2009 July | MEL: HOT OR NOT

HOT: Mayumana, The Arts Centre, 100 St Kilda Rd, Southbank

July 22, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Mayumana is a 85 minutes of all-singing, all-dancing, slapstick energy and it’s inevitable that it will be compared to the last all-singing, all-dancing , slapstick show that Melbourne hosted, Cirque de Soleil. The difference with Mayumana is that the thumping rhythm of the show is provided by the acoustic properties of the body and a [...]

HOT: Bingo!, Madame Brussels, Lvl 3, 59-63 Bourke St, Melbourne

July 21, 2009 ⋅ 3 comments

The sartorial choices heading up to Madame Brussels were pretty eclectic, from business suits to jeans-clad students to two guys in long Matrix-style gangster coats and pork pie hats. Ha! No one else thought to turn up to Bingo Night in full retro-housewife mode: a 50s-style full-skirted dress, a little collared jacket with bracelet sleeves [...]

HOT: Tessuti Fabrics, 141 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

July 21, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Sydney’s venerable fabric shop Tessuti Fabrics have recently opened their first Melbourne store in amongst the galleries, artisans and designer ateliers of Flinders Lane. It’s a light and airy space containing a rainbow spectrum of fabrics, buttons, threads and finishings on every wall, plus an inviting wooden table piled with further inspiration in the form [...]

HOT: 1277 Past Use By, Adelphi Hotel, 187 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

July 21, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Another free exhibition in State of Design (seeing a theme here?), this time in the foyer of the Adelphi Hotel. All in Good Hindsight is a design practice all about sustainability, so they’ve come up with a novel way to use up all those millions of metcards Melburnians throw away every year. ‘1277 Past Use [...]

HOT: Baking Architecture, 41 Exhibition St, Melbourne

July 21, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I was pretty sure that I’d enjoy the Baking Architecture exhibition (part of State of Design festival) as soon as I walked into the foyer of the Australian Institute of Architects and sniffed the aroma of patisserie. Melbourne architectural practices and chefs have collaborated to construct delicious models of unbuilt architectural structures in order to [...]

HOT: Visible Markings, Craft Victoria, 31 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

July 21, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

My favourite of the three exhibitions that Craft Victoria are hosting as part of the State of Design festival is Visible Markings. In a dimly lit room various pieces of armoury hang with ghostly stillness. However, the breastplates, collars and neckpieces have been constructed out of unexpected materials – knitted wool interspersed with leather, oak, [...]

NOT: Morphed, Craft Victoria, 31 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

July 21, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Simply put, I didn’t like Emma Davies’ exhibition Morphed (another State of Design show) because I thought it was ugly. The works were apparently inspired by Davies’ recent trip to South Africa and ‘the visual intoxication of busy streets, road-side performances, and the bustling Johannesburg market’. I didn’t sense any of that in the lumpish [...]

HOT OR NOT? Mayumana, State Theatre, Southbank

July 20, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

To celebrate the new home of MEL: HOT OR NOT, I’ve decided to test trial a little interactivity on the blog. Basically, I have a double pass to see Mayumana at the Arts Centre for 8pm Wednesday 22 July and I would like to take one of my readers as my date! Movement creates music [...]

HOT: Fitzroy Nursery, 390 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

July 20, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Joycey, Joycey, quite contrary, has does your garden grow? With a little bit of help from Fitzroy Nursery, my (ever-increasing) collection of twenty-five balcony pots have been happily providing my kitchen with fragrant herbs and crisp salad leaves, even during the frosty winter months. While the small plant punnets ($4.95) are not as cheap as [...]

HOT: Salvos Store, 81 Victoria Crescent, Abbotsford

July 20, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I know, I know, I’m becoming obsessed with charity stores and cheap glassware. But how could I resist when I cycled past what appeared to be the Salvos Store flagship? Endless rooms and shelves and racks of mustiness and potential treasure! And treasure I did find: large swathes of fabric remnants, useful as jar covers [...]