A NEW PLAY WORTH A PLUG

He’s nothing but hands and a couple of LED lights, but you come to love him.

I wish I could be in Brisbane next week when a new show from Dead Puppet Society opens in the Brisbane Powerhouse as part of the Power Kids festival.

I had the pleasure of spending a week earlier this year working on Argus as dramaturg in a creative development workshop. I loved this process.

SIGNS OF WIT IN BRISBANE

Oh, those Queenslanders are funny people!

You have to pay attention or you could easily miss something.

Yes, of course it was by the dog park.

Outside the restaurants in the Brisbane Powerhouse.

FLASH MOB – Queensland Symphony Orchestra

It takes all sorts to make an orchestra.

I had a bit of luck, running into the Queensland Symphony Orchestra out on Brisbane’s Southbank, staging a Flash Mob.

I love spontaneous arts happenings, and there are some great YouTube clips of Flash Mob groups popping up in public places and dancing or bursting into song. It only works when the standard of performance is unexpectedly high.

No problems there with this orchestra, who were celebrating their move this week into a new building by flash-mobbing with Ravel’s Bolero for the passing tourists, cyclists, joggers and dog walkers.

BRISBANE – riding after the storm

New Farm Park. Oswald was here.

It could have been worse. It has been worse. But with at least four people dead and thousands of homes flooded it’s been quite bad enough.

One way or another, I didn’t choose the best day to arrive in Brisbane, along with ex-tropical cyclone Oswald.

BRISBANE FLOODS – a (relatively) good news story

The clean-up begins. Photo Debra Kolkka.

While I’ve been writing about the Sydney Festival and pleasant theatre events, it will not have escaped the notice of anyone with the slightest interest in Australia that recent floods in Queensland and now Victoria have been taking a terrible toll.

It’s nothing compared to the recent flood disasters in Pakistan and Brazil of course, but quite bad enough. More than twenty people have drowned and thousands have had their homes and businesses ruined.

The house of my fellow blogger and regular correspondent Debra Kolkka was one of those which went under the muddy water. She’s written about it and posted photos, first of the damage, then of the clean-up.

It is an inspiring story of a community, neighbourhood and friends working together and I warmly recommend it to you.

Check out Debra Kolkka’s blog.