Culture

Director Noora Niasari’s debut feature film Shayda – Australia’s official nomination for the international Oscar – is driven by dark childhood memories.

She was not moving. This tram, the one half full of sickly pale commuters in the dying afternoon light, hadn’t moved for a few minutes. Everyone else had already registered it, the stillness, the flatness. Heads turned, people looked up from their phones irritably. They weren’t at a stop or lights, just halted in the middle of the road.

For musician and conductor Stanley Dodds, Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie is one of the most joyous works of music ever written.

Sydney Dance Company’s thrilling triptych Ascent showcases three very different approaches to choreography.

 As problematic as some believe Miss Saigon is, the crowd-pleasing Vietnam War-set musical is the only current big-ticket production to showcase Asian talent.

Spilling across the city, the 10th Ballarat International Foto Biennale offers a panoramic view of the state of the art.

Before the Australian premiere of his latest work, Sibyl, at the Sydney Opera House, animator, director and visual artist William Kentridge reveals that the moment when a work begins to catch fire is always mysterious.