Canberra Times (Australia)
June 3, 2006 Saturday
Final Edition
On the right tack
EXCITING news that Canberra artist Elefteria Vlavianos has a solo
show of new paintings, at the Hawthorn Town Hall in Melbourne until
June 24. The title, Metaphor for Longing, hints at the artist’s
concerns with memory and cultural heritage in the formation of
individual identity. A recurring device is a short, fine line which
she calls a “tack”, the stitch used in textile construction and
repairs, which she relates to heritage items and keepsakes – objects
important to her own identity as the daughter of a Greek father and
an Armenian mother. I saw several of her paintings hanging in the
residence of a high commissioner in Deakin recently, and many readers
may recognise her work from the recent ANU painting alumni
exhibition, which is travelling to the Sydney College of the Arts and
to the Victorian College of the Arts in the next few months.
While we’re on fabulous Canberra artists, I caught up with Robert
Boynes’s show In Real Time at the Manly Art Gallery and Museum last
weekend. What an amazing setting. You almost mistake the view through
the windows for the works on the walls. The work in this show is
largely in Boynes’s present-day idiom -screenprints of photographs
later worked in paint to give the impression of human figures moving
in the urban landscape. The show runs until June 18.
That powerhouse of artistic activity, the Tuggeranong Arts Centre, is
launching a film- society season tomorrow at 4pm, with a screening of
The Year My Voice Broke (PG).
There will be a discussion and tea and coffee after each film, which
will screen on Sundays until October 15. The season of 15 films costs
$35. Phone 62931443.
A jam-packed function at Teatro Vivaldi restaurant in the ANU Arts
Centre on Tuesday celebrated two years of operation. Not only has
Vivaldi become a hub of fine eating and, as the owners Mark Santos
and Anthony Hill say, “a less intimidating point of contact between
town and gown”, but it has filled the gap in Canberra’s cabaret
entertainment, with top shows and good local artists.
The National Institute of Dramatic Art has announced the world
premiere of a new play by Timothy Daly, to open in late June. Beach:
A Theatrical Fantasia covers nearly 250 years of our country’s
history, as seen from the “national arena” of the beach. With more
than 140 roles, it is claimed to be the largest-scale Australian play
to be seen on our stages in recent years. From Governor Phillip to
Gallipoli, from beach cricket to shark attacks, from legal arrivals
to illegal drop-offs, from the death of a Prime Minister to the
murder of innocent children, Beach is billed as a national journey.
Directed by NIDA’s acting tutor Kevin Jackson, it will be performed
by third-year graduating acting students, with production by
full-time technical production, scenery construction, design and
production students. If you’re at NIDA’s open day today, you can pick
up tickets for Beach at the box office at the discounted price of
$15/$10. The play will be at 215 Anzac Parade, Kensington, from June
22 to July 1.
Bookings on 132849 or