"If you want to get acquainted with the independent art scene in Brisbane, this is a great place to do it" - Angela Peita and Lauren Hale on RuckusFest.
If you’ve dipped your toe into the local indie arts scene, you would have come across a Ruckus event somewhere around town. Led by Angela Peita, Meg Bartholomew and Martin Ingle, Ruckus is one of the hardest working local indie arts collectives in town, who regularly host events, run workshops and provide platforms for local creatives to do their thing.
For many, Ruckus is synonymous with spoken word and poetry, and for good reason - they’ve been hosting monthly poetry slams around town since 2013. But they do so much more, including hosting monthly cabaret battles between artists called Wham Bam Cabaret Slam, and producing immersive shows on the side.
With all their boundless spare time, Ruckus have decided to take over the Old Museum once again for their second RuckusFest. Running from 5-6 November 2021, it’s guaranteed to be a wild two-day extravaganza of indie arts, weird art workshops, dress-ups, comedy, dancing and performance art with something for everyone. Its program is jam packed with around 80 creatives showcasing excellent local art that you don’t often see programmed in other festivals.
Curious to know more about what punters can expect from this unique indie arts fest, Ads J spoke to Ruckus producer Angela Peita and creative Lauren Hale, who was involved in the first RuckusFest and returns in the line-up this year, about all things RuckusFest.
Image: Jacob Morrison
RuckusFest, like all good ideas, has been an idea that has been brewing for some time.
Angela: “We've been talking about this for a long time. We've been running events for like eight or nine years now and we see all of these amazing artists constantly. Yet when we go to these bigger events and these festivals it's never those artists that we see.
We've always thought wouldn't it be cool if we could do a festival, but we thought it would be too much, you know. Too big or too hard.”
In 2019, the Ruckus team decided to give it a go and see if it works. They received matched funding from Creative Partnerships and were able to raise the funds required to cover the base costs of the festival through their community.
The first iteration of the festival was held in the 2019 on the grounds of the Old Museum in Bowen Hills. It featured approximately 80 paid creatives, and, by all accounts, it was a roaring success.
Angela: “We were programming four or five spaces with things were happening simultaneously, along with some roving stuff. They were workshops, bands and panels, arts markets and interactive stuff. There was a lot of really unexpected left field stuff alongside some kind of more mainstream stuff.
You could even go and get your aura read, which would determine what haircut you would get. Bizarrely, this became one of the most popular things that we saw all day and our friend who did that worked for like 10 hours straight cutting people's hair.”
Image: Jacob Morrison
Lauren developed a found poetry workshop for the first RuckusFest.
Lauren: “I created a space where all kinds of people could come together and work on something. There are people who made like nonsense poems and the people who made really profound staff. We created an installation out of their poetry and people were like, “Is this yours, what does it mean, Oh, my goodness!
By all accounts, the first RuckusFest was a massive success.
Angela: “We had people come in from far north Queensland to go to the festival because they'd heard about this like weird quirky thing that was happening. Audience told us they came to see one thing and fell in love with a new artist they became really excited about. Also, a lot of our audience were emerging artists or people who are really enthusiastic about that independent art scene who connected with each other when they might not have otherwise.
We had such great feedback, so we knew, we needed to do this again.”
After successfully applying for a Creative Sparks grant for 2020, they got into planning the next festival. The first step was programming a full day of events and activities for Saturday 6 November.
Angela: “We love to program stuff that is a little bit weird and a little bit out of the box, but we are never sure whether other people are going to get as into it, as we do. But I think we really saw in that first festival, that there is a real audience for that stuff that is a little bit less mainstream and a little bit quirkier. So we just leaned into it this year and thought let's put all our weird ideas in there.”
“One of my favorite things when I go to a festival is getting lost in a weird thread of something where you end up spending your whole festival during this like one side thing that you didn't expect. So we've worked really hard at building threads into this festival that you can follow.
Image: Jacob Morrison
For example, you can go to a jam with the sea shanties girls in the morning and then you can go on to a dress up tent where they'll dress you as a pirate and then you can jump in and actually do some stuff in their gig later on that day. Have this weird pirate shanty day. Or you can follow the sock puppet thread where you can go from making a sock puppet to a creative development to being in a show. We've got a dance thread where you can go and learn a flash mob dance that will then later on one of the bands will be playing a song, so you can be part of a flash mob. There's a beatboxing workshop with Hope One that they can then carry into a performance by Cipher happening in the afternoon.
There's lots of connected bits regardless of what thread you're interested in.”
For this RuckusFest, Lauren will be a part of one of those threads. She initially pitched running a workshop for people to create and perform with sock puppets.
Lauren: “I wanted to bring a new kind of discovery to other people's lives or a bit of play. I thought, anyone can make a sock puppet, it's a sock and eyes, right? I wanted to make something together and then play together. Everyone could show their alternate self or more expressive self. They can talk as little or as much as they want or just make sounds or just express - something that encapsulates the really loud people and the really quiet people.”
Ruckus came back to Lauren with a bigger idea …
Lauren: “They were like, we love your sock puppets, we love it. We want to respect your idea and your vision to just kind of be its own thing. But if you want, Siobhan [Gibbs] is running an act creation workshop and we'd love for her to that with your puppets. And then, we have a flutist who could do puppet music sound. She does flute with finger puppets and she also has a bunch of objects that she can use to make sound effects … what do you think? And I was like yeah!
They’re giving people, if they want it, this full immersive experience for the whole day in and the opportunity to perform as well. It’s nice to be a part of something that's so much bigger now.”
Image: Jacob Morrison
These threads are a part of one of the broader goals of the festival for Ruckus.
Angela: “So much of art can feel like it's held behind these gatekeepers. That you have to have started a certain place or worked with a certain company to be involved in art. And we've always really strongly believed that anybody can make art and in whatever realm, that everyone has an interesting story to tell.
This festival is about giving people an opportunity to play with that, but also to meet other people that want to play with it too. You don't have to be studying this at a high level to be able to enjoy it and engage with it, anybody can do it. You can just hang out at a festival, try things out and create art for art's sake. You don't have to be good at it, you can just enjoy it and get involved with it. And the kind of natural outcome of that is you're hanging out with other people who are interested in those things, so you’re making communities.”
You don’t have to immerse yourself in one of the threads though, Lauren and Angela were keen to point out that there will be plenty of great stand-alone sessions at the festival.
Lauren: “I’m excited for Claire's Taroetry, which is poetry that draws inspiration from Tarot. Anything by Sean West, he has beautiful, beautiful poetry. Also, the Salty Sirens will be amazing. And I love Smallest Horse. I'm gonna have to duck away and see them.”
Angela: “We have the public workshop from an artist called Mike Russell, who is a nonverbal autistic poet who works at ‘The Brotherhood of the Wordless’. Mike is an amazing incredible artist who has learned to facilitate open workshops, so you don't have to identify someone with a disability or know anything about disability to come and engage in that workshop. It's a chance to do some creative writing through the lens of working with somebody who experiences disability and learning a little bit about what that differences and how different people see the world. Then you use that to play with creative format.
Image: Jacob Morrison
“There's a whole show, based on The Bachelorette. We've got some really good bands playing like Rivermouth, if people want to have a dance. We've got Beauty and the Beats, who are amazing. There's a whole bunch of more acousticy afternoon bands as well, for people who want to chill on the balcony or in the gardens. And there's an arts market for people to come in and sell all the things.”
As well as all of this, there’s be a massive cabaret that will kick off RuckusFest on Friday 5 November.
Angela: “We've been doing Wham Bam Cabaret Slam for three and a half years now, which is a competition cabaret show. It’s the same concept kind of concept as RuckusFest - independent artists trying out new work. We've been selling it out since it started, so we thought it would be really nice to do a bigger version of that’s not judged, where we just select artists that we think are doing excellent work. There'll be a whole bunch of different stuff happening like circus, music, comedy and theatre with plenty of breaks for drinking and socializing.
It's perfect for people who feel like dipping their toe in and who are little bit reluctant to get as interactive. You can come, sit down and watch a great show.”
Image: Jacob Morrison
And all of this is happening in one of Meanjin’s most underappreciated buildings, the Old Museum.
Angela: “It's a beautiful, beautiful heritage listed venue that has these gorgeous high ceilings, concert halls and also these big sprawling gardens. It's a really beautiful, but underutilised resource and they’re really good at running with weird ideas.”
“It’s also only a short walk from the valley train station, but people forget that it's there. I think it's because it's technically listed as Bowen Hills people think, “I don't know where that is”, and that it’s too far away.”
So, with all that in mind, why should people come to RuckusFest this year?
Lauren: “You will never forget it. I’d go back and live it all again! It was invitation to play and to tap into your creative self. Come along meet new people, try new things, and get to see some of the amazing talent that Brisbane has. The beautiful juice of Brisbane!”
Angela: “People are always talking about how nothing ever happens in Brisbane. And we're really bad at talking about the excellent things that happened in Brisbane. But this is an amalgamation of a whole bunch of independent artists who do independent arts events in Brisbane in one place. So, if you want to get acquainted with the independent art scene in Brisbane, this is a great place to do it. Come along, have a look at some of the stuff that's happening in Brisbane and some of the excellent arts that exists here and follow that out of the festival into other places.
“We've done all the work for you, just come. I mean, what else are you going to do?”
RuckusFest runs 5-6 November 2021 at the Old Museum, Bowen Hills.
Angela Peita is a co-creative producer and co-founder of Ruckus Brisbane. She works across Ruckus, Vulcana Circus and QLD Poetry producing vibrant and engaging work focused on community building and development. She is passionate about creating spaces for artists to explore creatively and deliver work, and believes the arts are for everyone.
Lauren Hale is a multi disciplinary creative who works across a range of mediums. Lauren loves performing and dreaming up ideas and then making them happen. She uses the tools of theatre, art and design to create worlds and experiences for audiences and peers.
