Arts editor HELEN MUSA writes a weekly wrap of arts in the city. It’s called “Arts in the City”! Here it is…

CANBERRA Theatre has much to crow about. For one thing, it can claim to have “discovered” the performing talents of Halimah Kyrgios well before she appeared on “The Voice,” when she featured in Episode 7 of “The World From Here” with Chris Endrey (viewable here) and later performed a guest spot in the online grand finale. 

FOR another, they’ve locked in an appearance by Jessica Mauboy on tour with “The Boss Lady”, an anthology of her hits since her first solo album in 2008. At Canberra Theatre, March 30. Book here.

HOT on the rare Afghan war rug exhibition at The Drill Hall Gallery, the ANU’s Professor Tim Bonyhady has released a prescient book, “Two Afternoons in the Kabul Stadium: A History of Afghanistan through Clothes, Carpets and the Camera”. The Kabul Stadium was where, in 1959, women first appeared in western dress at a celebration of Afghanistan’s independence and where in November 1999, the Taliban killed a burqa-clad woman, Zarmeena.

THE National Gallery of Australia has gone online with a selection of something-for-everyone virtual offerings. Curator Peter Johnson takes a walk through the Sarah Lucas exhibition. There’s a virtual tour of the NGA’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries, a visit to “Know My Name: Australian women artists 1900 to now” and a class in crafting Ned Kelly masks with Tony Albert. All accessible at nga.gov.au

MUSICACT is getting behind the campaign “Our Soundtrack Our Stories” hard as homegrown music struggles under the new wave of lockdowns. Noting that Canberra has more than 1000 APRA AMCOS registered songwriters, it recommends playing a MusicACT curated list of tunes (here) at  through a licensed music streaming platform to generate income for musos. 

OUR May story about singing poet and scholar Sarah Rice introduced her “Text/ure” project, where she commissioned six mostly local composers to write pieces in response to her poem “If I Could Have Given You A Note”, which were sung by Oriana Chorale alongside Rice’s drawings and images. She has now released a 164-page book in full colour, featuring composers’ statements, interview excerpts, visual art, drawing statements and all six concluding poems here.