Tasmania’s Mona Foma rewrites festival rules yet again
Tasmania’s Mona Foma Festival has emerged from COVID-19 lockdowns to announce another weird and wonderful event to take place in January
Confidential
Don't miss out on the headlines from Confidential. Followed categories will be added to My News.
MONA Foma curator Brian Ritchie has written the rules for Tasmania’s groundbreaking arts and music festival for the past 13 years.
“But there’s no ‘COVID Festival Planning For Dummies’ book on the market,” Ritchie says, laughing. “I wish there was. Maybe I’ll write it.”
Mona Foma, which will be held in Launceston and Hobart in January, announced its program on Monday. It features 352 artists — 90 per cent of them from the Apple Isle — playing in 58 venues across the two cities.
“The main challenge was knowing whether or not we were going to do it,” Ritchie says. “It took a long time to resolve because of constantly shifting circumstances. Once we got the go-ahead, luckily we had taken some precautions to have some ideas up our sleeves.”
Ritchie, who is the bass player in US folk-punk band Violent Femmes, knew only too well he couldn’t book internationals for Mona Foma. COVID-19 has shut down overseas touring for most acts, including the Femmes, until 2022.
“We usually aim for some big international names to put on the poster to make people say, ‘Wow!’ That’s not possible this year. That’s been a big shift.”
However, as with past Mona Foma line ups, the 2021 wow moments will come from the weird and wonderful events on offer.
They include:
A “woman buried to the waist in the earth,” talking and “ad libbing for her life” (Happy Days, Jane Longhurst)
A musical work that features a giraffe hum, said to be “one of the lowest noises in the animal kingdom” (Listen Deeply, Anri Sala and Annika Kahrs)
A street parade of humans and roosters on horseback (Mount Force, Loren Kronemeyer)
A violinist performing composer John Cage’s One6 in a strange duet with falling rocks and melting ice (Rueremus, Lucy Bleach with Alathea Coombe).
A bush walk with live musical accompaniment and cocktail stops (Forest Gin Walk, Van Dieman’s Band).
A music theatre piece based on an Edgar Allen Poe fable and set amid a plague (The Masque of the Red Death, Archipalego Productions featuring Kris McQuade and the TSO Chorus).
Venues include an old car museum, boatsheds, a former power station, a labyrinth, archery club, chairlift and hardware store.
“That’s what makes it a festival — creativity, and using unusual spaces,” Ritchie says.
“We don’t program for the niche market, we program for the general public, and they’ve become very adventurous. This is our 13th year, and I’m sure some eyebrows would have been raised in the first year.
“But now, people are used to the idea and they trust the brand of Mona Foma. They probably haven’t seen a rooster on horseback, but if we’re putting it the festival, it’s likely to be good.
“The attendance bears that out, and so do the demographics.
Mona Foma happens in Launceston, January 15 to 17, and Hobart, January 22 to 24.
Details and tickets: mofo.net.au
Annalise Dalins on how Daicos family saved her from dark times
The fiancee of Collingwood star Josh Daicos is speaking openly about her heartbreaking family history for the first time, crediting her famous in-laws for restoring her faith in family.
Bombers WAG forced to ditch Anzac Day clash over breastfeeding room struggle
The wife of Essendon skipper Zach Merrett is calling for better access to feeding rooms at the MCG after she ended up pumping in a public toilet, eventually leaving the game early to avoid the struggle.