MELT into a festival of queer celebration
MELT Festival, Brisbane’s forward and fearless annual celebration of queer art, artists, allies and ideas is back for an eighth edition, today revealing its vibrant and eclectic 2023 program.
Featuring home-grown music artists alongside international sensations, provocative and hilarious theatre, exhibitions showcasing photography, textile art and installations as well as a book launch and talk, MELT will take over Brisbane Powerhouse from November 11 – 26.
Brisbane Powerhouse Artistic Director and CEO Kate Gould said Melt is changing gear in 2023, with a program that radiates the vibrant diversity of queer culture.
“Melt 2023 is an explosion of creativity blending music, visual art and theatre to deliver our audiences an amazing program on the dancefloor, in the gallery and across our theatres. What better way to celebrate our LGBTQIA+ community than with a kaleidoscope of performers and experiences curated by our diverse team at Brisbane Powerhouse.”
From leading international musicians like Aluna or TOPS, Grammy-nominated sensations like Kah-Lo, to ground-breaking Australian musicians like First Nations artist Djanaba, Alter Boy, Keiynan Lonsdale, or Keelan Mak or June Jones, the line-up is not to be missed.
Not to mention, from Meanjin is award-winning ensemble Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra, comprised of 20+ BIPOC, First Nations, disabled, non-binary and trans artists. Their new alt-pop and experimental work “Companions” carefully considers the accessibility requirements of the performers, including light, motion, sound, and physical accessibility. These elements become the companions, or friends, that shape compositional process.
Artists and performers, Luke George and Daniel Kok, exploit the physical properties of rope and knots to unpick the boundaries of desire, trust, consent and communion between artist and audience in Bunny.
Meanwhile, from internationally acclaimed writer and one of the UK’s most prominent trans voices, Travis Alabanza (Burgerz), comes the Australian premiere of Overflow, an entirely trans production and “a future classic” (Evening Standard), directed by Dino Dimitriadis. Overflow takes the audience on a hilarious and devastating tour of women’s bathrooms – who is allowed in and who is kept out.
One of Australia’s most interesting and consequential multidisciplinary artists, Paul Yore’s BECOME WHAT YOU ARE brings together a suite of Yore’s intricate textile works, interrogating popular culture, nationalism, neo-liberalism, consumerism, and sexuality.
Internationally-celebrated performance artists The Huxleys’ Places of Worship photographic series explores the fading magic of supernatural worlds in which Melbourne-based performance and visual artists, Will and Garrett Huxley cast themselves as exquisite outsiders. These photographs invite the viewer to find a similar beauty in explosively queer bodies, yearning for difference to be marvelled at, worshipped and praised.
New York-based Australian artists and creative technologists Tin Nguyen & Edward Cutting use art to envision the world through a lens of interconnectedness. Multitudes is a series of playful outdoor installations and experiences that illuminate the borderless dimension between art and science, the physical and the digital, the human and the more than human.
Join multi-award-winning comedian and writer Rhys Nicholson as they talk about anxiety disorder, a complicated relationship with food and a book deal. In Dish, through a series of revealing stories, intrusive thoughts and a recipe here and there, they’re hoping to ruminate, gossip and generally have a deeply private, wide-ranging conversation with themselves about a whole bunch of life’s smaller questions.
Get in quick or face the MELT down!