - an artificial intelligence named Spawn, all-female Aboriginal band Ripple Effects from outside Alice Springs who sing in five languages, a 3D show from producer Flying Lotus, and a lot, lot more.
Then, on each night of the main festival weekend, revellers can wind down and say goodnight to the festivities, with a chilled-out late-night free show of electronic music at Albert Hall.
There were 47,000 attendees at Mona Foma events in 2019, according to Mona; Launceston has three months to prepare.
The full program is online at monafoma.net.au, with tickets - cheaper for Tasmanians - for sale from Monday, October 21.