New Design.

In line with our ever-evolving relationship with the main Mudfest festival Muddy Leaks has had a bit of a makeover. We hope you love the new colour scheme. We think we have capitalised very nicely on the lovely design that is comping out of Mudfest 2011 proper! It's very pretty isn't it?

Retro Publicity Image

Posted on the Facebook Page

Cast/crew opportunities for Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story

Meet Peter: an East Village exec of reputation and distinction. Two kids, a loving wife, a parakeet, a picket fence…

Meet Jerry: he’s been to the zoo. And because of what happened there, he’s going to be on the news tomorrow.
...
…do you want to hear? What Jerry did at the zoo?

Set in an America on the cusp of cultural and spiritual renewal at the dawn of the 60s, when the spirit of revolution was a mere nipping at the heels of the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit by beatniks and burnouts. The 1958 debut one-act play of Edward Albee – author of the seminal Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – is both bloody-minded and raw: a cautionary tale about the dangers of willful miscommunication.

Positions available: Lighting Designer, Sound Designer, Set Designer/Visual Artist.

Please email director Shannon Loughnane at sjloughnane@gmail.com.

Auditions to follow!

Isn't this Pretty?

New Authors Welcome

Just a little practice here, to let everyone know that if you would like to contribute to Muddy Leaks it is fabulously easy and you are of course welcome to blog as little or as MUCH as you like. We are also looking for student reviewers because in some news:

EVERY SHOW IN MUDFEST WILL GET A REVIEW PUBLISHED ON MUDDYLEAKS!

We wonder who got this gig?!

Dear Artists,

We’ve got a job for you…and you might get a little muddy.

We want you to design and decorate a tram-stop. Thanks to our partnership with Yarra Trams, we have been given the blank canvas of two prominent tram-stops on the Swanston St – St Kilda line: the VCA and Parkville campus stops.

This year, sustainability is the bee-knees, the popular kid of the festival that everyone wants to hang out with. We are looking for work that is sustainable, creative and incorporates the Mudfest logo in any way, shape or form. Use the logo as your inspiration – let the kaleidoscope of your imagination run wild. Be quirky, be innovative, be challenging, be inventive, be playful – be Mudfest.

Mudfest - the biennial arts and theatre festival at the University of Melbourne - has grown to be one of the largest student-run festivals in Australia due to the huge range of high quality new, interesting and exciting works that are exhibited each year. Are you Mudfest?

This is your chance to transform a tram-stop into a 3D advertisement for Mudfest. It will be launched at the Opening Night Party and will be visible throughout the entire festival, seen by passengers travelling on over 200 trams. This means huge exposure, not just for the festival but also, for you as an artist.

Of course this is as a result of the sponsorship deal. We wonder what will happen, this is totally going to be an exciting publicity opportunity as well as an artistic canvas.

Target Audiences

From the 2009 Mudfest report

“MUDFEST11 had three target audiences.

1.      University population. The main audience for the festival was the 40, 000+ undergraduate and postgraduate students, research academics and lecturers that inhabit Melbourne University. The festival was designed both for people too make a point of visiting an MUDFEST artwork as well as people encountering a MUDFEST artwork in their normal day to day university routine. The theme of Hidden Spaces and the campus centric festival meant that a lot of University population encountered MUDFEST.

2.      Arts audience. The artistic and cultural community whom have an interest in the presentation of new work and the work of emerging artists and collaborations. Basically this could be summarised as friends of the artists involved. MUDFEST attempted to use this group by getting shows to cross promote, so the friends of one group would come in and then see another groups work

3.      Local Community. Beyond the university community the festival aimed to engage the larger arts population.”

THIS YEAR WE WANT YOU!

Muddy Leaks Take 2?

Muddy Leaks is UNofficial, UNabashed, UNrepentant, as you might have guessed from the repeated slogan around the site we are also fond of the UN prefix.

In the land that is Melbourne, the home-town of the one and only Julian Assange we are providing a new platform for information. Our pond might be a little bit smaller, but the depths of MUDfest 2011 are no less murky than the wider politics of the world. One often takes for granted the benevolence of a pretty picture but dip your hand into the inviting looking pool and you might feel a little residue of filth. This year, the fact the MUDfest 2011 is even occurring is extra pretty because of the insidious dealings behind the scenes. Out of this dirty, sloppy, muddy sludge there comes Muddy Leaks who is tasked with sharing what is underneath the surface with those looking in.

There also is the very pretty and very gorgeous MUDFEST 2011 - which is what we are actually all about. Although UNoffical we are here to support artists, practioners, crew and patrons in anyway that we can. Use us for your publicity - write a review or a press release for your show. WE WILL PUBLISH IT.

Like us on Facebook.

Love us on Twitter

Follow us on our blog

And contribute to ensuring that despite being a sustainable and endagered species Mudfest 2010 is going to be more beautiful than ever before. Muddy Leaks is headed up by Lilly Pad, but is supported by a variety of Confidential Sources; Insiders; Party-goers; Close Contacts; People In The Know involved in MUDfest 2011.

AND YOU.

Please send reviews/posts/articles/creativity/tips/questions/info/cartoons/recycled cardboard/fan-mail: muddyleaks@gmail.com

Thematically speaking

Note: This is the first of a series of posts, drawing from and responding too the report for Mudfest11 in 2009. This was emailed anonymously to Muddy Leaks through a contact associated with Joan.

From the 2009 Mudfest report:

“MUDFEST was given a theme. This theme was decided so as to challenge students to create new work and not just put work into MUDFEST which is part of their annual programming. In my view the best work for MUDFEST11 was the projects that fully worked with the theme. The theme also challenged the artists to see the university with new eyes.

The theme was the hidden spaces. Attached to the theme was a quote as well as a page of definitions of the words Hidden and spaces “Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” Rene Magritte”

[Before this post continues Lilly would like to mention that she didn’t find a single hidden space artwork on campus during the festival despite overdosing on the theatre and performance work and a treasure map would have been a great idea]

This year in 2011 Mudfest has the theme Kaleidoscope, here is the 2011 Mudfest Vision as listed on the application form:

"Kaleidoscope – Greek kalos “beautiful” + eidos “shape” + scope “instrument for seeing” The Mudfest vision for 2011 is the kaleidoscope of imagination. What do you see when you look at the world?

A kaleidoscope offers an infinity of vision – so does the mind.

We are looking for work that is beautiful, ugly, political, rebellious, spontaneous, accidental, fun, and alive. Be playful with your art – mess with its form, its story, its location. Challenge the audience, challenge your form, but most importantly, challenge yourself."

Add your unique shape to the growing Mudfest kaleidoscope. So wear something gorgeous to an opening night; dye your hair for your audition and remember us here at Muddy Leaks  - we want to share in your colour.

A Sustainably Green Note

“It’s SO easy being green!”- Kermit the Frog

Mudfest is taking a big leafy step forward in minimising its own negative environmental impact. We have developed our own Mudfest Environmental Sustainability Statement and will implement it from go to woe.

As participants of Mudfest we expect YOU to do the same! Cast your eye over our Sustainability Statement on the Mudfest website or Facebook and nut out how you can produce and curate your work as greenly as possibly. The more you consider this in your application the more friendly it will look to us.

If you have any queries about how you can effectively operate green-friendly within Mudfest, please contact Robert Smith, who leads our Sustainability Collective at green.mudfest@gmail.com

A New Voice!

As seen in the University of Melbourne Voice!

Call-out to Artists

We'll follow you if you follow us. Yes, it has come to that! Calling all artisits and people involved with Mudfest 2011. If you like us, follow us and participate in Muddy Leaks in any multitude of little ways - WE WILL ASSIST YOU IN PUBLICITY. ie. We will have you on our blog roll; we will blog about your show and we will of course review it. Participation is the key. It might be a photo, it might me a note, it might be a copy of your artist's brief. We want anything and everything as long as it is content.

Tie us into your plans and we will tie you into ours.

Thanks in advance x Muddy Leaks

Finally some 100 Day Party Photos!

Courtesy of Deep Hole. It may be uploaded by Lilly but you never know who is out there with a camera and a will to snap, snap, snap pictures. Featured here are a talented director/playwright, a moleskine journal and the a director of Mudfest. Guess who? 
More photos on the way as soon as they get developed (?) YES YOU HEARD CORRECTLY. Disposable cameras take extra effort...

A Sighting.

A source as reported seeing our latest inten "in-bound on the Frankston Line". Heading up to Melbourne Uni?

In University Notices!

Mudfest - Student Arts & Culture Festival, August 18-28: Seeking applications now!

The largest student arts and culture festival in Australia is coming and it's at your uni!

Mudfest is Melbourne Uni's student arts festival that takes place in August every two years - and this year is a Mudfest year!

Established in 1990 by a group of Melbourne Uni creative arts students (including then-student Stephen Armstrong, former Malthouse Theatre executive producer and Sydney Theatre Company artistic associate), Mudfest originally started as a short drama festival. Now, 21 years later, Mudfest has grown to become an industry-recognised cultural event featuring the creative and talented work of Melbourne University student artists from visual arts to theatre, film to creative writing, music to performance installation, and all the inevitable collisions that occur between art forms.

We are looking for submissions from ALL student artists with ideas anywhere between the most simple of ideas to those of the more fully-developed variety.

Download an application form from www.mudfest.org.au, fill out as much as you can, and email it to us ASAP. Applications have been extended an extra three days until this Friday, 3rd June!

Get muddy and get involved!

Peace out,

The Mudteam

Links

http://www.mudfest.org.au/