ABC Arts + Radio National

MC, ballroom performer and choreographer, Dashaun Wesley, Sissy Ball
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A night at the Sissy Ball
Digital Editor: Monique Ross and Dee Jefferson
Reporter: Farz Edraki
Photographer/Digital Producer: Teresa Tan

It started with underground balls and ‘scandal sheets’ in 1980s New York. Now voguing has hit centre stage in Australia, giving a “culture, community and a family” to its performers, writes Farz Edraki.

Read the full story here.

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Do Australians trust religious leaders?
Digital Editor: Annika Blau
Reporter: Nick Baker
Photographer: Teresa Tan

Trust in religious leaders is dropping, but some Australians say they’ve never been ‘closer to God’. So what’s going on?, writes Nick Baker.

Read the full story here.

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Bad Apples: Indigenous rappers 'black-out' Australia's iconic Opera House
Digital Editor: Dee Jefferson
Reporter: Rudi Bremer
Photographer: Teresa Tan

During National Reconciliation Week last month, rapper Briggs threw the blackest house party in the whitest building in Australia. We found out why it matters, writes Rudi Bremer.

Read the full story here.

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Black Divaz
A new documentary illuminates what it means to be Indigenous and queer in Australia

For Dunghutti man Dallas Webster — also known as 'Nova Gina' after three hours in the make-up chair — black drag is about bringing visibility, hope and acceptance to the minority of the minority.

"I don't want a single LGBTQI kid to go through what I suffered," Webster says.

"We're losing too many kids," he says. "Suicide is a terminal solution to a temporary problem. I hope this film gives people the courage to live their truth."

Read the full story here.

Nova Gina's performances have been known to move audiences to tears. (ABC: Teresa Tan)

It takes Dallas Webster up to 3 hours to transform into drag alter ego Nova Gina. (ABC: Teresa Tan)

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Sheer Fantasy
Artist David Capra bares his psyche and cinema obsession in eclectic exhibition

"I have this really strong memory of approaching my grandmother's house and it would be completely pitch black but the TV would be on. The colours would animate and look like fireworks were going on inside through the venetian blinds — it always felt like something out of a dream."

I chatted to Sydney artist and curator David Capra about his love for daschunds, the profound effect his grandmother on his view of the world and his first major curatorial project Sheer Fantasy — investigating the personal fantasies and inner landscapes of 14 artists.

Read the full profile here.

Artist David Capra believes adults actively edit out the magic in their everyday lives. (ABC Arts: Teresa Tan)

Exhibiting performance artist Mark Shorter says "art can open up spaces for us that we couldn't explore as ourselves". (ABC Arts: Teresa Tan)
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My Urrwai
Torres Strait artists look to the future as they shake up the stage

"Aboriginal people are invisible and they are a minority, and us Torres Strait Islander people, we are the minority of the minority. We are invisible."

Artist, storyteller and dancer Ghenoa Gela is a Koedal (crocodile) and Waumer (frigate bird) woman who wants to educate people who may not even realise there are two First Nations peoples of Australia.

Read the full story here.

Artist Ghenoa Gela began training for Island dancing from the moment she could walk. (ABC RN: Teresa Tan)

My Urrwai roughly translates to 'my spirit' in Kala Lagaw Ya language. (ABC RN: Teresa Tan)
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Mirror Sydney
Artist finds beauty in city's overlooked landmarks

"[Psychogeography] is about seeing layers of time," Berry says.

"For me it's a way to describe writing and art about places that goes beyond the surface and to think about it in terms of being human."

Read the full story here.

Artist/writer Vanessa Berry standing on the underground Domain Express Walkway. (Photo credit: ABC RN/Teresa Tan)

Sydney 2000 Olympic rings, which once flew high above Martin Place, but now mark the entrance to a demolition yard in St Peters. (Photo credit: ABC RN/Teresa Tan)
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Queer Eye’s Fab 5
5 portraits in 5 minutes

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The Second Woman
Performance artist stages 100 intimate moments with 100 men
in 24 hours

Former participant Jimmy Dalton felt a sense of euphoria and exhaustion after his scene in participatory durational performance artwork The Second Woman. (Photo credit: ABC RN/Teresa Tan)

"The work is very much looking at gendered conventions of emotion, so really unpacking a performance of masculinity and femininity within a queer lens." – artist Nat Randall

The participants are a cross-section of men with diverse backgrounds, histories, ethnicities, sexualities and ages.

For theatre-maker and former participant Jimmy Dalton, the nuances of the scene reveal behaviour he's uncomfortable with.

"What this work shows on the smallest level is how patriarchy can play out," he says.

"It's so important right now. We're living in a time where there are Trumps and Weinsteins.

"There's a lot of revelation. Speaking as a man, it's about my complicity and my participation in this."

Read the full story here.

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Sorong Samarai
From lost at sea to Sydney stage: Brothers perform with a purpose for their people

The Roem brothers, from West Papua, aren't supposed to be here — alive, that is. It's something they think about every day, and it informs their dance and music.

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He reflects that the three places his life and work revolves around — Australia, West Papua and Papua New Guinea — are really all the same, but at different stages of the same process of decolonisation. "The first place we have to decolonise is our own minds," Airileke Ingram says.

Read the full story here.

Yoshua and Sam Roem were teenagers when they travelled to Australia by canoe 11 years ago. (ABC RN: Teresa Tan)

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Australian Reading Hour
We asked 11 Australians why reading matters to them

As Australian Reading Hour — a national initiative to raise the profile of the written word — kicked off, we asked 11 Australians what they're reading right now and what role reading plays in their lives.

"I hope my kids will get knowledge and escapism from reading. Hopefully there are some characters or peoples' identities they can relate to if they are going through any issues themselves," says Gabriel Clark.

"They can also work out how the world works or how the world should work, and if they are in a place of conflict in their personal life they can see how to resolve those conflicts in their fiction."

See the full story here.

Gabriel hopes his young daughter will find knowledge and life lessons in books. (ABC RN: Teresa Tan)

Travis grew up in a house with 10 people, and hid on the roof or escaped to a tree to read. (ABC RN: Teresa Tan)

A.H. Cayley finds solitude in bars and pubs. (ABC RN: Teresa Tan)

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Assorted Photography
Clients: ABC Arts, ABC Radio National, ABC Radio National — Science, Sum of All Parts (podcast), It’s Not A Race (podcast), RN’s Books & Arts