FUSE festival drops bumper arts and live music program for autumn event
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23.02.2021

FUSE festival drops bumper arts and live music program for autumn event

Mick Thomas' Roving Commission
Words by Tom Parker

FUSE Autumn will take place from March 11 until March 28.

Introduced last year, FUSE is the elaborate new biannual multi-arts festival embracing and celebrating Melbourne’s diversity and multiculturalism. Wide-ranging and heterogeneous, the festival accommodates a range of different access points for audiences and practitioners and puts the City of Darebin front and centre.

Having enjoyed a successful debut season in spring 2020, FUSE returns for autumn, offering 20 events across live music, theatre, visual arts and more.

What you need to know

  • FUSE Autumn is the second instalment of the new Darebin-centric multi-arts festival
  • The festival will take place from Thursday March 11 to Sunday March 28, offering 20 events across live music, visual arts and more
  • Highlights of the program include an appearance from local music luminary Mick Thomas, the premiere of romantic-comedy-cum-crime-saga Enlightenment and a performance from Indigenous artist and raconteur Joel Bray

Keep up with the latest festival news here

From Thursday March 11 to Sunday March 28, FUSE Autumn will decorate live music venues, bowls clubs, car parks and town halls within the City of Darebin with a fantastic run of events.

Some of the standouts from the bill include Paradise Lots – an outdoor event transforming an urban car park into a large-scale performance space. Experimental theatre company Pony Cam are on board for this one, teaming up with a group of young artists to create a transcendent, almost apocalyptic performance environment.

Mick Thomas, the local music luminary from bands such as Weddings, Parties, Anything, Mick Thomas & The Sure Thing and most recently, Mick Thomas’ Roving Commission, will appear in conversation with ABC’s Jacinta Parsons, and alongside Jessica Lloyd from Mission Songs Project, to talk about how a songwriters tell their story, and how this may this differ from other art forms. They’ll also perform some of their own musical snippets on air.

Elsewhere, there’s the premiere of Enlightenment a romantic-comedy-cum-crime-saga enjoying an 11-date season at Northcote Town Hall from March 10-20. Created by acclaimed theatre makers Elbow Room, Enlightenment is a dark, hilarious and moving parable from one of Australia’s true renegade artists.

Then there’s inimitable Indigenous artist and raconteur Joel Bray performing and conducting a conversation to demystify the viewer confusion that can at times envelop expressive and experimental contemporary arts.

Titled I liked it, but I didn’t know what the #@!% it was about, this performance is set to pull back the curtains on how work is made, why it’s important and how to ‘read’ it. This goes down at Wesley Anne from March 24-27.

 

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FUSE Autumn hits the City of Darebin from Thursday March 11 to Sunday March 28. Head to the festival website for more info.