MULTI-DIMENSIONAL, polyrhythmic gangster shit is how Melbourne band Hiataus Kaiyote describes itself on the web. The funky jazz quartet was nominated for a Grammy, but was pipped at the post by Snarky Puppy. Songwriter/singer Mai Palm brought her own brand of future soul to the band: “I always knew I wanted to be in a…

THE worldwide trend of grown-ups colouring in has hit Bayswater public library, as Sr Ruth Aney discovered last week. While it’s a bit of fun, there’s good science behind the therapeutic benefits of adult colouring and other art therapies, helping with focus and cutting down on anxiety, and colouring even sees changes in heart rate…

THE images looming out of the darkness of Christophe Canato’s photos are beautiful, but also menacing, bestial and childlike. But the French-Australian artist says it’s about an idealised childhood, not anything sinister. “The dark is something more romantic to me, not connected to something uncomfortable,” he says, his rich French accent flowing down the line.…

THE events of the Easter Rising in 1916 still resonate strongly with Perth’s Irish community. On this year’s Easter long weekend hundreds marched through Perth streets in commemoration of the rebels and civilians killed by indiscriminate fire as British forces quashed the insurrection. The march also commemorated the 16 men executed for their leadership roles in…

NGARINYIN/GIJA artist Vanessa Russ is the first Aboriginal director of the 40-year-old Berndt Museum. The museum features a large collection of Aboriginal artifacts rated by UNESCO as Australian Memory of the World. Dr Russ grew up in the Kimberley, where she experienced Aboriginal art firsthand in rock paintings and craft objects. She moved to Sydney…

COMICS and novels have more in common than you’d think at first glance, curator of Comic Tragics at the WA Art Gallery Robert Cook says. “It’s just a different way of telling stories. Novelists use words to evoke images and comics go one step further.” Pictures are the craft of the comic writer, but the…

MORE than 60 new and emerging Aboriginal artists were enjoying a barbecue on the lawns of the Fremantle Arts Centre last week, having arrived from some of WA’s most remote communities to kick off the Revealed exhibition. It’s a feather in the cap of the FAC, invited by the WA government to take on the…

PICNIC at Hanging Rock bursts onto the State Theatre stage in a cacophony of sound and fury bearing little resemblance to Joan Lindsay’s detailed descriptions of landscape and weather, or Peter Weir’s film, redolent of haunting music and ethereal shots of young women in diaphanous dresses, against the dark mystery of the Australian bush. Tom…

THE Little Prince is the fourth most translated book in the world, with two million copies sold annually. So what is its enduring appeal more than 70 years after Antoine de Saint-Exupery put pen to paper? “The story has such a powerful pull on imagination,” Spare Parts Puppet Theatre director Michael Barlow says. “[It’s] completely…

WITH a career including stints as the Pentagon’s chief environmental science officer, NASA adviser on mapping from space, establishing Murdoch University’s environmental chair in 1978 and bush surveying, Desmond O’Connor (above) could be forgiven for wanting to enjoy a quiet retirement. Nothing doing: at 89 the Hilton resident has penned his first novel, Phantom Wings…