STREET DANCE, JOY IN MOVEMENT AND BREAKING BOUNDARIES – METRO ARTS’ 2023 PROGRAM TAKES ART TO BRAVE NEW PLACES
Metro Arts reflects the here and now, telling bold, brave and beautiful stories from Australia’s new crop of contemporary artists.
Metro Arts starts 2023 with a bang, highlighting multidisciplinary artists, new perspectives and bold choices that will ignite audiences’ fervour, spark dialogue and stretch the imagination in a striking performance program of dance, movement, theatre and music.
The Metro Arts 2023 program highlights the future of contemporary performing and visual arts – with the organisation providing a much needed space for national artists to grow, develop, experience and carve out sustainable arts practice.
Metro Arts CEO and Artistic Director Jo Thomas said the 2023 season launch embodies the organisation’s mission to nurture and showcase the future of Australian contemporary arts: ‘We invite our audiences to find moments of magic in our 2023 program where this year’s performances continue to champion challenging, experiential and inclusive art-making and artists including works with underlying and overt physicality through to the thought-provoking’.
January- June 2023 programme includes:
Betwixt by Pink Matter examines what lies between fear and freedom through street dance and spoken word, while Bring a Plate Dance Company unbottles the exuberant joy of uninhibited movement in the immersive one-off event, The People’s Dance Party.
For one night only, Brisbane-based alternative electronic trash trio The Architects of Sound will create an earworm extravaganza in Rough, Red & Raw, a sonic and comedic experience that is live, loose and extremely LGBTQIA+.
Turning the focus inward, indelabilityarts shines the spotlight on women and mental health in SHE (See us, Hear us, Engage with us). Led by Amy Ingram of The Good Room SHE shares the good, bad and ugly stories to challenge perceptions about our collective emotional wellbeing.
Also raw and reflective, Break looks at what happens when dreams stretch to breaking point from the perspective of professional acrobat and former Circa performer Cecelia Martin and The Farm in a physical love letter to circus performance.
The Metro Arts 2023 Artist in Residence is First Nations (Bidjara/Kullali/Wakka Wakka) Italian artist, choreographer and performer Joshua Taliani.
Founder of the House of Alexander, Joshua’s signature style is heavy on open choreography infused with the art form of vogue (part of Ballroom culture).
During his residency he will be pushing the boundaries of his practice, crossing his work with learnings of culture and the queer movement. “When you come to Metro Arts you expect the unexpected. You get the chance to be the first one there,” Ms Thomas said.
“Metro Arts is experimental, experiential, inclusive, bold and brave. We are multidisciplinary, we are a bit of everything and we are where art starts. We are telling the stories of here and now.”
Tickets are on sale now via the Metro Arts website.
Metro Arts 2023 Performance Program:
Betwixt
By Pink Matter
1 – 4 March 2023
The People’s Dance Party
By Bring a Plate Dance Company
25 March 2023
Rough, Red & Raw: The Architects of Sound
By The Architects of Sound
6 April 2023
SHE (See us, Hear us, Engage with us)
By indelabilityarts in collaboration with PIP Theatre and The Good Room
3 – 13 May 2023
Break
By The Farm & Cecilia Martin
21 – 24 June 2023
Metro Arts 2023 Exhibitions:
CTRL+ALT+DEL:RECLAIM
Various Artists
21 January – 4 February 2023
OPEN VIDEO
Various Artists
11 February – 4 March 2023
The Woman Remembers
Various Artists | Belloo Creative
8 – 11 March 2023
Be There or Be Square
Renee Kire
18 March – 15 April 2023
teetering, tittering, tits up
Tiana Jefferies
18 March – 15 April 2023
Main Drag
Easton Dunne
18 March – 15 April 2023
Precision: The Art of Cutting
Curated by Stephanie Lindquist, with Minqi Gu
6 May – 10 June 2023
MAVA PATHFINDERS: In Review
Caitlin Franzmann, Elizabeth Willing and James Barth
24 June – 22 July 2023
Bravo Brisbane 