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Since Neolithic times, communities have gathered on the winter solstice to face down the darkness and celebrate the return of the light. This June, Dark Mofo – the Museum of Old and New Art’s winter festival in Australia – celebrates ancient and contemporary mythology around the darkest night of the year, and presents opportunities to explore our shadow selves.
Last year, Dark Mofo attracted more than 130,000 people to events across 10 days in Hobart on the island state of Tasmania. This year, coinciding with the opening of MONA’s major exhibition curated by Nicole Durling and Olivier Varenne, ‘Private Archaeology’ by Marina Abramović, Dark Mofo is also spreading its tentacles into new spaces around the state, with performances from around 250 artists hailing from a dozen different countries around the world.
Dark Mofo 2015 opening night on Friday 12 June unveils a new festival precinct called ‘Dark Park’ at Hobart’s harbourside Macquarie Point, with large public artworks including the high-octane ‘Fire Organ’ by Dutch chemo-acoustic engineer Bastiaan Maris with producer Duckpond, the full-body sonic massage immersion of Bass Bath by Melbourne’s Byron J. Scullin in collaboration with Supple Fox, plus British-born American avant-garde artist Anthony McCall’s installations of light and fire works, as well as a Night Ship to prowl the river throughout the festival. You’ll hear it coming.
Hobart’s historic Odeon Theatre will host a queer and deliciously dark music program, featuring Australian exclusive performances of British award-winning torch singer Antony and the Johnsons with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and British art-pop collective The Irrepressibles, plus many more.
Mid-week, road trip into the true heart of the Tasmanian winter with ‘Wild at Heart’; a two-night immersive art experience sleepover (June 15-17) within Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Presented by Cradle Mountain Hotel and Dark Mofo and curated by the Unconscious Collective (Motel Dreaming), Wild at Heart includes an exhibition opening of ‘Remote Nature Response’ by Melbourne contemporary artist Ash Keating, and a dark and debaucherous banquet by British jellymongers and architectural foodsmiths, Bompas and Parr.
Dark Mofo Films launches at the Odeon with the red-carpet world premiere of the first adult drama television series filmed in Tasmania, ‘The Kettering Incident’, in a special double-episode screening before its Foxtel premiere later this year. Dark Mofo Films then continues at North Hobart’s century-old State Cinema with a selection of new Australian and Nordic dark folkloric films including ‘A Second Chance, A Spell to Ward off the Darkness’, ‘Down Terrace’, ‘A Field in England, Partisan’, and more, in another confronting and cutting-edge program conjured by curators Nick Batzias and James Hewison.
Dark Mofo’s Bacchanalian community celebration, the City of Hobart Dark Mofo ‘Winter Feast’, returns for a longer and lustier five nights of food, fire, music and performance, at Hobart’s dockside Princes Wharf Shed 1, this year spreading outside onto Salamanca Lawns and inside the Hothouse Structure. The Winter Feast climaxes on the solstice night with a demon-purging Balinese ogoh-ogoh parade making its way from Dark Park towards the Feast for a ritualistic burning of the community’s collective fears.
Contemporary theatre highlights include Virginia Woolf’s Orlando performed by Victoria’s THE RABBLE theatre company at Australia’s oldest theatre, the Theatre Royal in Hobart, plus a kooky take for ages six and over on Roald Dahl’s creepy ‘The Witches’ at Salamanca Arts Centre’s Peacock Theatre. There are also select experiences of ‘Funeral’.
More Dark Mofo visual arts highlights include Patricia Piccinini and Peter Hennessey’s ‘The Shadows Calling’ at Hobart’s newest CBD cultural space. There are many artworks to see by a range of artists that cover photography, installation and music art just to name a few. Music will ring in the darkness around the city, with New Orleans-based improvisational cellist and vocalist Helen Gillet as well as The Discovery Orchestra at the Museum of Old and New Art. There’s also a new late-night ceremonial death dance curated by Supple Fox and Duckpond called Blacklist. You will want your name on it.
Dark Mofo builds up to the longest night and ‘winter solstice’ (Monday 22 June, 2.38am) with the annual ‘Nude Solstice Swim’ at sunrise (7.10am, Monday 22 June). Release your inhibitions with your clothes and go towards the light.
Dark Mofo 2015
12 to 22 June, 2015
Hobart
