Words to Lyrics Ben Ho's observations from the cloud

4 January 2013

Sydney Festival 2013

Filed under: Arts — Tags: , — Ben @ 6:36 pm

Happy New Year everyone! I’m rather happy to be involved in the Sydney Festival again this year as a volunteer and marshal. This year’s festival is jam-packed with events, and is the first to be directed by Lieven Bertels. Some of the main events include the Arrival of the Rubber Duck, Concrete and Bone Sessions: a dance-theatre act held at a skate park and the music events at Paradiso, the Festival Bar in Town Hall.

This is my third year volunteering for the Festival, and I enjoy meeting and talking to all sorts of people that pass through the city. I’m usually at the information booths, collecting about funny questions people ask me, as well as telling people about what they can see at the Festival. It’s pretty obvious that I love when friends and all pass by where I’m stationed, so below are the dates that I’ll be at booths.

Thurs 10 Jan: Martin Place booth 3-7pm
Tues 15 Jan: The Quiet Volume, Mitchell Library 12:30-4pm
Fri 18 Jan: Martin Place booth 1-7pm
Thurs 24 Jan Circular Quay booth 1-5pm

I’m also marshaling at the Arrival (rubber duck) this Saturday 5 January and at the Parramatta opening and closing parties on 19 and 26 January respectively. Do say hello if you see me around, but first and foremost, enjoy these free events!

20 January 2011

Review: LIVE at Sydney Festival 2011

Filed under: Arts,review — Tags: , , , , , , — Ben @ 8:00 am

The concept for LIVE seems so simple: musicians, black and white, solo performance. But after viewing a few of the 20 performances on show, you’ll realise that there is more behind what you see.

LIVE is a project by Jasmin Tarasin to attempt to study ‘the art of performing’. I have to agree that large-scale performances that musicians do these days have lost their ‘intimacy’, and Tarasin does well to bring us right up close to these artists. Showing the performances in black and white removes the distraction of key elements of a performance such as their dress, and instruments.

The performance that represented Tarasin’s vision the best was that of Julian Hamilton, one half of The Presets. Hamilton’s performance had no instrumentation, so all you could focus on was his singing voice. His vocal part from ‘People’ is vastly different to that on the album recording, and it shows the song from another perspective.

By watching long enough, the subtle differences between performers are apparent, and interesting to watch. At one stage, three guitarists were pictured side-by-side. Each had a different way of playing their guitar. You could notice the positioning of the guitar, and their style of playing.

LIVE is a rather inexpensive way of seeing 20 songs from 20 different artists. I would highly recommend you to see it before it closes this weekend.

LIVE is open until January 23, at the lower part of Sydney Town Hall. Tickets are $15/$12.

PS: I’m volunteering at LIVE handing out headphones on the 23rd between 5pm and 7:30pm. Come visit!

23 March 2010

Film Review: LOL

Filed under: Arts — Tags: , , , — Ben @ 11:09 pm

I think I’ll write short, sharp reviews because I don’t think people want to know everything about a film before they see it, just the general gist of it. See what you think.

Review: LOL (French Film Festival)

If there’s one word to describe LOL, it’s ‘parallels’. Because that’s essentially what it’s about.

Lola (Christa Theret), a student at a Paris high school has her fair share of friends, complex relationships, and a full social life. Anne (Sophie Marceau), recently divorced, juggles her professional life with raising four kids, and a renewed interest in finding love. We follow both of them, and the events of their life over the course of three trimesters.

The juxtaposition of seemingly mundane events, like a house party and an anti-drug presentation at the school complement perfectly with witty dialogue and screenplay. This along with plenty of laughs throughout make LOL a refreshing feel-good film.

When watching it last Saturday, what was interesting to note, was that at times the subtitles were necessary, not because of the French language, but because of the amount of laughter. If you want a fresh view on teenage life, then this is a film to watch.

The last screening is on Wednesday 24 March, 8:15pm at Palace Norton St cinema.

22 February 2010

Heads Up: French Film Festival

Filed under: Arts,Forward Thinking — Tags: , , — Ben @ 10:16 pm

From now on, I’ll be writing more about the ‘arts’ scene in Sydney. This includes music, film, art etc… I want to eventually spin this off into a new blog, but first I need to gather a few supporters. So enjoy.

The Alliance Française French Film Festival is happening in Sydney from the 2nd March to the end of the month. In the Palace Cinemas in Paddington and Newtown, a total of 43 films will be shown and essentially be used to garner interest into the world of French film.

If you think about it, many films that come out of Hollywood follow the same dry boring formula. Which makes foreign films relatively ‘fresh’ when compared. Now this makes every film equally interesting to the average movie goer. At this stage, I’ll take this position to broaden my view of French film.

After having read some of the synopses of the films, there are already a few that jump out at you. One that I want to see called “LOL” deals with the search for life and love from two contrasting perspectives. Another, “Welcome”, explores separation, risks and persistence.

As with any film screening, theatre production, or music concert, it is always much better when one is accompanied with someone else. This is not only to not look awkward being alone, but also provides a bouncing board for criticism and discussion. So, I encourage you to go along to a film with someone for what I think will be a great night out.

French Film Festival: Sydney website

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