Melbourne's biggest celebration of Queer arts, culture and revelry is set to stir the city into a frenzy of fun once more with three weeks of sensational shows, shindigs and shenanigans. Running from 15 January to 5 February 2012,
Midsumma Festival will again entertain, inspire, enlighten and delight Melburnians as they partake in a feast of
live music,
performance art,
visual art,
literature and film,
community events and
parties a-plenty.
The crowd at Midsumma's T Dance in 2011.
The festivities will begin with the
Midsumma Carnival at Birrarung Marr (the park behind Federation Square) at 11am on 15 January. This free event draws tens of thousands of riverside frolickers keen to while away the day with live entertainment while getting a taste of what the rest of the festival has in store.
T Dance entertainment in 2011.
As dusk approaches, the evening starts to heat up with
T Dance, a pulsing party of lush fun and mischievous merriment.
Tickets are required for
T Dance, which begins at 5pm, and it's advisable to snag them early – the event was sold out last year. Standard entry tickets are $50 on the night or $35 if
purchased in advance.
Midsumma's Carnival entertainment in 2010.
Twenty days and nights of celebration will then follow, with exhibitions, comedy, music, art, stories and soirees in venues all over Melbourne. Highlights include
The Australian Same-Sex Dancesports, free amusements at the
Wyndham Family Fun Day, and
Leggings are Not Pants – a sexy show with a comic twist.
Colourful folk at Carnival 2010.
The festival finishes with a flourish on 5 February with the
Annual Pride March down Fitzroy St, St Kilda. The parade begins at 2pm and concludes at Catani Gardens with free entertainment from two dedicated stages until 10pm.
Smooth moves at Midsumma's T Dance 2011.
With
Midsumma now well and truly established in the year-long calendar of Queer and in Melbourne's general arts and entertainment scene, there's little doubt that 2012 will see another spectacular festival unfold. Since its
inception in 1988, the event has endured many twists and turns to become what it is today – a thriving celebration of culture and community with its own distinctive Melbourne flavour.
To get the low-down on the evolution of the event,
WeekendNotes discussed the past, present and future of the festival with
Midsumma CEO, Adam Lowe.
Midsumma is positioned as a 'celebration of Queer culture'. What does Midsumma mean to the Queer community of Melbourne?
Midsumma is good old-fashioned Analogue Social Networking. We come out, we get out, we touch and hug each other, smile at each other, even poke each other… it is, above all, fun! But we also educate, entertain and inspire each other too – all of which wouldn't be possible if not for Midsumma. It's through the physical coming-together of like-minded people to create, to view, or to partake in festival activities that we not only achieve self-celebration, but also affirmation and our continued demonstration of our community, our culture and our rights. I think we are a reflection of the self-esteem of the community.
Midsumma is seen as an inclusive, positive celebration for the broader community as well – how do you think the event has helped shape the city's culture as a whole?
Queer community is everywhere and ever growing just like the broader community. Midsumma has been at the forefront of the Queer celebration and expression, that is to say, the celebration and expression of diversity and difference, for 24 years. This remains so today – look at the success of our relationship with Hobson's Bay, evidence of the diminishing of the 'Queer Borders' of the inner city.
Over the years Midsumma has developed strong relationships with Hobson's Bay, the City of Melbourne, the City of Yarra, state and other local governments, and the corporate sector too, with support from IBM and Telstra, but also quite importantly with the mainstream arts community – our peers in practice. We have a very strong reputation amongst these peers and partners. Then when I look at the volume of work in our open access programs that is self-funded, self-created and as diverse as the community itself, I can't help but see leadership in the development of ideas of tolerance and diversity.
I think it is these attributes that provide Victoria's Queer community with a positive self-esteem, and this earns Midsumma respect from within the broader community and stands as a benchmark for contribution to the culture and social assets of Melbourne, and Victoria.
Is there any new event/talent this year that is particularly exciting?
Well, we've run a DJ competition this year through a number of Australian cities, and found the hottest new DJ Queer audiences are listening to. Winning DJ, L'il Miss K, all the way from Adelaide, will appear at our opening event, spinning a set at T Dance.
Also, Candy Royalle's spoken word performance in Stories by Starlight at 1000 Pound Bend is something I'm really excited to see, along with Ross Watson's Cycles&Sequences. New talent is always present at Midsumma and this year there is so much in the Premier Events program, but perhaps most special to me is dance – it runs in my family, and Collaboration The Project's Unanswered! at Theatre Works, featuring concept and choreography by Melbourne's own Paul Malek, is number one on my list.
Midsumma has been through significant evolution over the last twenty-plus years, and the road has at times been rocky - what do you think this year, and this decade, has in store?
I think there are two ways it could go – stiffly serious, or fabulously fun. Stiffly serious will lead to a 'collapse of the Roman empire' experience, as it were. Fabulously fun will see growth and success. I guess what I mean is, we can't forget that telling stories, telling them in many ways, and expressing ideas is above all a fun and healthy thing to do. It's also fun and healthy to watch, read, listen to or be part of a story in the telling. Some of us do it for a living, and some of us do it for leisure – but we all need to do it. So if we focus on the telling of the stories, the many different ways to tell them, watch them, etc, we should be able to grow, and succeed.
For full details of what's on at
Midsumma, check out the
program and browse by category or date, or see what's happening on the Queer scene all year long with
Midsumma's
Queer Melbourne summary or the
WeekendNotes feature on
Melbourne's Best Queer Nightlife.
Photography: Ross Brownsdon
