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The unbearable intimacy of voicing someone's words — with Forced Entertainment

The unbearable intimacy of voicing someone's words — with Forced Entertainment

Words can mean everything, or nothing at all: it all depends on how they're delivered. This relationship between writer, script, actor and audience creates a particular tension that lies at the heart of performance. Who gives meaning to the words, interprets the creative material, who holds the power?
This is a lecture, but not as you know it, by members of the multi award-winning British theatre company Forced Entertainment.
The 15th annual Rex Cramphorn Memorial Lecture was delivered at the University of Sydney on Tuesday 18 March, 2025.
Speakers
Terry O'Connor
Performer and co-founder, Forced Entertainment
Tim Etchells
Artistic Director and co-founder, Forced Entertainment
Ian Maxwell (host)
Chair of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney
Further information:
Complete Works: Tabletop Shakespeare - Forced Entertainment at Rising Festival 2025

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Boxing legend Jeff Fenech loses it over fake auction
Boxing legend Jeff Fenech loses it over fake auction

News.com.au

time17 minutes ago

  • News.com.au

Boxing legend Jeff Fenech loses it over fake auction

Video has emerged of boxing legend Jeff Fenech falling for a prank and losing it over a fake auction of his property. The social media clip captured the practical joke which was co-ordinated by The Block winner Ozman 'Oz' Abu Malik and boxer Billy Dib. Auctioneer Tom Panos and a group of actors posed as buyers outside Fenech's home while Oz and Dib watched the sale from a car, in the Instagram video titled 'Impromptu Auctions is back … this time it's the CELEBRITY EDITION!'. 'Today we're here for none other than the auction of this wonderful home,' Panos kicked off the auction. 'An opening bid offer to get us up and running today. You tell me what's your bid, sir, 2.5 (million) would have been a good bid 35 years ago.' Fenech then walked outside his house and discovered the scene. 'Why are you going to my house?,' the 61-year-old asked Panos. The boxing legend can be seen throwing the auction signs, telling the crowd to 'f**k off' while the auction continues. 'Get away from my house!' Fenech yelled. The former world champion was told by one of the bidders that his house is for sale. Fenech confronted Panos and told him 'Don't make me do something bad'. 'How's my house for sale?' Fenech asked. 'How's my house for sale?! Don't you think I'd know if my house was for sale?' Panos replied he had been given instructions. A furious Fenech tells Panos he has 'been given the wrong instructions' and threatens to call the police. The crowd intervened, with one man in a suit telling the boxing icon they had been given instructions by the bank. 'Are you crazy? They've given you the wrong address,' Fenech said. 'How's my house for sale? It's my house. I own it totally. How's it for sale!?!' The auction continued with bids reaching as high as $6.5 million while Fenech remarked the house is worth over $9.5 million. Fenech then pushed Panos and bidders off his property as the auction closed. Oz and Dib then hopped out of a car and revealed it was a prank. Oz apologised to Fenech and said Dib wanted to get him back, to which he jokingly replied 'He got me well'. Dib said Fenech had always been a part of his career. 'We've had an amazing journey together,' he said. 'He's pranked so many people along the way, and today he finally got pranked.' Fenech replied 'the pranker gets pranked'. Oz and his best friend Omar were crowned the winners of The Block: Tree Change in 2022. Their property sold for $5,666,666 and took home a record-breaking profit of $1.6 million.

Where to find Dark Mofo's free art and experiences in Hobart
Where to find Dark Mofo's free art and experiences in Hobart

ABC News

time27 minutes ago

  • ABC News

Where to find Dark Mofo's free art and experiences in Hobart

Tasmania's festival Dark Mofo gets underway today, with thousands set to attend drawcard events like the Winter Feast, Night Mass and international musical acts. There are lots of free art experiences in some unusual venues across Hobart — from a live car crash on Hobart's Regatta Grounds to a 5-metre goblin in a disused 1870s church, and a thought-provoking exhibition by a Tasmanian Aboriginal artist in the basement of an old furniture shop. Hidden across the city, art lovers can also find a naked man covered in sand, a baptism in a Freemasons lodge and a collective scream in a "sprawling wasteland". Dark Mofo creative director Chris Twite describes this year's festival as a "behemoth", set to light up the city in its signature red colour theme. "It carries across all of the city, with everyone lighting up their businesses and houses red," he told ABC Radio Hobart. It is Mr Twite's first festival in the key creative role, and his measure of success will be people emerging from the warmth of their homes into the cold and darkness to experience the festival. "Success for me is that we see people on the streets getting involved, wandering around and talking to strangers and neighbours and exploring interesting, weird … and glorious things," he said. The family-friendly Dark Park is back, taking over Macquarie Point near Hobart's port. "It's a sprawling wasteland filled with incredible art and fire," Mr Twite said. It could be the last time Dark Park will be held at Macquarie Point, as a stadium project is slated for the site. "It'll be a different feel but it'll still be large and expansive with a couple of giant artworks for people to check out." The area includes Dark Bar, which offers music nightly with "warm tipples, nibbles, purging fears and trips to the afterlife". The trip to the afterlife is a nod to Simon Zordic's Coffin Rides, where festival-goers can get inside a coffin and receive a souvenir photo of the experience. There's also the opportunity to view this year's Ogoh-Ogoh statue, a giant Maugean skate, and write down a fear to put inside it before it is burned at the end of the festival. The sculpture Quasi, a grumpy-faced hand, will look over Dark Park from the roof of the Henry Jones Art Hotel. It wouldn't be Dark Mofo without a warehouse full of lights, and that's what the installation Sora will offer, with "kinetic light beams". A 12m-wide installation, Neon Anthem, asks visitors to take a knee and scream, and Channelling by Hannah Foley is a sound experience using tones from deep under the Gordon Dam. Brazilian artist Paula Garcia's performance work Crash Body: Aftermath will be live on Saturday June 7 at the Hobart Regatta Grounds. "It'll be tense and very strange," Mr Twite said. "It's a choreographed, tension-filled two hours involving two drivers and two cars, racing around with a series of near misses until they finally crash into each other," he said. It is the first time the artist has presented a work of this scale in Australia. The performance will be replayed at Dark Park on Sunday June 8, and from June 12–15. Inside an 1870s disused sandstone church on the corner of Brisbane Street and Elizabeth Street is Basilica, a free venue offering a "sanctuary of art" with fire and drinks. Chocolate Goblin by Melbourne artist Travis Ficarra warns of nudity and adult themes, where a "naked, pregnant form lingers on the edge of desire and disgust". Also exhibited is Mortal Voice, a single video of "extreme metal voicing and gesture, stretched to extend the artist's guttural voice into uncanny realms of spectral distortion". Trawlwoolway artist and playwright Nathan Maynard does not shy away from difficult themes in his work We Threw Them Down The Rocks Where They Had Thrown The Sheep. Housed in the basement of the old Coogan's building at 79 Collins Street, Maynard's artwork highlights museums' history of stealing and displaying the remains of First Nations ancestors. It is open every night and you can check the times here. Inside the State Library and Archive of Tasmania is Revolution & Silence, which includes an installation by Brigita Ozolins, a Tasmanian artist with a background in librarianship. The exhibition is described as a collision of books, history, art and conversation. Ozolin's installation in the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts considers George Orwell's novel 1984 and free speech, while looking at current politics, fake news, artificial intelligence and social media. A collection of challenged, banned or restricted books will also be on display, and available to read in a Silenced Reading library. Festival-goers won't have to be anywhere in particular to experience Everything Is Recorded, a project by British record producer Richard Russell. It will come them via a sound system usually reserved for emergencies and mass evacuations. The 30-minute, improvised meditation on the winter solstice can be heard up to 7 kilometres away in every direction and will be projected all over Hobart at 8pm on Friday June 6 and at 6pm on Saturday June 14. Inside City Hall on Saturday June 14 at 7:30pm, Cuban-born artist Carlos Martiel will perform a one-off work called Custody, enduring "two hours of rising sand and crushing weight over his naked and restrained body", as a statement on black deaths in custody. Martiel will also exhibit work relating to racial violence in the basement of an old bank at 84 Bathurst Street. Hobart Central Carpark will host 1,000 Strikes, which warns of loud noise and low light and will contain orchestral gongs and improvised music and movement. The Rosny Barn plays host to Nexus: Totality, featuring the silhouette of a Kunanyi boulder, and the Plimsoll Gallery will have Gordon Hookey's major new exhibition, A Murriality. The Freemason's Grand Lodge of Tasmania on the corner of Davey Street and Sandy Bay Road will house a "relentless baptism" by performance artist Ida Sophia. Getting the kit off and plunging into freezing water is so popular that the free Nude Solstice Swim on Saturday June 21 is at capacity, but the festival says to check the website in case more tickets become available. There are also more free events on out at Mona, the Hanging Garden and Good Grief Studios. The festival will come to an end with the burning of the Ogoh-Ogoh on Sunday June 15 and entry to the Winter Feast is free.

Why this historic home saved from demolition could hold the key to a 'lost' Chinatown
Why this historic home saved from demolition could hold the key to a 'lost' Chinatown

SBS Australia

time2 hours ago

  • SBS Australia

Why this historic home saved from demolition could hold the key to a 'lost' Chinatown

Victory House, the historic 1906 home of a Chinese-Australian goldfields family, has been restored and will reborn as a museum in Ballarat. Funds to first build the home were won in an early Melbourne Cup (sketch top right). Source: Supplied, AAP Victory House, built in 1906, was home to a Chinese mine manager family in Ballarat. After being saved from demolition, the house is being transformed into a Chinese heritage museum. Community leaders aim to revitalise the surrounding area into a Chinatown, restoring Ballarat's once-vibrant Chinese presence from the gold rush era. By 1858, Ballarat's Chinese population had peaked at nearly 10,000, accounting for about 25 per cent of the adult male population. Community groups say the restoration of a 120-year-old house is the first step towards establishing a Chinatown in Ballarat to mark the contributions of thousands of Chinese workers drawn to the area both during and after the gold rush. Located at 742 Geelong Road in the Ballarat suburb of Canadian, Victory House was built in 1906 by Chinese mine manager James Wong Chung and his wife, Margaret Wong Chung. Interestingly, the funds — 400 pounds ($17,560 in today's money) — to build the house were won by Margaret after picking the winner named Victory in the 1902 Melbourne Cup. The family lived in the home for more than a century, until it was sold in 2008. Now, plans are underway to convert the restored house into a Chinese heritage museum — the first step in a broader, 10-year plan to revive Ballarat's historic Chinatown. Local Chinese community leader Charles Zhang and the founder of the Xin Jin Shan Chinese Library, Haoliang Sun, led the restoration of Victory House. Sun said the Canadian suburb, where Victory House stands, once had the highest concentration of Chinese miners in Ballarat and was home to six Chinese village camps. Those communities have long since vanished. "Other than the Chinese gold rush display at Sovereign Hill, there's no place in Ballarat today that shows how the Chinese actually lived during that time," he said. Historical records indicate that by 1855, there were approximately 2,000 to 5,000 Chinese miners on the Ballarat goldfields. By 1858, the Chinese population had peaked at nearly 10,000, accounting for about 25 per cent of the adult male population in Ballarat. To bring that history back to life, Sun and Zhang have purchased several buildings on the same street, with more deals in the works. Their vision is to create a precinct that includes a Chinese medicine shop, teahouse, Chinese restaurant and Asian supermarket — what they refer to, for now, as a Chinatown. "We're calling it Chinatown, but the name doesn't really matter," Sun said. "What matters is that a space like this must exist." Zhang acknowledges that building a Chinatown is a bold and complex undertaking — one that will require significant support from local, state and federal governments. "Restoring one house can be done by one or two people. But rebuilding a Chinatown takes a whole team," he said. "It's not something that can be done just out of passion or impulse." Still, Zhang, now in his 70s, remains optimistic. "I hope that in my lifetime, I can devote my energy and ability to doing something meaningful for future generations of Chinese Australians — to keep our history and culture alive." The Victory House museum is currently awaiting council approval to open to the public. Ticket proceeds will go toward the museum's ongoing maintenance. For the first time since its renovation, sisters Denise Johnston and Julie Odgers returned to Victory House, their great-grandparents' former home in Ballarat. Walking past the thick cypress hedge in the front garden, Johnston, 77, said she no longer felt the fear she had as a child. "It was always dark … when the wind would come through, it was really like a haunted house," she recalled. But once they stepped inside, they were greeted warmly with open arms and homemade biscuits. "I felt really emotional when I entered. It has just brought us these beautiful childhood memories," Johnston said. The house was named after the 1902 Melbourne Cup-winning horse Margaret had picked. "Our great-grandmother (Margaret) loved horses. When we come to visit her, she'd be sitting here listening to her radio and reading the racing guide," said Odgers, 75. But sadly, no one in the family has won a race since, she added. The Wong Chung family's Australian story began with James's father, Ah Wong Chung, who migrated from Canton (now Guangzhou) in the late 19th century during the Victorian gold rush. He ran a general store in Linton, supplying goods imported from China to both Chinese and European miners. In 1868, he married Irish woman Mary Anne Baker. The couple had one son, James, the future builder of Victory House. James married Australian-born Margaret Ann Holderhead in 1896. After having six children in Linton, the couple moved to Ballarat in 1903, initially living in a small miner's cottage. At the time, James was managing the nearby Woah Hawp Canton Mine. In 1906, the family moved into the newly built Victory House and welcomed another six children. In 2022, Victory House narrowly escaped demolition when new landowners applied to redevelop the site. Four Ballarat councillors argued the home wasn't significant enough to preserve, given the city's abundance of historic buildings. But after an outpouring of support, including from over 120 Chinese-Australian organisations and descendants of the Wong Chung family, the house was saved and placed on the Ballarat Heritage Register. Mick Trembath, Odgers's son and a sixth-generation descendant, said the restored Victory House held meaning far beyond his own family. "There are very few things in Ballarat that are not only genuine reminders of Chinese culture, but any contributing culture, (including) the Croatian people, Polish people and the German people," Trembath said. "To have something like this … You can walk through it, touch it, and fill it with memories. It's a really important thing. "I was really happy that we were able to save it." Share this with family and friends

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