5 January 2013

This is my curator freakout about the You Are Here Festival in 2013

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missing lincolns

Dear Riot folk,

I’m writing to say hey, happy new, and ah also the You Are Here Festival is happening from 14-24 March.

I’ve been involved with both the 2011 and 2012 festivals, and I can say without a glimmer of doubt that this is the most intense, challenging and exciting of the three. In 2011 there were two curators (Yolande Norris and myself). In 2012 it was two again (Yolande and Hadley). Now in 2013, there are six: Nick Delatovic, myself, Hadley, Sarah Kaur, Yolande Norris and Vanessa Wright. The program is bigger, denser and broader, with more art forms and events than ever before. We have somewhere between 80-110 events in the schedule at the moment, including a sleep-over durational performance night, a live mix tape for Canberra, a cross-media collaboration with the National Film & Sound Archive, a zine fair, an unseasonal laneway Christmas party and a series of after-work concerts to be matched with tea.

you are here

As an example of the weird ways in which the festival has grown and evolved, this year the You Are Here theatre stream has become its own festival-within-a-festival, operating under the strange title of ‘The Ice Age’. The Ice Age features an array of 20 different shows by local and interstate ensembles including the Landlords, Shadowhouse PITS, NUTS, Freshly Ground Theatre, Cathy Petocz and the Masters of Space and Time. Every night of You Are Here (and a lot of the days as well) there will be a new theatre double- or triple-bill in the festival’s dedicated hub space. The shows range in length from 3 minutes to 30, and include one-on-one interactive performances, high-energy farce, puppetry, physical theatre and science performance.

you are here

All over the city, all through the ten-day program, there’ll be strange and pretty things cropping up everywhere (all of it free) and our biggest hope is that you are able to come along and dig some of the diversity.

You can dig into more about the festival at youareherecanberra.com.au, or hit us up on Facebook and Twitter. Festival programs will be available online and distributed around the city in February.

That’s all, except that I hope your 2013 is radical so far and keeps getting more so.

– David Finig

you are here

[Photos by Adam Thomas]

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Pork Hunt said :

At #5, is it compusory for poets to have the thirst of Dylan Thomas?

“Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me.” D.T.

So a tipple helps some of us, sometimes.

johnboy said :

Lazy I said :

Will there be any events for non-hipsters this year?

Pretty sure I’m too old and fat to be a hipster and I enjoyed last year immensely.

Fat aging hipsters are still hipsters.

At #5, is it compusory for poets to have the thirst of Dylan Thomas?

johnboy said :

Lazy I said :

Will there be any events for non-hipsters this year?

Pretty sure I’m too old and fat to be a hipster and I enjoyed last year immensely.

The older, fatter hipsters are the worst ones, because they don’t realise they shouldn’t be hipsters anymore.

Sounds engaging. Except for the tea bit. I noticed some lovely young poets drinking tea at an event in this festival last year, and asked myself what has gone wrong with the world? And when exactly did this happen? (-:

It’s a great festival to dip in and out of.

from teh top;

“Canberra festival welcomes first Na’vi band to play earth.”

“Won’t somebody move those nasty pebbles so that little girl can get free?!?!”

“Can you play the “Vision On” gallery theme mate?” (You may need to be a Pom to understand that one.)

Hipster drum troupe rain dance succeeds…

Lazy I said :

Will there be any events for non-hipsters this year?

Pretty sure I’m too old and fat to be a hipster and I enjoyed last year immensely.

Will there be any events for non-hipsters this year?

Are any of the events in the Fitter’s Workshop? Now that would be a celebration!

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