Devilishly precarious aerials, beguiling burlesque, non-stop clowning and the chance of getting a little wet. South Side Festival is promising all this and more when it descends upon Frankston city from May 6 to May 15.
A contemporary art and culture festival that’s never been seen before in Frankston, South Side Festival transforms the city, as venues and spaces come to life with more than 50 fantastical and memorable experiences by almost 230 local and national artists.
Bringing Frankston to life in a dazzling extravaganza, the program covers a wide array of contemporary art forms including theatre, live music, visual arts exhibitions, immersive experiences, installations, workshops, markets and everything in between.
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around the region here.
If you’re looking for something a bit playful, blurring the lines between circus, theatre and dance, South Side Festival has two jaw-dropping shows that will satisfy every artistic craving.
Scratch Arts – Moist
Melbourne’s primary contemporary and queer production house Scratch Arts will deliver an absolute spectacle with their physical theatre and comedy show Moist this May.
Renowned for its wild array of art forms – circus, cabaret, burlesque, performance art, dance, visual art, children’s theatre and immersive works, Moist is a racy and hilarious physical theatre spectacle sopping wet as it takes you deep into a disco fuelled distopia.
Performed by The Mighty Caesar, Reece Cooper, Timothy Christopher Ryan and Peter Welters, the show follows the performers in their hunt for a glass of water in a world where the billionaires splash about and the working-class toil in the soil. Performing circus feats with buckets of humour, non-stop clowning and soundtracked by water inspired songs, this show is an all dribbling, all squelching, all moist performance art from a diverse range of thirst traps.
This show goes down at the Cube 37 Frankston Arts Centre on Friday, May 6 and Saturday, May 7.
If you want to have your cake and eat it too, you can double your fun with back-to-back performances of Scratch Arts’ Eat My Cake ahead of Moist.
Developed and performed by Marija Herceg and Andrew G Rose, Eat my Cake sees the production house smashing together 18th Century France and 21st Century Social Media Culture in this unbridled comedy with a dark twist. Follow Marie Antoinette, famous french royalty and social media influencer, as she traverses the twists and turns through love, lust, censorship, narcissism, and vulnerability. And yes, there will be cake.
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Circa’s Peepshow
Hailed as ‘one of the most entertaining, unbelievable things you will ever see’ (The Reviews Hub, UK), the sultry circus-cabaret-burlesque show Circa’s Peepshow turns cabaret on its head… literally!
Taking to Frankston Arts Centre for one special show on Saturday, May 14, Circa’s Peepshow lurches from the thrillingly acrobatic to the comically playful. Here you can expect to see teetering towers of balanced bodies, extreme bending, beguiling burlesque, and devilishly precarious aerials. Under the direction of circus visionary Yaron Lifschitz, Circa’s Peepshow combines some of the finest acrobatic talents to create a playfully exhilarating ride into the beautifully bizarre recesses of your mind.
Featuring the finest acrobatic talent on the planet, this saucy circus packs a serious punch, combining cabaret and performance art with a wildly brilliant soundtrack.
Come to Circa’s Peepshow and see the world from the other side of the mirror.
Jam-packed with not-to-be-missed experiences that will intrigue, excite and inspire, further highlights of the multi-day festival also include Melbourne’s most favourite cheeky UV performance art party Scratch Arts’s Blankë Pøp, packed with a huge range of performance artists alongside disco and house music; Piano Bar’s Bitches with Balls Drag Bingo, which is a highly entertaining mid-week bingo session guaranteed to make you laugh; and Funky Town, a Frankston Music Community Network showcase of Frankston’s diverse and vibrant live music scene which hosted Australia’s finest acts supporting the rise of Australian music.
If you’re looking for events more family-friendly, the Frankston Generator will be a mesmerising and dazzling display of lighting, audio and video installations in an immersive experience that is the first of its kind; alongside digital water projection piece Saturation, the Little Beauty Market, Murrundaya Yepengna Dance Workshops, and Piano Bar’s family-friendly afternoon where the renowned pianists and vocalists will be taking all your family-friendly song requests plus a few Disney favourites so you can dance the night away.
South Side Festival runs from 6 – 15 May in and around the city of Frankston. Explore the full program and purchase tickets to individual events here.
South Side Festival is presented by Frankston City Council with support from EastLink and Mandylights.