After wowing us last winter, arts festival RISING is coming back this June. And today, they’ve announced an early look into their incredible program. Melbourne Town Hall will be transformed into a spiralling vortex of screens. This multi-channel installation, known as Euphoria, is a RISING festival exclusive by Berlin-based artist and filmmaker Julian Rosefeld. It features dazzling 360-degree visuals, an original score by Canadian composer Samy Moussa and British saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi, and Cate Blanchett. See it for yourself from Friday June 2 to Sunday June 18.
Euphoria at RISING Festival
Euphoria is RISING’s first major international commission, and comes to Melbourne straight from its debut at Park Armory in New York. The installation explores capitalism and the effects of unlimited economic growth as an extravagant, cinematic event.
“I’m so thrilled this international collaboration we embarked on back in 2019 between Germany, New York and Amsterdam is finally complete and coming to Melbourne for RISING,” said RISING co-artistic director Gideon Obarzanek. “It’s huge! Almost two hundred years since the Communist Manifesto, Euphoria takes stock of Capitalism – the biggest and most seductive Ponzi scheme that keeps on giving.”
What can you expect?
Experience the historic Melbourne Town Hall like never before. On the ground level, you’ll be surrounded by 24 gigantic screens, accompanied by a life-sized choir of singers from Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Above, you’ll listen to the rumbles of five duelling jazz drummers projected across the space, including Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Erskine, and Grammy Award-winning drummer and composer Antonio Sánchez.
Across the upper screens, five vignettes will loop, featuring actors like Giancarlo Esposito and Virginia Newcombe, delivering musings from influential people like Snoop Dogg, Warren Buffett, Ayn Rand, Angela Davis and Mark Fisher.
Meanwhile, Blanchett, who previously worked with Rosefeldt in Manifesto, will appear as an anthropomorphic tiger stalking supermarket aisles.
Euphoria reimagines two thousand years of greed, as executives do acrobatics in a bank lobby, and homeless men discuss economics. It features plenty of big ideas that tests the endless consumption of capitalism.
To keep this installation accessible to all, visitors can purchase tickets based on a pay-as-you-wish pricing model. Choose between $18 Feeling the Pinch, $25 Working Class Hero or $32 High Roller. On Fridays, this experience is free to attend, until allocation exhausts. Bookings are essential.
Euphoria runs from June 2 to 18. Meanwhile, RISING will return from June 7 to 18.