As is right and proper, the revelation of Kylie Minogue’s teeny tiny golden hotpants at the heart of the still-not-even-one-year-old Australian Museum of Performing Arts’s second show-stopping exhibition, Encore, is a magic moment.
Once in the exhibition in Hamer Hall, you’re beckoned through a runway framed by diaphanous gold-sequined curtains multiplied by a darkly reflective floor, to the sounds of the lush disco-pop track Spinning Around.
Turn right and there they are, paired with the similarly shimmering Stella McCartney halter top, both dwarfed in a vast glass box that only emphasises just how dinky, yet outsized-iconic, the pop star’s headline-grabbing look was (and still is).
Encore at AMPA – quick links
Head-spinning collection
‘We know that there are stories that our audiences absolutely want to see, and there would be riots if Kylie’s hotpants weren’t here,’ says Sandra Bruce, Director of Collections and Exhibitions at AMPA’s home, the Arts Centre Melbourne.
Encore marks half a century of ACM’s performing arts collection, and presents a curated selection of 50 items from its astonishing vault of roughly 875,000 items, held in storage in the belly of Hamer Hall and external facilities. It was no mean feat whittling that wealth down to 0.00571428571%.
‘We wanted to make sure this exhibition was a real Aladdin’s cave, and it was really tough. The curators would come to me with their long list, and I’d go, “Well, good luck getting that down to 50”,’ Bruce chuckles. ‘It’s extraordinary. The gig was so tough that the typewriter that Ray Lawler wrote Summer of the Seventeenth Doll on didn’t make the cut. I mean, that tells you everything, doesn’t it?’
From Dame Nellie Melba to Mirka Mora
Visitors will get to see a maquette of the set design for Melbourne Theatre Company’s 1995 production of Lawler’s beloved play, and a hauntingly beautiful papier-mâché mask fashioned by multi-disciplinary artist Mirka Mora for the then-Hoopla! (Malthouse) Theatre’s all-male production of Medea in 1979.
You can marvel at Dame Nellie Melba’s jewelled cape, fashioned by Parisian designer Jean-Phillippe Worth and worn to St Petersburg in 1891, and Joan Sutherland’s lush black velvet gown from her 1965 appearance in La Traviata alongside Luciano Pavarotti.
Helen Reddy’s Grammy for I Am Woman appears, as do Peter Allen’s I Go to Rio maracas and Midnight Oil legend Rob Hirst’s drum kit. The latter was bought at auction and gifted to AMPA by the Midnight Oil fan club, Powderworkers!
Comedian Judith Lucy’s eye-opening nude suit sits next to Reuben Kaye’s video tribute to Reg Livermore’s gender-upending cabaret queen Betty Blokk Buster and Dame Edna Everage’s New York City skyline dress.
‘We’re not looking at pristine archetypal examples,’ Bruce says of these loved but lived-in treasures. ‘Everything that we put on display is telling a story of the tools of the trade of the performing arts. So whether it’s Joan Sutherland’s gown, Kylie’s hotpants or Ossie Ostrich for Hey Hey It’s Saturday, they’re showing their age.’
The wear and tear is part of their beauty, Bruce argues, pointing to the battered and signed pointe shoes of Ella Havelka, a Wiradjuri woman who became the Australian Ballet’s first dancer from a First Nations background.
‘Our job, as conservators, is to stabilise, maintain and preserve,’ she says. ‘But it’s not up to us to restore, because those rips, those tears, those stains, they’re very much part of the story.’
First Nations forward
Encore was intended as AMPA’s debut exhibition, but the opportunity to work with London’s Victoria & Albert Museum on Diva was too good to pass up. It’s been coming together for a while now, which shows in its depth and breadth.
The exhibition opens, righty, with an acknowledgement that performance has been centred on these lands for thousands of years, through First Nations culture, song, storytelling and dance. The first item on show is Gunditjmara and Bundjalung star Archie Roach’s denim vest, crafted by Maryse Piron for his 2019 album Tell Me Why.
‘We were really looking for the objects that could tell the strongest stories,’ Ian Jackson, Curator of Dance and Opera at ACM’s performing arts collection and the lead curator on Encore, says. ‘The ones with real history that spoke to what the performing arts can mean to people.’
You’ll also encounter the fabulously snazzy MC attire worn by Circus Oz superstar Dale Woodbridge-Brown, who likes to announce himself as a triple threat. Not singing, dancing and acting, though he can handle all three, but, as he said in the show TWENTYSIXTEEN, ‘I’m gay, Aboriginal and adopted.’
Alongside the ringleaders, Encore is also about introducing audiences to names they might not be as familiar with, like the remarkable story of Con Colleano. A gifted tightrope walker, he was the first person recorded successfully pulling off a somersault on one.
Known as The Wizard of the Wire, he toured the world with his circus family, concocting a Mediterranean identity to allow them to travel freely as First Nations folks under the White Australia policy of the early 20th century. This self-preservation tactic had the unfortunate side effect of obscuring their truth for generations, with their truth only just becoming more widely known.
‘They’re an inspiration to a generation of young First Nations circus performers,’ Jackson says. ‘Encore traces that social change, where Con had to mask his First Nations heritage, and then you have someone like Dale, who’s loud and proud, and Dylan Singh.’
Detective work
While Jackson and the team often work closely with performance companies and their archivists or generous artists like Minogue and her sometime duet partner Nick Cave, who are both very active in preserving their legacies and have donated extensively, some of the older pieces in the collection require a little detective work to uncover their stories.
‘We keep finding out new and fascinating things about Dame Nellie Melba’s costumes,’ Jackson says. ‘They were donated to us by her granddaughter in the 1970s, so our research cross-referenced each item with news reports from the time, including reviews of her performances, which might mention what she was wearing. It’s an amazing moment when you can match that up with a costume that we have, like the cloak that’s on display in the exhibition.’
The curatorial team also put a lot of effort into contextualising the exhibits not only for adults, but also for the wide-eyed children who visit AMPA.
‘Kids just love to see the different possibilities of the performing arts,’ Jackson says. ‘Even if they haven’t been to very many performances themselves, seeing these things can inspire them to ask their parents to go see something.’
That’s the magic of showbusiness. Seeing is believing. Some of those kids may even grow up to be performers.
Jackson points to a quote from Roach near the entrance to Encore. ‘Audience is like family and good friends, people that I can confide in and draw strength from,’ Roach says. ‘My hope is that for the time we spend together, people get to think about life, about who we are, our connection to each other and to this country.’
It’s perfect, just like Kylie’s hotpants.
Reality is wondrous
Archie’s quote was placed at the beginning of the exhibition because ‘it’s such a powerful statement of the value of performing arts in society,’ Jackson says.
‘These things aren’t just ephemeral. They speak to our collective memories. People want a real human presence, that moment of connection more than ever, because there’s so much AI-generated fakeness and slop out there.’
Encore allows these priceless relics of fame to take another bow. ‘Whether it’s a cast of Nina Simone’s chewing gum or Barbara Angell’s makeup case, these are precious objects,’ Jackson adds.
‘They speak to the importance that people put on the performing arts, that real sense of wonder that people from all over Australia hold onto.’
