Floating on a couple of glasses of absinthe each, we made our way back to the CircuiTree installation being put on as part of the Fringe. As it would turn out the hazy warmth of the green fairy would be conducive to appreciating what was ahead.Entering through the back of the church, the amosphere had dramatically transmuted from the pre-preparation stage we saw earlier in the evening. With the sun almost about to slip below the western horizon, the darkened twighlight allowed the glow of black lights and cacophony of thumping Trance music to emerge into its own.

What struck us immediately was the sense of familiarity about the place. At one stage my brother and I had been sharing a house in Adelaide (that probably deserved demolition) , that was often ‘creatively’ decorated with indian print sheets, incense and odd lighting - it was like we had stepped back 15 odd years into our old abode.

But the effort before us was an installation of a much grander design than anything we had attempted in our own home. The first room we entered was adorned with hanging lamps, strung up sheeting, artworks on the walls and cushions strewn about the middle like a giant chill out room.

Ajoining side rooms bathed in harsh red lights and gentle blue tones were filled with original artworks, wall hangings by artistic collective Izwoz and canvases that displayed words of spirituality and philosphy - the words themselves hanging in midair to be studied like one would study the brush strokes or techniques of an artist. Painting with letters.

Onward into the depths of the installation, the mood would start to become more intense, more biomechanical and primal.

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Agnes Goodsir, ‘Girl with a Cigarette’, 1925

Artists have long flocked to Paris in order to ‘find’ their art and refine their techniques, and Australian artists are no exception. One of the most noteworthy Australian artists to make the pilgrimage was Agnes Goodsir, a native of Bendigo who would go on to become a well-known portrait painter in France at the turn of the 20th century. Goodsir was arguably one of Australia’s most pre-eminent bohemians, living with her lover and artist’s model ‘Cherry’ (fellow Australian Rachel Dunn), frequenting the cafes and bistrots of Paris and mixing in circles which included Picasso, Joyce and Hemmingway. A new exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery in Victoria uncovers the life and art of Goodsir, along with the other Australian artists who would go before and after her, in search of their art in the streets of Paris.

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 Max Dupain, Doll’s Head & Goat Skull. Silver gelatin photograph, c.1935

The National Gallery of Australia is currently hosting an incredible exhibition of Australian Surrealist works from the Agapitos/Wilson collection, offering the chance to view some of the country’s most outstanding yet rarely exhibited pieces of 20th century art from the likes of Dupain, Gleeson, Nolan and Klippel. 

As exhibition curator Elena Taylor tells us via the NGA website “The story of Surrealism in Australia has until recently remained largely unknown. It was only in 1993 with the National Gallery of Australia’s exhibition Surrealism: revolution by night that the extent of Surrealist practice in this country was revealed. That seminal exhibition led the Sydney collectors James Agapitos, OAM, and Ray Wilson, OAM, to focus their energies towards collecting Australian Surrealist art. Assembled with intellect and passion, their collection became the largest and most important repository of Australian Surrealist art in private hands.”

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“A young zombie named Otto appears on a remote highway. He has no idea where he came from or where he is going. After hitching a ride to Berlin and nesting in an abandoned amusement park, he begins to explore the city. Soon he is discovered by underground filmmaker Medea Yarn, who begins to make a documentary about him with the support of her girlfriend, Hella Bent, and her brother Adolf, who operates the camera. Meanwhile, Medea is trying to finish “Up with Dead People,” the epic political-porno-zombie movie that she has been working on for years. She convinces its star, Fritz Fritze, to allow the vulnerable Otto to stay in his guest bedroom. When Otto discovers that there is a wallet in his back pocket that contains information about his past, before he was dead, he begins to remember a few details, including memories of his ex-boyfriend, Rudolf. He arranges to meet him at the schoolyard where they met, with devastating results.”

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It’s Adelaide Fringe Festival time again, and there is a bevvy of burlesque, cabaret, theatre and performance guaranteed to keep you out every night of the week over the next month.

Absinthe.com.au hopes to bring you some reviews of particular performances and performers that we get along to see, and tell you a little bit more about particular artists that we think are helping drive the culture that makes worthy artistic pontificating over a glass of absinthe or two all the more enjoyable.

Some highly mentionable performers we think you should try to get along to see if you are in the ol’ City of (Empty) Churches.

What could be nicer than A Dinner Date With Lorelei & Sarina? Sarina Del Fuego and Lorelei Lee will be putting on a sexy and intimate cabaret performance at Sarah’s Cafe, 12 Leigh Street, Adelaide over three nights. What more can you say about the dynamic 1920’s duo who have entertained at both the famed Edinburgh Festival and the Sony Play Station launch party? I’m looking forward to hopefully catching up with the girls while they are in town and bringing a bit more of microscope to the blossoming world of Australian burlesque for our readers.

Another event to highlight - which has already sold out - is A Burlesque Cocktail by Adelaide’s own A Wink and A Smile Burlesque at the La Boheme Bar. A combo of striptease, cabaret and vaudeville, if you can beg, buy or borrow a ticket you are one of the lucky few. Lets see if divine intervention drops one in my lap….

An anticipated cabaret spectacle is The Very Best of Empress Stah, described as Erotic Circus meets Live Art meets Neo-burlesque, complete with chandelier swinging, blood-drinking, drag and mime. Now there’s one to take your mother to. Performances will be in the Garden of Unearthly Delights.

If the choice is too damn dazzling, why not check out one of the “review” nights. You have the choice of:

The Butterfly Club, which presents a pick of the shows highlighting the who’s who of Australian and overseas cabaret performers. Performances to be held at the North Adelaide Community Centre.

Your other variety pack pick is the Fringe Club Cabaret which will present a tantalising mix of vaudeville, burlesque, beauty and quirk. With a dizzying array of dates to choose from it there is little chance of missing out. Performances will be held at the Higher Ground Inc (Theatre), 5-19 Light Square, Adelaide.

Last, but not least, I must mention the sexy & sultry songstress that is Meow Meow, who will be performing her famous Beyond Glamour: The Absinthe Tour. To be staged in the Bosco Theatre in the Garden of Unearthly Delights, her reportoire could take us from 1930’s Shanghai to Weimar Germany and back via Belle Epoque France. Love, death & sex are branded like a painful blister in each individual note of the melodies in her sirenic call. Be warned - the barriers between performer and audience are blurred. Perhaps you are her long lost love? Maybe you are the cad who spurned her devotions? Get in the mood and fortify yourself with a good French Verte beforehand I say!

My friends, the world of the Adelaide Fringe Festival 2008 is indeed your tantalising aphrodisiacal oyster - shuck it and see.

We like plugging Australian artists here at absinthe.com.au, even ones that have found a degree of success already.

One such individual of note is Ben Templesmith. Never heard of him?

Well, he is probably most recently known as the illustrative genius behind the vampiric graphic novel, 30 Days of Night, that has recently been transformed into a major motion picture. Not bad for a Curtin University design grad who is just ticking into his early thirties, eh?

As the one of the biggest artistic exports from down under to make his mark on the US comic and graphic novel scene, his unique sense of the gothic and individual style has seen him work on the illustrated installments for Star Wars, Army of Darkness, Silent Hill and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

But maybe the one I like best, as an absintheur, is his wonderfully named Wormwood - Gentleman Corpse.

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One of Weimar Germany’s most important artists was the mysterious Otto Dix (1891-1969), who was famed for his striking portrayal of both bourgeois society and the seedy underclass, as they struggled in a rapidly degenerating Berlin society.

The motivation for the realism of his work, particularly arising from his war service as machine gunner in WW1 is highlighted in a 1963 interview:

‘I had to experience how someone beside me suddenly falls over and is dead and the bullet has hit him squarely. I had to experience that quite directly. I wanted it. I’m therefore not a pacifist at all – or am I? Perhaps I was an inquisitive person. I had to see all that myself. I’m such a realist, you know, that I have to see everything with my own eyes in order to confirm that it’s like that. I have to experience all the ghastly, bottomless depths of life for myself.’

Living in post-Kaiser Berlin, the absence of censorship resulted in Berlin becoming a New Babylon, providing ripe material for Dix as the city went to extremes to satisfy the every desire of anyone with hard foreign currency. One of his more famous subjects was the German dancer, actress, writer, and prostitute, Anita Berber - a daughter of Bohemian parents who was dancing in cabaret in Berlin by the time she was 16, and working nude by the time she was 19.

The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin’s Priestess of Depravity

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Imagine if you will the following scenario.Someone is killing the great modernist artists of early 20th century Europe - principally by separating their heads from their bodies.

But what of the addictive blue absinthe that painters around Paris have been using to enter famous paintings in a transcendental psychadelic trip? Who is the mysterious “Blue Lady”? Could this hold the key to the murders?

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The 2008 Sydney Festival is on again in January next year, and the season looks set to be a blistering one. The 2008 line-up features as it’s centrepiece the High Priestess of Art Rock, Björk, who will be vocalising as only she is able in the Opera House Forecourt, under the stars on January 23. She of the Swan will be performing songs from her new offering Volta, which is a return to a more pop-oriented sound, albeit one carried by thundering electronica and saturated in relentless, violent colour. This show is a sell-out and should set a new festival benchmark.

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The stunning blog banners we have been showcasing over the past week have been plucked from the spongy grey matter of Sydney-based digital artist, musician, DJ and master of several trades, NeoTokyo.

He’s made us look kind of special, thus we think he is kind of special, and feel especially inclined to give him a big plug and highlight an upcoming Burlesque show where you can catch him cranking out those nasty nasty tunes that he plays so well.

Friday 14th December in the beautiful Art Deco Blue Mountains town of Katoomba (NSW), Jingle Belles will be like the Christmas you caught your mother doing something lewd to Santa Claus underneath the mistletoe…….

How festive!

Burlesque & Beats & Belles - what more could you want stuffed in your Christmas stocking?

But have you been naughty or nice….hmmmmm?