The Sex Pistols return to Melbourne in a tour Johnny Rotten describes as ‘karaoke’

MUSIC
Cyndi Lauper: The Farewell Tour ★★★★
Rod Laver Arena, April 2

Cyndi Lauper walks on stage to an explosion of rainbow confetti and dives straight into She Bop, an ode to masturbation. She’s 71 years old, 160 centimetres tall, and exuberant as hell in blue-green hair, blasting through a recorder solo before chucking the instrument offstage.

The crowd are in tulle skirts, glitter and colourful wigs, which are on sale in the foyer – the money goes to her charity, Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Rights.

Tonight is supposedly part of Lauper’s farewell tour, and she’s going out on top. She still has a voice like a box of crayons, bright, messy, and expressive. She uses everything, with soaring vibrato, sometimes audibly out of breath, imprecise and alive. The set is ’80s-heavy, leaning most on her ’83 debut She’s So Unusual, with some middle-of-the-road ’90s stuff and, to my delight, the song she did for The Goonies thrown in.

It’s a talky night. “It’s not just a bang-bang show,” she says unapologetically in her irresistible Brooklyn drawl (“It’s a paww-deee!”). She tells us about family, the cousin who had a pigeon coop on her roof, the women who raised her and the way they’d cut up old clothes and make something brand new with them.

She does the same with her art, of course. Many of her songs are written by others but she makes them utterly her own. She tells us she recorded I Drove All Night, written for Roy Orbison, because there were no songs on the radio about women driving. “When you get in the car and you can drive anywhere you freakin’ want, that’s a power song.”

She cycles through about half-a-dozen costume changes, each with a different hair colour: sparkly, shoulder-padded jackets, asymmetrical suits, underwear on the outside, a floor-length Norma Desmond number, a red jacket with a bright yellow wig. “I tried to dress up faw ya,” she says. As this outfit’s designer Christian Siriano told her: “The gays want glamour.”

For the evergreen Time After Time, Melbourne’s Tones and I joins for a duet that’s like every wedding dance floor you’ve ever been on: messy and beautiful. And she delivers True Colours flawlessly, standing on a small satellite stage in the middle of the arena with a long rainbow scarf metres in the air.

For the finale, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, she’s joined by The Veronicas, who sink into the background in a stage designed in polka-dot tribute to artist Yayoi Kusama.

Even this, her signature tune, is a cover of a late-’70s pop-punk number, sung by a man, but I defy you to listen to that original and think of it as anything less than a sketch for Lauper to colour in and make something wonderful, defiant and punch-the-air fun.
Reviewed by Will Cox

DANCE
Poesis and The Bastard ★★★
Dancehouse, Carlton, until April 5

The latest Dancehouse double bill features two works that differ wildly in their commitments to technique and virtuosity, but which together make for an invigorating and provoking evening of dance theatre.

Gabriella Imrichova’s cheekily titled The Bastard aims to challenge expectations with a surprising blend of theatre, performance art and only little dance. It’s a bit punk and a bit mongrel, but consistently funny.

This is a performance in two halves. First, we get a dry parody of non-dance, a somewhat dated form of experimental dance in which movement is withheld: it’s slow and repetitious and very low effort.

Either side of this performance, Imrichova addresses the audience, simulating apprehension about its reception: about whether it fits the context and whether it works as dance. It’s mischievous but not without charm.

Then follows a wild rant about art and novelty. There were a few walkouts on opening night, but that’s surely a victory for an artist who declares that trolling is a creative practice.

Prue Lang’s Poesis sits more securely within the conventions of contemporary dance. It’s a duet in which the two dancers generate striking compositions from subtle contrasts in form, line and intention.

Both performers are extraordinary. Benjamin Hancock, with his strange elongations, projects a kind of alien grace. And Tara Jade Samaya – returning to Melbourne after a long absence – is all strength and control.

Poesis moves through various phases, the dancers arranging themselves in ways that are unexpected but visually satisfying, mixing traditions and vocabularies, folding themselves together and even improvising with a game of follow the leader.

The costumes exaggerate the effects of counterpoint in interesting ways. Samaya appears in boxing gear while Hancock is in pointe shoes: there are luridly patterned unitards, absurd heels, lots of activewear and some deluxe furry boots.

It’s a little cerebral but nonetheless attractive. Imrichova has the freshness of a new voice, but Lang brings the more serious engagement with contemporary dance and its possibilities.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

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