The theatre events will be happening at the Compass Club venue; there will be repeated performances over the weekend so you can buy a ticket for all four but you don’t have to see them all on the same day. Compass Club is being hosted at the Darebin Arts & Entertainment Centre, a venue you might have hitherto associated mainly with sporting fundraisers and local school Christmas shows. True North will change that perception, Fuller reckons, as the Darebin Arts & Entertainment Centre will be the festival hub for True North. “It works really well as the Festival Hub,” says Fuller. “It’s about to get shot of adrenalin; the space is going to be reactivated.”
There are other differences from last year’s festival, too, “We don’t have the big central street party, the Edwards St party in Reservoir,” Fuller continues. “We don’t want to work to a fixed festival model.” Change is something Fuller sees as a crucial element of community festivals. “It’s easy, with council or government run festivals, to get stuck in one way of doing things. Government run festival models can become rigid, not flexible enough to move as the community landscape changes. Change is exciting, it’s diverse, a useful thing for festival models to offer communities. If festivals don’t change, people can come to expect the same thing and are less likely to be encouraged to become part of it. We want to educate people about the different ways their work can be interacted with. With festivals that have been around for a long time, there a lot of expectations and it can be hard for local artists to find entry points. True North is an umbrella festival like the Melbourne Fringe, like MICF, anyone can be involved. We want people to know that they can put a play on at their house, open their studio to the public rather than always working in isolation at home, they can hold a warehouse party. There’s a perception that people need council permits, that if they do different things there are fines, but we say come and ask. We want artists to check in with their council and see what can be done.
“There are lots of great events in True North,” Fuller adds. A brain-baby of hers is the Living Statues Garden Party, a free event where you can bring your own picnic and spend the day in the serene setting of the Ray Bramham Gardens, watching living statues very subtly and silently interact with each other and then come to life. “And there’s gourmet ice-cream and gelati and coffee and classical music,” adds Fuller. You can also get a glass of bubbles from the Compass Club bar, we like the sound of this one.
Fuller knows about festivals. She’s in the process of writing a thesis about community festivals and how they’re presented. “The thing about festivals is that there’s no right or wrong way to do them. People argue about politics, about work, about what goes on at home but they can come to a festival and expect anything and not have to debate whether it’s right or wrong; festivals create a space where there are a zillion ways to approach presenting art, a zillion kinds of artistic output and ways to produce and present cultural content. Festivals are a way of bringing people together for a creative exchange, where people are drawn to experience something somebody’s done.”
Other events in True North involve local artists sharing the results of collaborations with local cultural producers and creative spaces, such as The Ideas of North, a showcase of an array of musical acts, each featuring at least one resident of the True North. The Red Falcon Forge metalworkers will open their doors to the public as part of the festival, Wild About Melbourne Makers Market will pop up, Merri Creek Studio is hosting Ahhhh Space, an art exhibition of work by local emerging and established Darebin, Melbourne and interstate artists. So She Say MAP-A-ZINE is happening and the ArtCycle Bike Ride will visit interactive public art and pop up performances with The Squeaky Wheel. One very fun night will be Saturday’s The Last Juke Joint at The End Of The Line, a blues night at one of the North’s best secrets, the End Of The Line bar, situated quite literally at the end of the 112 tram route. You’ll get to hear Rattlin Bones Blackwood, Pork Chop Party, Reservoir revelry bluesman, Danny Walsh and DJ sounds from MC Matt Frederick (The Juke Joint PBS 106.7FM). And those are just some of the events on offer. What more could you want from a local festival?
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
