Gracie Abrams at Rod Laver Arena; The Black Woman of Gippsland at MTC; ZZ Top at Margaret Court Arena; The Offspring and Simple Plan at Rod Laver Arena; Mythsoma at Yirramboi; Tripudiis Sonis Variis at The JazzLab

THEATRE
The Black Lady of Gippsland ★★★★
Melbourne Theatre Firm, till Could 31

Actual-life First Nations heroes have fuelled the drama in a few playwright Andrea James’ earlier works. Sunshine Super Girl instructed the inspiring story of tennis nice Evonne Goolagong, whereas the good rock musical Huge Identify, No Blankets traced the rise to fame of the trailblazing Warumpi Band

The Black Lady of Gippsland marks a flip to historic thriller and the disastrous arc of “first contact” historical past. Its fictional heroine is an aspiring tutorial, a younger Gunaikurnai lady dedicated to exploring truths behind a haunting colonial fable with a harmful legacy.

Doctoral candidate Jacinta Pepper (Chenoa Deemal) lives along with her Auntie Rochelle (Ursula Yovich) and her teenage cousin Kyle (Zach Blampied). She has turn out to be obsessed by the topic of her thesis – the legend of “The White Woman of Gippsland”, an unverified sighting of a white lady, presumably a shipwreck survivor, who was reported to have been residing among the many Gunaikurnai within the 1840s.

Was the lady kidnapped, or working away from an abusive husband? Did she exist in any respect? No dependable hint of her was ever discovered, although the missions mounted to rescue her turned a pretext for homicide and land theft, an undeclared genocide on a horrible scale.

When a distracted Jacinta fails to select up Kyle from basketball observe, an argument along with her auntie prompts her to fade and pursue her work alone. A panicked Rochelle tries to file a lacking individual report. It’s a traumatic expertise, because the sergeant (Ian Bliss) represents a system blind to its personal structural racism; he bears accountability for yet one more Indigenous loss of life in custody.

In the meantime, Jacinta pores by biased colonial sources, probes the thriller from each angle, makes an attempt to gather and protect her mob’s oral histories, and works to counter the mental vainness of her tutorial supervisor – and the primacy given to the written phrase that suppresses the voices of her folks.

The Black Lady of Gippsland is totally grounded within the current. It shifts by fly-on-the-wall home drama, an instructional puzzle being solved in a motel room, and tense encounters at police stations and in halls of scholarship.

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The sense of immediacy is deepened, although, by timeless manifestations of Gunaikurnai language and tradition. Dance theatre in a possum-skin cloak from performer Brent Watkins haunts the motion, and visible and sonic design forged apart the shackles of colonial creativeness.

In a climactic scene, reams of educational papers flutter uselessly by the air, and the now Dr. Jacinta Pepper dedicates her thesis to a lacking “Black Woman of Gippsland” earlier than returning to Nation, silent and tranquil, in a restorative second of theatrical magic that phrases alone might by no means obtain.
Reviewed by Cameron Wooodhead

MUSIC
The Offspring | Supercharged Tour ★★★
with Easy Plan, Rod Laver Area, Could 7

Jeez, we’re getting previous. I might have sworn it was simply the opposite week my cousin made us all snort by thrusting to The Offspring’s Fairly Fly (for a White Man), or since my little sister was signing her identify with the Easy Plan singer’s surname. However blink and I’m in my mid-30s, carrying wise sneakers and never squashed in opposition to the barrier however sitting all the way down to see each bands reside.

Millennials like me are awash with nostalgia – touring corporations understand it, and double payments like this appear focused squarely at us. Wanting round you’d be forgiven for pondering it was the early 2000s: flannels, band tees and pockets chains abound.

Easy Plan’s harmless pop-punk is frozen in time: life is tough, Dad is imply, don’t inform me what to do, I’m sorry I can’t be good! It’s bemusing listening to all this from the now 45-year-old singer Pierre Bouvier, but it surely’s additionally charming in its earnestness. The Canadians are a superb reside act, even when among the older punks are grimacing by it – Bouvier might qualify for the Olympics together with his excessive soar, and drummer Chuck Comeau dives into the viewers for a crowd-surf close to the tip of the just about hour-long set.

An inflatable blimp circles the world, capturing footage of the group as video games play out on display screen: are you courageous sufficient for the Kiss Cam, Booty Cam or Headbang Cam? It’s one other nostalgic trick: we could as effectively be on the Huge Day Out.

The Offspring is a right away blast of power, however Dexter Holland’s voice has seen higher days – he’s straining in an acoustic introduction to Need You Dangerous and clamours to be heard above the band by the remainder of the set. Honest sufficient – he’s been at this for over 40 years – however Holland fares significantly better within the songs the place he speak-sings (Unique Prankster, Fairly Fly).

An prolonged part the place the Californian band jams instrumental covers – Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Grieg’s Within the Corridor of the Mountain King – culminates in The Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop. It appears odd for a band with 11 albums below its belt – absolutely sufficient materials to fill a set.

They pull out all of the stops – confetti weapons, pyrotechnics, tube males and inflatable skeletons – and after they’re on, they’re on. However there’s a lot whiplash on this present – the jarring transition from the phone-lights-out, piano-led Gone Away to the bratty 1998 single Why Don’t You Get a Job? is a chief instance. Nostalgic, for certain – however possibly some issues are higher merely remembered.
Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

MUSIC
ZZ High | The Elevation Tour ★★★★
with particular friends George Thorogood & the Destroyers, Margaret Courtroom Area, Could 7

You recognize that bit in The Blues Brothers the place the automobile chase begins at night time and about seven minutes in, there’s a reduce and out of the blue it’s daytime, however the automobile chase remains to be going? And also you suppose “by any normal metric, this car chase is too long. But I’m still loving it!” Properly, that’s what each blues-rocking guitar solo was like from each George Thorogood and ZZ High on Wednesday night time, the place it actually felt like too lengthy wasn’t lengthy sufficient.

George Thorogood strutted on stage at Margaret Courtroom Area like a person who’s the celebration and kicked issues off with: “How sweet it is! Welcome in everybody, there’s a rock party tonight!” then, bam! Straight into Rock Get together, as a result of subtlety is for Radiohead.

Thorogood made it clear that phrases weren’t crucial a part of the night, shouting “I hope you appreciate my intellectual lyrics” after enjoying his truck-tastic Gear Jammer. However he and the superb Destroyers hit all of the wanted themes of the night time, from lust (Mama, Speak to Your Daughter) to liquor (One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer) to licks (Dangerous to the Bone) whereas sticking admirably to the night time’s overarching theme of boogie-woogie, blues-rockin’, country-smellin’ guitar worship. A really wonderful set that might solely be adopted by the masters of the style, ZZ High.

ZZ High got here on wanting like ZZ High, which is a culturally lovely factor to witness. Resplendent in beards, low cost sun shades and rhinestones, they obtained straight into ’80s basic Bought Me Underneath Stress and the response was as huge as Elwood Francis’ big 17-stringed yellow bass.

Like an ideal marriage, for 51 years the High’s lineup was unchanged, making them maybe essentially the most constant rock ‘n’ roll lineup of all time. Dusty Hill’s passing in 2021 led to his substitute with Francis, the band’s long-time guitar tech, who’s the proper mixture of foolish enjoyable and deep groove to step into Hill’s sneakers, while John Douglas, regardless of sitting in darkness behind a double bass-drummed metal-style behemoth of a equipment, performs an admirable Frank Beard, who’s quickly out of the tour resulting from medical points.

One of many issues I’ve all the time adored about ZZ High is their understated, charming choreography, transferring like marionettes dealt with by an octogenarian. Fortunately, this implies they’ve misplaced none of their efficiency capability, even 56 years into their profession. We don’t have to see them working about and climbing speaker stacks, as a result of they by no means have. We’re all simply completely happy that their fingers pluck and strum on classics like Pearl Necklace, My Head’s in Mississippi, Sharp Dressed Man and Legs as completely as when these tracks had been launched.

After an encore’s fuchsia-based costume change, the band as soon as once more maintain their banter at a minimal, letting their garments do the speaking and their bass-lines do the strolling (besides when the bass-lines are extra syncopated and groove-driven).

They hit us with the blues of Brown Sugar, the boogie of Tube Snake Boogie and the brilliance of La Grange, bringing the entire flooring part to their toes. If there’s one lesson to be realized of the night, it’s that whereas rock ‘n’ roll could age, it by no means grows up.

Reviewed by Andrew McClelland

DANCE | Yirramboi
Mythosoma ★★★
Chunky Transfer Studios, Could 10

The publicity materials for this present, with its speak of soma multiplicity and sophic entanglements, provides little trace as to its content material. With such cosmic vagueness – and a title that seems like a wellness app – you’d be forgiven for approaching with trepidation.

However worry not. Mythosoma is a fastidiously composed and visually interesting piece of dance theatre: earnest, sure, but in addition effectively crafted, with a classy interaction of spoken textual content and motion drawn from road dance and call improvisation.

This shouldn’t come as a shock. Though produced by a brand new firm referred to as Physique Islands, the present is directed by Kelly Nash, an artist intently related to Atamira Dance Firm, New Zealand’s premiere Māori modern dance outfit.

At its coronary heart is the notion of the physique as residing archive. That is spelled out in Nancy Wijohn’s opening monologue, which evokes the physique’s capability to register ache, heartache and extra particular types of violence.

She insists that it’s by motion – and thru the sustained improvement of a person motion observe – that this archive of trauma might be remodeled, and the struggling reclaimed for its expressive potential.

The method is illustrated in three episodes that includes Samoan dancer Ooshcon. It begins with a comic book classroom scene the place he’s triggered by a choreographer’s misplaced attentions. The following scene signifies his misery by photos of constriction and breathlessness.

Within the last scene, he takes centre stage. His distinctive road model emphasises fluid arm and hand articulations, whereas the torso stays poised – held again, restrained – sending waves of motion outward.

All of the performers – the forged additionally options Jada Narkle and Moana Ete – deliver outstanding energy and presence. And Rob Larsen’s faceted set provides depth, suggesting disclosure, emergence, a gradual motion from shadow into gentle.

If there’s a downside, it’s the brevity. At below an hour, Mythosoma feels prematurely resolved. A extra sustained dramatic arc would have allowed the work and its dancers the house to extra absolutely unfold.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

JAZZ
Tripudiis Sonis Variis ★★★★★
The JazzLab, Could 7

It’s not usually you hear a jazz trio carry out a complete program of music written 400 years in the past. However whereas the Baroque period might sound worlds away from jazz – geographically, temporally and culturally – Tripudiis Sonis Variis draw connections between the 2 genres that permit this early music to pulse with a up to date heartbeat.

As Italian-born, Melbourne-based singer Ilaria Crociani defined to the viewers on Wednesday night time, Baroque composers anticipated performers to interpret and improvise on their works, so she and her colleagues (Mirko Guerrini and Stephen Magnusson) “don’t feel guilty” about reimagining this music by a jazz prism.

Not that the trio goals to show Seventeenth-century arias and cantatas into finger-snapping, swing-laden grooves. Reasonably, their considerate preparations are designed to underline the timeless great thing about the melodies and lyrics, and the common human feelings they convey.

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Many of the lyrics in Wednesday’s program had been in Italian, however Crociani prefaced every track with vivid tales that provided a window into the realm of varied composers, characters and emotional states. Her vocal supply, too, was effortlessly expressive, conveying the anguish of unrequited love or the craving for divine intervention with no trace of bombast.

Guerrini and Magnusson had been equally centered on subtlety and understatement, selecting out ravishing melodies or elegant contrapuntal strains that wove round Crociani’s voice like silver threads. Magnusson’s guitar might stride with lute-like readability or dissolve into wafts of resonance; Guerrini may arrange an digital hum on his laptop computer, then overlay it with lyrical piano chords or a melancholy extemporisation on soprano sax.

I’m unsure Monteverdi might have imagined his music being performed on an Indian harmonium, Armenian duduk and electrical guitar, however one way or the other all of it labored completely. It felt as if the musicians – and the viewers – had been tapping into one thing each historical and everlasting, demonstrating that the power of this music to invoke each contemplation and elevation is as highly effective now because it was 4 centuries in the past.
Reviewed by Jessica Nicholas

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