Friday nights can be among the loneliest of nights of the week for me. They are the evenings when I notice the most that, whenever you stop moving, the sound of your head running and your heart pounding is very loud.
I try not to wallow in lonely though, because, the only cure for sadness is to learn something, and I know how to play the spoons now. But I mean, who actually likes Friday nights?
Typically the bastion of the terrible work drinks at the orifice, followed by the awful shouty post-week bar crawl and the kebab and maudlin my-feet-hurt-on-the-kerbside, the safest way to escape Friday night is to retreat with a single good friend, a single good back porch and a glass of single malt. Or, alternatively, you can welcome the weekend with a spring in your step and connect with the crew at Metro Arts, who are opening their space on regular Fridays once a month to a range of artists, performers, musicians and lonely hearts.
This month, the line-up is extra and beautiful, and I’m honoured to be a part of it, not least of all because it will mean I have somewhere to go on a Friday night. I’ll be shaking my tail feather between 6.30pm – 7.30pm, but you’d be welcome to share the wonder.
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Metro Arts Friday Night 1 Nov, 5.30 – 10.30pm
Provocateur Deborah Leiser-Moore joins us for the week and share with artists her extensive experience as a physical contemporary performance maker. Deborah’s solo and collaborative devised work is bold, challenging form, concepts and theatrical conventions.
In the Basement, Giema Contini shares a work-in-progress showing of her new solo performance work, Takeover#5: Broken Heart Syndrome. The result of three week’s development at Metro Arts (building on work at the Judith Wright Centre in 2012), this is the story of a girl – who believes with all her heart that she is half octopus – finding her way. She weaves together moments of story, song and image as she connects with the guests at her birthday party. Join Giema, to share and discuss fragments of this developing work, and contribute your own big questions. Capacity for Broken Heart Syndrome is limited, and $10 tickets are available for sale at www.metroarts.com.au or at the box office on the evening.
Jennifer Bismire returns with Paper Dolls. Since sharing her ideas with you last month, Jennifer’s gone on to spend another week in intensive development. Paper Dolls is a work where design collides with puppetry and performance to create oversize paper dolls, grappling with a three-dimensional world. Across the evening, Jennifer and her team’s creations will come to life through the building, exploring the spaces and engaging with you in a ‘test-run’ ahead of final presentation.
In the Studio, Spoken word artist Kaitlyn Plyley presents a showing of her new work, following six months of slow-burn development on Not Much to Tell You, a unique fusion of poetry and storytelling examining the small acts, the quiet prejudices, and the unspoken power plays that occur daily in mainstream Australia.
In the Gallery, Nancy Stilianos invites you to join her in the time intensive task of pulling cotton for her current exhibition Anthotopia. Drawing its name from the Greek word “anthos,” to mean blossom, bloom or flower, Anthotopia is an immersive place of wonder and imagination, inviting you to pause in a place of fun and pleasure. Nancy Stilianos has created these gentle sculptures using raw cotton dyed with vegetable juices and food colouring.
Eleanor Jackson and EXIST ARI presents A Timely Act of Intimacy, is a series of poetry based, proximity focused one-on-one performances that look at issues of secrecy, disclosure, the privacy of the home, the unspoken ugliness of those we know closely, as well as the kind of cinematic beauty that comes from ungarnished view of those we love.
Motherland will be in season in the Sue Benner Theatre. Shortlisted for the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award, Motherland sweeps through the Russian Revolution, World War II, and Brisbane history, telling the story of Nell Tritton of the Tritton Furniture Emporium. Motherland is a tapestry of friendship, displacement, home, and identity – a finely-crafted story of the casualties of love, ambition, and politics. Tickets are available atwww.metroarts.com.au or at the box office on the evening.
The Foyer Bar will be open from 5:30pm, with the program kicking off at 6pm. Full program details and schedule will be released in the coming days.
Entry to Friday Night: November is free. Takeover#5: Broken Heart Syndrome and Motherland are ticketed and are available at www.metroarts.com.au or at the box office on the evening.
eleanor j jackson 