10 Reasons to Join The Coven At The “Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever”

Eclectic British pop artist Kate Bush’s career spans over thirty years – and on Saturday 15 July, fans around the world will don billowy red dresses to pay her first single Wuthering Heights tribute by recreating its iconic video en masse, for the “Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever”.  This first started with a flash mob called “Shambush” in 2013 and has been reaching greater heights ever since, with 22 countries participating last year.

After a turnout of hundreds on a rainy day last year, Brisbane’s “Prince of Retro”, cult/retro curator Kristian Fletcher is once again rounding up a sea of Kates to dance the good dance at Bedford Park, Spring Hill. The party will continue at the Jubilee Hotel with Kate videos on the whole night long. We’ve compiled a list of reasons why the day will be TRANSCENDENTAL – grab your chiffon and get weird!

 

10 Reasons to Join The Coven At The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever

1. It has choreography for the whole scope of human emotion – grabbing for your lover, a hot, greedy temper…being locked out in the cold. (Brisbane people facing winter dressed in only red chiffon won’t have to fake this one!) It’s a bit like the moody Macarena.

2.  How would you feel if the songs you wrote in your teens were released to the world? They’d be shit, wouldn’t they? Wuthering Heights was written by Kate when she was 18 she had become entranced by the original tale after catching the last few minutes of a BBC special on Emily Bronte’s gothic classic.

3. Cover artists, in the park and at the Bush Bash! Last year Brisbane’s beloved performers Meece and Mark made their own “Cloudbursting” machine out of cardboard boxes and gave us the precious gift of helium

4. You KNOW your dream aesthetic is “mad ghost lady in a red sheet”.

5. Kristian Fletcher has personally compiled hours upon hours of Kate Bush music videos for your viewing and dancing pleasure at the afterparty. If you didn’t think there was more to her videos than “Wuthering Heights”, or maybe that “Babushka” video where she wears a chainmail leotard you were very wrong! Kate spent several years training with famed choreographer and Bowie collaborator Lindsay Kemp and is also trained in mime – her performances are electric and mesmerising and her videos are a mad, theatrical treat, doing art-pop proud long before Lady Gaga was wearing nappies.

6. It really is the closest thing you will feel to being in a coven. Unless you’re in an actual coven.

7. Any level of dancing is accepted! You’ve just got to show up and add to the sea of red! Instructors will help you warm up on the day, but for the more limber and dedicated, there’s a good instructional video (mirrored and everything!) here.

8. Last year it got on the ABC news. Getting on the news is still 100% a big deal from where we sit.

9. Everyone is welcome! (Gold coin donation is greatly appreciated for the running of the event!) Men can be spurned, ghostly lovers, too! Here‘s a nifty tutorial for your own red dress if you’re having trouble finding an op-shop miracle!

9. Melbourne got several thousand people last year and it’d be really, really petty and really, really great to beat that.

10. The Kate Bush Bash sold out in a flash last year! Get your tickets while you can, here!

DETAILS:

Brisbane’s Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever: Bedford Park, Spring Hill – 2:30 pm – 5pm, more info on Facebook. Cost: Gold coin donation to cover running costs
Kate Bush Bash: Jubilee Hotel, 470 St Paul’s Terrace, Fortitude Valley – 6pm – 10pm
Cost: $13.50 online, $15 at the door – More info on Facebook, tickets available here

Review: Single Asian Female

Brisbane local treasure Michelle Law, co-author of Sh*t Asian Mothers Say
and regular at Frankie, has penned a play that’ll have you yowling. I was lucky enough to see it on an early Monday night preview, with La Boite’s Roundhouse sold out and packed half with high school students and half with Brisbane literary mob.

Image: Dylan Evans

 

Single Asian Female opens with a bang – it’s a mum doing karaoke on a table. Pearl Wong (Hsiao-Ling Tang, who really holds this show together) is a woman on the cusp of a new chapter in her life – she’s divorced the abusive husband who brought her to Australia and has the running of the family restaurant, The Golden Phoenix, all to herself. Mei (Courtney Stewart) is on the cusp of graduating high school and discovering a love of Jane Eyre – and is often torn between her Asian roots and fitting in with her peers. Older sister Zoe (Alex Lee) is forced back home from her old life in Brisbane and is struggling to balance a burgeoning career, pick through the dating pool, and keep her cool while living closely with her family again.

Pearl harbours a distressing secret, and we follow these three women desperate to take charge of their lives over two acts.

This show is loosely based on the author’s experiences growing up as one of the only young Asians in her Gold Coast community, and is a much-needed addition to the pool of  truthful, original theatre in Brisbane in a time when many shows still don’t reflect the diversity of the talent operating.  (A different local theatre company, for instance, had run its last production of Avenue Q, a show in which jokes based around the Japanese accent feature prominently, with an all-white cast.) In an Australia where Pauline Hanson (who famously bemoaned that we were being “swamped by Asians”) is still taken seriously, theatre like this is more important than ever.

I firmly believe that La Boite’s Roundhouse theatre is the best place to see a show in Brisbane, and this show uses it to its fullest potential, setting the forefront of the show in The Golden Palace itself, complete with real food, lanterns and a golden happy cat.(Don’t see the show if you’re hungry, like I did!)
Single Asian Female takes on racism, sexism, mental illness, reproductive rights, immigration law, sibling dynamics, and domestic abuse – but the story holds strong enough that it rarely feels soapboxy or cliched. When interval comes I see students frantically writing notes – I’m a little jealous of them. I can’t think of a better show to have to write an essay on. (Who wouldn’t want to identify the five elements of drama in Tina Area karaoke, simulated cunnilngus and a pop-up toilet?)

There are rare perfect moments in theatre when real life is mirrored so perfectly you can feel the audience smacking their lips and going “yes!” – and many of these happen in the first ten minutes of the play. Later, as the conflict rises to a head, the audience shifts and twists and gasps as one – “Can you believe that just happened?”

Small things in this show, like drinking hot water instead of tea because you’ll stay up too late if you have tea, or that awful moment when your mouth’s too dry to perform oral sex, that establish Michelle Law and director Claire Christie as a keen observer of the poignant and the hilarious.

Supporting cast Emily Burton and Emily Vascotto were brilliant as a range of backup players, often some of the best-timed comic relief, though Vascotto’s vapid teen mean-girl character was arguably somewhat one-dimensional (although to be fair, some teenagers kind of…are).
It was joyous to see such wicked-funny women (and lone supporting player Patrick Jhanur) grace the stage and it’s wonderful that this badass play now heads the Google search predictions for “single Asian female” instead of searches from crusty old white men in coin-operated internet booths.

Single Asian Female plays the Roundhouse at La Boite until 4 March – more info here

 

 

Photoshoot + Interview “Underground Dreams” by Shirleen Beveridge

Hailing from a house on the outskirts of Brisbane filled with sisters and animals, Shirleen Beveridge grew up with an all-too-certain need to document beautiful things. She’s spent the past few years seeking out models and working with them and an expanding wardrobe of vintage treasures to create bewitching, intimate narratives.

How did photography find you?

In Grade 9 I bought my first digital camera and enrolled in a new school after having to move hours away from the town I grew up in. I took a film photography class which I loved, but unfortunately me and my twin had a very difficult time fitting in at the high school and avoided going.

 

In my time at home I would walk around my property and photograph flowers, my sisters and myself. One day, something ironic actually happened – my camera dropped and it broke the screen. For about a year and a half I photographed like that, being to poor to afford a new camera. I would take images of myself on timer and then run to my computer to view them! I am actually glad life threw me that as it taught me to have a sense of trust in my perception of light.

 

I feel as though I oddly learnt as my older relatives did! When I was in Grade 11 I was brought my first DSLR, I photographed mainly self portraits. I now understand why, I feel the reason I photographed myself a lot was due to my perspective of myself. Being able to photograph myself gave me comfort and a sense of control as I was able to manipulate how I was viewed by my own eyes and others.

Who are some of your influences?

I actually do not really look at other photographers for influences. I find inspiration in old cult films, sci-fi, games, fashion, anime. Texture and light is everywhere and being able to capture that to set a mood is inspiration within itself. I love films like Only Lovers Left Alive and A Clockwork Orange –  films that use colour, texture and light to set the mood immensely.

 

 

 

How does your own recent work as a model change your perspective as a photographer?

That’s a good one! Modelling has opened my eyes in every kind of way that you’d imagine. It has made me realise how in-control you are as the photographer. On many shoots there have been times where I have felt uncomfortable and lost as that is the vibe the photographer has put out. I think also having confidence will allow things to run smoothly. And clear concepts! I cannot express how it is the worst when you have no idea what is going on. Communication is important.

Find Shirleen’s work on Facebook and on Instagram.

Models: Annaliese McGuire, Claire Neal
MUA: Maud Combrichon
Wardrobe: Models’ own