Mona’s midwinter festival, Dark Mofo, has announced a program highlight ahead of its full line-up announcement: two Australian exclusive performances of Antony and the Johnsons with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, live in Hobart in June.
Antony and the Johnsons are internationally celebrated for their artistic integrity as well as their influence in challenging social norms; something that Dark Mofo also encourages in its contemporary take on ancient Bacchanalian rites.
English-born transgender artist Antony Hegarty was raised in Amsterdam and San Francisco before moving to New York City at the age of 19, co-founding the performance collective Blacklips and spending several years developing her voice and ideas on late-night stages around New York City, eventually gaining international critical acclaim.
Antony and the Johnsons have received the prestigious Mercury Prize for their second album I am a Bird Now. Their third album, The Crying Light was deemed “the most personal environmentalist statement possible, making an unforeseen connection between queer culture’s identity politics and the green movement,” by The LA Times, and its live performance was included in Klaus Biesenbach’s 100 Years: A History of Performance Art, at MoMA PS1 in New York.
Antony was a musical director and performer in Robert Wilson’s opera, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic; collaborated with filmmaker Charles Atlas on TURNING; a series of live video portraits of 13 iconic trans- and cis-gendered women from downtown New York City’s art and nightlife community; and curated London’s Meltdown festival in 2012, using the platform to introduce her community’s concept of Future Feminism.
Antony and the Johnsons delivered a TED performance on radical collaboration and have worked closely with artists including Marina Abramovic, Lou Reed, Yoko Ono, Boy George, Bjork, Willem Dafoe, Rufus Wainwright and Devendra Banhart.
Antony and the Johnsons have performed with symphony orchestras throughout the world, including The London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, The Chamber Orchestra of Sydney at Sydney Opera House, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. This June, they play with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra at the Odeon Theatre for the first time.
For Dark Mofo 2015, Antony and the Johnsons with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra will deliver two Australian exclusive performances at Hobart’s historic Odeon Theatre on Tuesday 16 June and Wednesday 17 June 2015. For more information, visit: www.darkmofo.net.au for details.
Image: Antony Hegarty