The event has more than doubled in size since its inaugural
festival last year, with 250 artists in residence.
“There’s just been an explosion of interest,” said
the festival’s director, Imogen Semmler. “We’ve basically packed it out.
We’ve got artists rehearsing in dressing rooms, outside the venue and on the
platforms above the theatres.”
Despite its popularity with artists and audiences – last
year 1800 people attended – the festival runs on a shoestring budget of less
than $80,000 and its future is uncertain. Its only government funding is a
$15,000 grant from the City of Sydney.
“It’s a real battle just to keep going,” Semmler
said. “After this, we’re going to have to take some time to think about
whether we can make it happen again because we’re all so stretched. I’d love to
be able to pay the artists and the crew, but at this stage it’s just not
possible.”
For the participants, most of whom work other jobs to
support their art, Underbelly is a chance to perform in a state-of-the-art
venue and experiment with the facilities. Mary Budimir and Nick Mainsbridge, of
the electronic music act Deprogram, usually work in a shed at Budimir’s home.
They used the workshop to develop a program that translates their music into
visual effects projected onto a dome-shaped screen. Budimir, the group’s
singer, wears sensors on her fingers to control the projected colours and the
sound effects.
“We haven’t had much sleep in the last little while,
but it is just fantastic for us to have the time and the venue to do something
so unusual and so ambitious.”
In the foyer, the artists Diego Bonetto, Karl Logge and
Tessa Rapaport are staging a less technological exhibition. For The Hanging
Gardens And Other Tales, they have collected 58 pot plants from local
residents.
“It’s all about letting people tell their
stories,” Bonetto said. “Some people gave the last plants their
grandmother gave them before she died. Others were salvaged after being dumped
in the street. They’ve all come from that inner-west neighbourhood and we’ve
discovered that some even came from the same cutting.”
Other works on display include experimental films, hip-hop
acts and a sideshow theatre in an inflatable tent. Many of the works will still
be unfinished come Saturday’s opening.
“We make Underbelly about celebrating art and not
necessarily about the finished product,” Semmler said. “The whole
point of the lab is that the public can come down and watch things being made
and rehearsed. It’s not necessarily about what you see in its finished
state.”
Photo: Jon Reid – Free fall … Strings Attached perform Sound
In Motion
Source:
www.smh.com.au/news/arts/creative-collective-swings-into-action/2008/07/10/1215658038123.html