Melt is Spektakular at celebrating queer culture
A fun-filled and city-wide celebration of queer culture, Melt 2024 showcases how far Brisbane has come in embracing diversity
Brisbane Powerhouse’s Melt 2024 is a festival of queer culture that has ballooned into a city-wide extravaganza.
Celebrating LGBTQIA+ music, dance, visual arts and entertainment, Melt 2024 brings international musicians, artists and performers to Brisbane for a fortnight of diversity, inclusivity, fun and frivolity.
Starting on October 23, Melt 2024 features more than 220 performances and events including live shows from British band Take That, pop songstress Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Australian cabaret performer Disco Hans and punk rockers Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers.
Disco Hans, the stage persona of Adelaide-based performer Matt Gilbertson, brings his latest stage extravaganza, Disco Spektakular, to town. Marrying elements of topical comedy, dance and song, the show recently saw Gilbertson win the prestigious best in festival gong at the 2024 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, along with the best cabaret award.
“I love performing in Brisbane,” Gilbertson says. “Queensland audiences are a real treat. I hope they’ll like the show. The way I always describe it is as being a bit like that moment in The Wizard of Oz where she opens the door and everything goes from black-and-white to colour. That’s kind of what the show is like, and hopefully we’re bringing some colour and some glitter into everybody’s lives.
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“There’s a lot of drama in the world right now. Even in people’s own backyards there’s a lot going on, and I guess the aim of the show is to be a bit of a respite and a distraction from that. We want it to be a couple of hours where you can come along, switch off and have a really fun time. There’s a lot of glitter, there’s a lot of fun songs, there’s a lot of boys with their shirts off, so there’s something for everybody.”
Other cabaret shows during the festival include Halloween Cabaret, featuring strippers, burlesque dancers and circus performers; Bad Lesbian, in which Ange Ponting searches her soul using iconic sapphic songs as the inspiration, accompanied by musical partner Alex Van den Broek; and Leather Lungs, billed as “an hilarious cabaret romp featuring a voice spanning over four octaves with the flamboyance of Prince, the force of Aretha and a range as mind-blowing as Freddie’s”, teamed with Scout Boxall’s unique blend of observational stand-up, manic comedy, songs and storytelling.
The festival line-up also includes an impressive visual arts component. Noteworthy events include Fever Dream, an eclectic new exhibition from Brisbane artist Jackie Ryan; Friction, a three-day event featuring an art exhibition, panel discussions, workshops and performances spotlighting queerness from around the world; Demon Rhythm, an exhibition project by Micah Rustichelli, who had their artworks used to train an artificial-intelligence generator; and Easton Dunne’s Welcome to Paradise, which comprises many of the shapes and symbols predominant in his native Rockhampton “turned pink and fluffy”.
Arguably the biggest visual arts event for Melt 2024 involves the presence and work of acclaimed American photographer Spencer Tunick. Tide marks his debut exhibition in Australia and the first-time work from the series he created in Brisbane last year will be on public display.
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Tunick invited more than 100 participants to take part in Tide 2023 with the explicit aim of producing an installation that celebrates diverse bodies and represents a more equal and accepting future. The exhibition provides the perfect prelude to Rising Tide, a monumental second installation that Tunick is creating for Melt 2024.
Rising Tide will take place on the city’s iconic Story Bridge on October 27 when the bridge is closed to traffic while thousands of nude people congregate in what Tunick hopes will be “a celebration of diversity, equity, inclusion and Brisbane’s vibrant GLBTIQ+ community and its allies”.
Also headed to Brisbane is Melbourne-based history enthusiast Rudy Rigg, appearing as part of the live incarnation of worldwide podcast phenomenon Rainbow History Class.
Born out of the success of short-form videos showcasing LGBTQI+ history that went viral on both Instagram and TikTok, where the educational collective has more than 500,000 followers, Rainbow History Class is a podcast dedicated to telling the queer stories that most of us weren’t taught in school, or even at university, and shining a light on queer history.
“The podcast really came about because we had such a high demand for people wanting to know more than we could fit into our one-minute, bite-size-chunk videos on social media,” Rigg says. “We really like to explore all the nooks and crannies of queer history and take a deep dive into it because, you know, as we like to say, not everything is gay but there is something gay in everything.
“For World Pride last year we decided to do a live show and we wanted it to be a bit different from the podcast. We wanted to delve into comedy, doing stand-up, and that’s what people can expect when they come to the live show. Each night is chaos. We’ll dive into a different story from queer history. People can expect to leave knowing a whole host of way too many fun facts. They can expect a lot of wormhole moments and a lot of deep dives that you wouldn’t necessarily get if you went to a university lecture. It’s going to be a really fun time.”
Melt 2024 wraps up on November 9 with the Pride Picnic, a family-friendly event at South Bank, offering a bird’s-eye view of the River Pride Parade, featuring a colourful flotilla journeying from William Jolly Bridge to the Brisbane Powerhouse, led by festival ambassador Courtney Act.
melt.org.au