Lunch with Hannah Fox, artistic director of Melbourne arts festival, Rising
When I met Rising’s artistic director Hannah Fox for lunch in April, I didn’t know Florentina Holzinger, the Austrian performance artist Fox had programmed for this year’s festival.
Since then, Holzinger has become the hottest ticket at the Venice Biennale, captivating audiences with a work in the Austrian pavilion. Half-naked, she hangs upside down inside a giant bell, physically swinging and hitting the edge of the bell, her body—literally—sounding an alarm.
A month before the global Italian event often described as the Olympics of arts, Fox and I were dining at Manze, a Mauritius-inspired restaurant in North Melbourne. Had eaten here once and was eager to return. Its relaxed atmosphere, excellent staff, and fabulous, interesting food make it yawn-friendly.
We opt for the ‘short’ express lunch, which includes a few dishes plus an extra starter with abalone skewers that look too good to resist; We each got a glass of pinot gris and we left.
Sitting in the front corner of the restaurant facing the street, Fox tells me that Holzinger creates “these huge, feminist, body horror, amazing works.”
“It really set a new precedent for what could happen on the big stages of a theatre, who was invited to be on those stages, and who the audience was,” he says. “I was absolutely blown away when I first saw his work. Looking around… feeling who was sitting in that room was a completely different feeling, completely different from what the average theatergoer would experience.”
Shortly after we arrive, the chef sends home two taro rolls with habanero sauce. Are you good with spices? I ask.
“I’m actually a bit of a spice lover,” Fox says as he tries to stab one of the balls. Just as he tries to do this, he flies over the table and falls to the ground. “I missed that… oh my, what a start.”
A perfect, playful moment that kicks off a very relaxed and enjoyable lunch; Fox is a great conversationalist, warm, funny and intelligent. He was assistant creative director at the Melbourne Festival from 2008 to 2013 and then Dark Mofo from 2013 to 2019, programming across all genres, but music has always been his main purse.
Barrie Kosky’s 1996 Adelaide Festival was his first major arts event. “I knew [Adelaide] I used to do fly parades as a kid, but that was the limit of my understanding. I was really into music and started organizing DIY music events when I was very young. “He’s probably too young,” he says with a laugh, adding that his first time was when he was 16.
Kosky’s festival, he says, “really opened my eyes to a wider scope than was comfortable for me at the time.”
“But I can definitely draw a straight line from this experience,” he says. “I need to see [American sexologist and performer] I saw Annie Sprinkle [UK-based] DV8 Physical Theater and productions Enter Achillesabout toxic masculinity, which was a word I didn’t understand at the time and I was 18, so it really changed me. And we offer that option, just to offer a wide enough invitation… I always think about, what’s the widest possible door that we can make and then where do we direct people? Where is the second offer and the third offer?”
When our photographer arrives, he comments on Fox’s Sade t-shirt, which I also admire. R&B artist best known for album Hassle-free Operator 1984 has been in high rotation lately for me and my 16-year-old (who discovered himself apart from me).
“[Sade is] “He’s really gotten back into the zeitgeist and is actually releasing a new album,” says Fox. “I was hoping he would tour again, but I was told that was absolutely not possible.
“His attitude towards trans youth and some of the charity work he did really struck a chord with another generation and put him on the radar.”
There’s a whole new generation of fans flocking to Sade’s work, which reflects the way people listen to music now. Fox says he was recently asked by someone who was fairly junior at his job if he’d heard of “the new band called Talking Heads.”
Fox says this suddenly entered their algorithm and they considered it current.
The 48-year-old grew up in the country near Onkaparinga, south of Adelaide. His parents are passionate divers and would take him on night dives in his youth. “Which was definitely illegal, but it was really fun,” he says with a laugh. “It’s very scary, it’s surrounded by cliffs and there’s only a little light.
“They would go to certain caves in the reef and you’d see a lot. They’re in their late 70s now and they’re still in the ocean every day.”
I’m fascinated by cave diving at night, even though it’s not something I would ever consider. Fox says he’ll be scared now. “It’s interesting how bravery changes as I get older. As a kid, I was really fearless towards nature in general, and now every time I go into the ocean, or even go into the bath, I can hear it.” jaws soundtrack. I’m a real wimp.”
We agree that to some extent this is about risk awareness; It’s a concept we’re much less conscious of as children. “I guess it’s death awareness,” Fox says with a laugh.
With perfect timing comes sea bass with kohlrabi, abalone skewers and a sweet and spicy fruit salad with Creole tamarind jam; Each dish is so beautiful that it looks like a work of art.
‘Every time, what I thought would be simple turns out to be really difficult. And what I thought would be challenging is going very well. That’s its addictive nature.’
Hannah Fox, Rising artistic director
He was once featured in the Day On A Plate column. Sunday Life Fox magazine says one small detail provided “the most feedback I’ve ever received from any press I’ve ever done.”
“I think I admitted to using weed gum or something,” he says. “My mother-in-law said, right?!”
Rising was born in 2019 as an amalgam of the Melbourne Festival, before that the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and before that Spoleto from 1986 to 2003, and White Night, a popular mass event in the CBD.
One of the challenges for Fox and Gideon Obarzanek (who until this year was Fox’s co-artistic director on Rising) was launching the new event “after two previous events that were completely different.” This year, he takes the reins on his own and adds CEO to his title.
As a contemporary art festival, Rising has a very broad content and covers all genres of art. In 2022, a magical exhibition of Patricia Piccinini’s work was shown at Flinders Street Station, including the ballroom. It was inspiring programming that opened this storied space to Melburnians. Hosted the same rooms in 2023 Shadow SpiritAn extraordinary range of First Nations works curated by Yorta Yorta woman Kimberley Moulton.
This year’s musical highlights include Lil’ Kim, North Carolina band Wednesday, indie pop star Saint Levant, Seun Kuti (son of Nigerian legend Fela Kuti) and Egypt 80, Welsh singer Cate Le Bon and a major day-long festival called Daytripper as part of the festival at Melbourne City Hall.
There’s a big dance component, lots of theater and all kinds of visual arts; Including Kent Morris’s. Flower Power in the revamped City Square – plus art trams, guided tours, talks and more. Participatory events are a trademark of the 12-day event, as are many free offerings.
Australian-Chinese journalist Cheng Lei’s schedule until February 1154 DaysHe became a member of the theater staff based on his experience of being wrongfully imprisoned in China. According to Rising, it was canceled due to financial reasons. Speaking this month, Lei argued that he had been censored, citing pressure from the Chinese government; the show will be staged at the Arts House and will open this week.
This year, Moulton, who is responsible for the exhibitions in the Rising team; Wiradjuri woman Hayley Percy as senior music curator; Taungurung woman Kate ten Buuren as curator of First Peoples Melbourne art trams; Obarzanek became senior curator, performance and director of the Australian Dance Biennale. Our rising fellow Yasmine Sharaf is also a music curator.
Fox says people need to experience the festival for themselves. “Over time I see a growing sense of ownership in Melbourne, and that’s the ultimate goal. It needs to belong to the city – not mine, not Gideon’s, not anyone working on Rising. It belongs to Melbourne, and I see that change over time. But I think people forget how long it took. For the first four years I worked at Dark Mofo, it was a pretty small, intimate event. The first time we sold 1500 tickets.”
Of course, there was another important difficulty that no one expected. While the Rising festival was supposed to start in 2020, it was canceled due to the pandemic.
Then, heartbreakingly, it opened for one night in 2021. “That was it; we all went home,” says Fox.
As devastating as it was, some work continued. “We still had Rivers Sing, Over the next few weeks there was a video work by Maree Clarke and Mitch Mahoney, led by Deborah Cheetham, called: ancestral memories. There was also the Lantern Company’s giant eel in the river.
“I was spending a lot of time with Deborah there on the bridge, listening to her full, quiet voice echoing throughout the city,” Fox says. “And it felt profound, like an elegy on a scale appropriate to what everyone is experiencing here and everywhere.”
“Walking around to experience it was a very strange, eerie, ethereal, gentle beginning that I still think about all the time every time I stand on that bridge,” he recalls of people coming to town.
Fox is impressed by the fact that people can participate in arts and festival events without needing an invitation to attend or get involved. “We’re always looking for ways to do this,” he says, “and it happens in ways big and small.”
In 2022, there was a project by The Hole Collective on the roster: “We dig art holes” is their motto.
“This was a group of artists literally digging a hole and asking the public to help them… people were walking around and some people were coming at it on purpose,” Fox says.
“I couldn’t believe how deeply invested so many people were in digging this hole. Dads, tradesmen, gardening enthusiasts, other artists who asked no questions.” [It was] like art masquerading as hardcore yakka. [Everyone] I got into the hole, shoulder to shoulder, dug with the artists, had breathless conversations for hours, and finally filled that hole again. This was the end of it. “It felt like the perfect metaphor for what we go through building and tearing these things down.”
Fox says that Ascendant’s door is always open to everyone; He hopes the program reflects that. The artist, who has been organizing festivals for nearly twenty years, is happy to say: “This always surprises me every year.
“Every time, what I thought would be a challenge turns out to be really difficult. And what I thought would be a challenge turns out to be a challenge. That’s the addictive nature of it; you’re constantly trying to perfect something that’s actually been made by hundreds of hands and thousands of decisions, and ultimately the public tells you what works.”
Rising Festival It will last until June 8.
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