THE Dairy Road precinct in Fyshwick is fairly buzzing with arty initiatives.

For those who haven’t been there yet, Dairy Road is located between the Jerrabomberra Wetlands and Fyshwick and is nowadays inhabited by a community of more than 40 businesses working across art and design, music, theatre, food production, hospitality, printing, industrial design and even boat-building.

Now as the summer heats up, so do the arts, as I found on a scorching Tuesday when I caught up with a group of the movers and shakers behind a new summer program. 

On hand was David Caffery from the cultural development company Dionysus, which hosts artistic activities for the Molonglo Group, to assure me that the spacious pond-like water feature emanating from Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s column sculpture “Less” was just one centimetre deep – so no problem for kids. 

Splashing around and enjoying giant soap bubbles created by drag artist Lee Maddocks, were two-year-old Miro and four-year-old Sunny from Braidwood, the children of performing artist Michael Simic (Mikelangelo) and his wife Rose Ricketson, who works for Dionysus organising and producing events at Dairy Road. 

The couple met when Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen were working on “Ghosts in the Scheme”, the 2015 Snowy Scheme opus by theatre company Big hART, for whom Ricketson then worked. The rest is history and Mikelangelo, somewhat to his own surprise, is a family man now living and working out of Braidwood. 

In early November, after his performance in “Under the Influence” with Shortis and Simpson at The Q, Simic told me he was thinking of turning into a kids’ entertainer, like Snoop Dogg in “Welcome to Doggyland” and Regurgitator’s “Pogogo Show”.

Now he’s made his threat good by starting up “Dad Band”, who recently made their debut at Braidwood Preschool’s 50th birthday party. Simic leads with vocals and guitar, Steve Maher plays guitar and keyboard, Bruce Rose bass and Ben Willson drums. You have to be a dad to be in it although they’re contemplating making an exemption for “potential dads”.

“Our set is made up of rock ‘n’ roll songs I’ve written about subjects like fruit, the park, monsters, dogs and ice-cream meltdowns,” Simic tells me.

Dad’s Band will soon be performing as part of “Play Day” on the small outdoor stage that Caffery indicates just outside Grainger Gallery. 

Caffery, also the busy president of MusicACT and place manager for Canberra City, Haig Park and Dickson for City Renewal Authority, was naturally to talk up the 2024 events program, which will include markets, community singing, kids play, roller skating discos and live concerts.

First up on Sunday afternoons in the “Less” garden from January 14 will be the aforementioned “Play Day”, featuring cabaret, circus performance, comedy, dance, live music and for primary-school aged children, Green Hat Workshop’s experimental “loose parts” play program. 

“Play Day” will also feature Lucky Jim music and comedy,  DandyMan comedy and circus, Johnny Huckle kids’ music, Bambi Valentine and Alias, the Faerie Bubble show, Amelie Ecology Insect Cabaret, Bec Reid Dance and Disco, Singing Mamas singing circle, Warehouse Circus, Mr Tim and the Fuzzy,  Elbows and Australian Dance Party. 

As the weather cools down in May, a pillar-free concrete 800sqm bunker tagged “The Vault” will become a four-month event space, accommodating a winter market, the Truffle/Harvest festival, RollerFit classes, workshops and roller discos, skateboarding for young people co-ordinated by Big hART.