On page one, just dipping and browsing, we come across Ashley Dyer, who scores for this project:
"Ashley Dyer:Received $15,000 for: the development of "Life Support", a cross-disciplinary work that uses smoke to create images, vignettes, kinetic sculptures and immersive spaces.What all that means is filling a box with smoke and crawling around in it (below), or sitting in a chair while a machine blows smoke rings past your ear. (Apologies. No idea how to embed Vimeo clips)
On page 2, and still just picking random entries, we find Bonny Cassidy, who gets $8000 for
the development of Final theory, the final draft of a narrative poem that explores the theme of climate change.And by page 3,there is Declan Greene, who trousered $20,000 for
Presentation of "The Sovereign Wife", a new theatrical investigation into cinematic narrative and cultural identity.If you missed The Sovereign Wife, know that opinions of its merits varied. The Melbourne Theatre Company was pretty keen because, well, why wouldn't they be? After all, the taxpayer was footing the bill for what one of its own theatrical types rated not very good: "One MTC staff member whose time with the company was finishing up contacted the Sisters' producer to tell them what they'd just witnessed was the most juvenile thing they'd ever seen, and that they were thankful they wouldn't be there to see it staged." Nevertheless, the Fairfax reviewer was in awe, as you might expect of a production "so queer and far from the mainstream [it] would surely seem like kryptonite to MTC subscribers."
Those bourgeois lowbrows! Serves them right if they bought tickets with their own money and didn't like what arts bureaucrats choose to give them. Just who do paying patrons think they are anyway!
If you missed the show, a little taste of the genius behind it:
