Events:
“ENLIGHTEN” 2017, national buildings and the Parliamentary Triangle light up from March 3 to 13. Bookings to ticketek.com and all program details at enlightencanberra.com.au
IT will be lights, cocktails and action this week as the world’s largest collection of Australian plants becomes a dazzling nocturnal world. The Australian National Botanic Gardens will present “Luminous Botanicus” over four nights as part of Canberra’s Enlighten Festival. Visitors can relax on the Eucalypt Lounge while enjoying live music. This Thursday and Friday, March 2-3, and the following Thursday and Friday, March 9-10. Bookings to ticketek.com.au and enlightencanberra.com.au
Talk:
DR Caillan Davenport from the University of Queensland will give a talk for the Friends of the Classics Museum’s on “Roman emperors and Christians: power, persecution, and popular perceptions” in the Larry Sitsky Room, ANU School of Music, preceded by a very brief AGM. Beginning at 6.15pm, March 2. After the lecture attendees will return to the Classics Museum for drinks.
“ALL about Women” is an event streaming live from the Sydney Opera House. After a live broadcast of Geena Davis’ talk, “Women and Media”, there will be a Q&A with the author of “Why I Am Not a Feminist”, Jessa Crispin. Here Virginia Haussegger will be in conversation with a live panel featuring Katy Gallagher, Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls), Zoya Patel (Feminartsy), and Alana Valentine (playwright). Canberra Theatre Centre this Sunday, March 5 from 10.20am.
MUSE Café in the East Hotel Kingston has “Acquacotta” author Emiko Davies, described as a “renaissance woman for the internet era” in conversation with Barbara Sweeney of Sydney’s Food & Words Festival. 3-4pm, Sunday, March 5, bookings musecanberra.com.au
A series of 7 Lectures by Terence Maloon from the Drill Hall Gallery begins with “ A Romantic Friendship: Emile Zola and Paul Cezanne,” ANU School of Art and Design, Level 1, Childers Street entrance, 3pm Sunday March 5.
Classes and Workshops:
THE Museum of Australia Democracy is seeking the help of the Canberra community to weave 10,000 stars in protest against violence—they will be displayed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. MoAD is accepting public “star” donations from now until July. But in the meantime free Sunday “Crafternoons” run on the last Sunday of the month until July. Details at onemillionstars.net
AUSDANCE ACT Open Class is continuing with regular Wednesday classes running at 10am to 11.30am for advanced to professional level dancers, held at the Belconnen Arts Centre. And now it’s holding a new evening class on Thursday evenings from 6.50pm to 8.20pm for intermediate to professional level dancers of all ages. Inquiries to 6247 9103.
CIT Adult Short courses are held every first weekend of the month all year round at Canberra Glassworks. Costs apply. To find out more email education@canberraglassworks.com
Arts Business:
SYDNEY Eisteddfod entries in all sections are closing soon, March 13. Visit sydneyeisteddfod.com.au
Entries are open for the 50th Annual AWGIE Awards, celebrating the very best in Australian stage and screen writing, including film, television, documentary, theatre, radio and interactive media. Entries close Wednesday, March 8. To awg.com.au
THE ninth annual Heath Ledger Scholarship is looking for emerging Australian actors aged between 18-35 years who show potential for great career longevity. Established in memory of Australian actor Heath Ledger, the prize has become a fixture in the industry landscape. Applications to australiansinfilm.org will close on the date of the late Ledger’s birthday, April 4.
CRAFTACT is inviting contemporary craft artists and designers to develop original work interpreting Roy Grounds’ Academy of Science, also known as the “Shine Dome”, for a “DESIGN Canberra” exhibition in 2017. Because some members are unable to make the original May 18 deadline, there will be a second submission date in September. Pieces submitted by May 18 will have the potential to be incorporated into interstate and advance marketing for DESIGN Canberra 2017. Inquiries to craftact.org.au
CRAFT ACT: Craft + Design Centre is also seeking an experienced and motivated person to develop and implement public programs, particularly as creative producer for Design Canberra. Details at craftact.org.au Submissions close 9am on March 3.
EXHIBITION applications for M16 Artspace’s 2018 Gallery program are now open. M16 welcomes applications from artists and curators from Canberra, interstate and overseas. Applications to m16artspace.com.au
Film:
“YOU Can Jive: 40 Years of ABBA Mania” sees the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia celebrating the Swedish super group with an evening of ABBAtastic celebrations with help from the Embassy of Sweden. The event features ABBA karaoke and Swedish cider tasting, followed by live performances from local choir Andante and a special screening of “ABBA: The Movie”. From 3pm, March 5. Bookings to nfsa.gov.au
Dance:
TALENTED young people from in and around Canberra will form the Quantum Leap ensemble (ages 15-26), and collaborate with three choreographers. QL2 Artistic director Ruth Osborne will oversee the project and Pip Buining will be dramaturg. This show will be performed at the Canberra Playhouse in late July. To register phone 6247 3103.
Concerts and Gigs:
CANBERRA Symphony Orchestra has its first major performance in Queanbeyan this weekend with “Symphony on the River”. Precisely 300 years after it was composed, the orchestra will plays Handel’s “Water Pieces” in Queen Elizabeth II Park Amphitheatre across the border. Reserved seating available by booking at eventbrite.com.au or find a spot on the lawn. BYO picnic (alcohol is permitted), or local gourmet street food, beer and wine are for sale. Starts at 7pm. Park open at 5pm.
IGITUR Nos will perform Thomas Tallis’s monumental 40-part motet, “Spem in Alium”, in two different Canberra locations on the afternoon of Sunday, March 5— Concert 1 is at 12.30pm in St Paul’s Anglican Church, Manuka and Concert 2 is at 2pm in the National Portrait Gallery. Each concert is FREE and will last about 30 minutes and will also include shorter works by Tallis.
GEORGE Huitker and his band Junk Sculpture are reprising their “Billy vs Elton” show in “Scenes from a Vivaldi’s Restaurant”, billed as a night of nostalgia and bliss. At Teatro Vivaldi, this Saturday night, March 4. Bookings to vivaldirestaurant.com.au or 6257 2718.
PHOENIX Pub in Civic has as follows: Thursday March 2, 8pm, Pregnancy, Earache, Little Lunch; Friday March 3 at 9pm, Friday Night Fiesta, Los Chavos; and Saturday March 4, at 9pm, The Fuelers and The Black Horses.
Theatre:
“COLD Light,” adapted from the novel by Frank Moorhouse by Alana Valentine, shows its central character journeying from the League of Nations to Cold War Australia. At The Street Theatre, March 4 – 18. Bookings to thestreet.org.au or 6247 1223.
JORDAN Best is directing a scary show for Canberra REP in Frederick Knott’s “Wait until Dark”. This Broadway thriller sees blind Susy turning off all the lights to thwart a villain. Jenna Roberts plays Susy. At Theatre 3, to March 11. Bookings to 6257 1950.
Exhibitions:
JULIE McCarron-Benson is exhibiting a collection of portraits, in acrylics titled “Feminist Strength”, showing some of the women who lobbied and campaigned and were responsible for the removal of the marriage bar, equal pay, access to birth control, superannuation, childcare and other issues. Canberra artworks, Phillip, March 2 – 28.
“LIMITING Entropy” is an art exhibition connecting visual art with poetry, where artist Tony Curran and poet Lachlan Brown collaborate to create explosions of strangeness through an alchemic process where the worlds of the 14-line sonnet and the 4:3 rectangle collide. ANCA Gallery, 1 Rosevear Street Dickson, to March 19. The artists will be in conversation about their process on Saturday, March 18 at 1pm.
CANBERRA Glassworks is staging a “Neon Night” for the Enlighten Festival where artists Harriet Schwarzrock and Steven Cole explore the techniques of contemporary neon, straight from the Hotshop floor. Wentworth Ave Kingston, 6pm – 8pm, March 3. There will be light refreshments, neon-inspired games and visitors can book in for “Make Your Own Lightbulb with Sui Jackson” (bookings for that to premier.ticketek.com.au).
“KATE Bender & Keith Bender: Transitions” is an exhibition of new painting and sculpture. At Form Studio & Gallery running to March 14. Tuesday to Sunday, 10am-4pm.
PAINTING and photographic works by Jenny McEwan Mason & Nathan Kellett are showing in Gallery One & Two at Strathnairn Arts Gallery, Holt, to March 5.
THE newest exhibition, at Kyeema Gallery is “Desert Dreamings”, a selection of works by Indigenous artists of the central and western deserts in WA, SA and the NT, with two paintings by a well-known Alice Springs artist, Sarah Brown. All proceeds go to the Pukatja Fund to establish the first community-based renal dialysis centre at Ernabella, Capital Wines Cellar Door. 13 Gladstone Street, Hall Village Court, Hall, to March 12. Thursday to Sunday, 10.30am-5pm.
CRAFT ACT has joined forces with the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning USA, to create a great exhibition curated by Mel George inspired by glass history, its current makers and its future. Also they have “Code X: Contemporary Book Binding”, in association with 2017 Australian National Conference of Bookbinders, to March 27. At Craft ACT, the North Building, Civic.
BEAVER Galleries have two exhibitions. “Impermanence” by Andrew Baldwin as well as Dianne Fogwell’s “Renascent paintings and works on paper” which features layered linocuts that engage with the cyclical passage of decay and renewal within her local environment. At studio 81 Denison Street, Deakin. Tuesday to Friday, 10am – 5pm & Saturday and Sunday, 9am – 5pm. Until March 5.
“ENGAGE: Community Posters” is running at Megalo, 21 Wentworth Avenue, Kingston, to March 4, Tuesday to Saturday 9.30am- 5pm. In 2015 Megalo sought financial support to run three targeted community workshops in Screen Printed Posters and Design to coincide with Youth Homelessness, Reconciliation and Mental Health Weeks in 2016.
“ELISABETH Cummings – Interior Landscapes” sees one of Australia’s most distinguished artists showing at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery, Kingsley Street (off Barry Drive) Wednesday to Sunday, 10am -5pm.
NATALIE Maras (former Artist in Residence at the CSIRO National Research Collections) is presenting fine handmade polymer and mixed media works at the Australian National Botanic Gardens until March 13. For the duration of the exhibition, Maras will be teaching a variety of adult and family workshops. Bookings are essential to anbg.gov.au
NANCY Sever Gallery is presenting its first exhibition for 2017, “Make Light of It”. Suzanne Moss, a brilliant academic student in the visual arts, was artist-in-residence at Hill End in 2014 and in 2015, at Borgo Santo Pietro in Tuscany. Several paintings in this exhibition were inspired by the 13th century Persian Sufi mystic, Rumi. 4/6 Kennedy Street, Kingston, to March 5. 11am–6pm, Wednesday to Sunday.
PAINTERS Margaret Carr and Isla Patterson have an exhibition called “Pathways of our Lives” at the Bungendore Fine Arts Gallery, 42b Ellendon Street, Bungendore. Running through March, 7 days, 10am-4.30pm.
“DEFINING Moments” by glass artists Matthew Curtis and Harriet Schwarzrock is an exhibition acknowledging the moments of success and of disaster that demonstrate the pivotal role each has played in the journey of husband and wife. At Canberra Glassworks, 10am–4pm, Wednesday to Sunday. Until March 26.
THE National Portrait Gallery’s summer exhibition, “The Popular Pet Show” is on display until March 13. “Family space: Pets Backyard” is a program of creative activities inspired by the exhibition.
“VERSAILLES: Treasures from the Palace” is still at the National Gallery of Australia, until April 17.
THE Photography Room at Kingston Bus Depot presents three new exhibitions by artists Sean Davey, Spiro Miralis and Dimitri Mellos running until March 12.
THE Royal Australian Mint is now showcasing the story of Stuart Devlin, Geelong-born designer of Australia’s circulating coins and goldsmith and jeweller to Queen Elizabeth II in “The Designer with the Midas Touch.” Until April 2017.
AMIEL Courtin-Wilson’s winning digital video work “Charles” 2015, will be on display with six other finalists in the Digital Portraiture Award 2016 exhibition which is open to the public at the National Portrait Gallery until Sunday, April 9.
“THE Sell: Australian Advertising, 1790s to 1990s” at the National Library of Australia until April 25. FREE exhibition.
THE Australian War Memorial has “The Holocaust: witnesses and survivors,” a show that includes over 85 collection items.
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