Red Shoe Delivery Service

Life is a Highway

04 October 2005

Picasso’s Guernica? Michaelangelo’s Mother and Child? Perhaps even Damien Hirst’s suspended, formaldehyde-pickled shark? Spiritually, emotionally, affectively – in various guises, art has always endeavoured to move us. But has it ever offered us a ride?

The Melbourne International Arts Festival takes over the Victorian capital this week and with it comes an invitation to embark on any number of journeys into the artistic unknown. There are works from Cambodia, Africa, the US, the UK, Australia and most other places imaginable also. There are big names, not-so-big names and a few unpronounceable names. Cabaret, dancing, protesting, chamber music, foreign language and the occasional live animal – all are par for the course with the ambitious, inventive and exciting program that Kristy Edmunds has created in her first year as festival Artistic Director. Taking ‘Art’ to the streets of Melbourne, the chances are high that you will stumble upon, walk past or inadvertently become a festival participant yourself.

One such collaborative art project is the Red Shoe Delivery Service, the project of US multimedia artists MK Guth and Cris Moss and designer Molly Dilworth. Inspired initially by the idea of turning a myth into a real experience, the RSDS takes the myth of the magical journey into the realities of the Melbourne CBD. Who says you can’t carpool and enjoy an interactive art experiences at the same time?

Comprising a van, driver, photographer and videographer, and a trunk of sparkling shoes, the RSDS team can take you wherever you want to go, and they’ll document the journey for you. But the magical part of the journey is essentially up to you. Says the Red Shoe team, their service is “more about the journey, the in-between spaces, rather than the destinations. The idea of desire or wanting to be somewhere other than you are is a complicated equation.”

There’s an element of risk-taking involved in the RSDS – of giving yourself up to the experience. “To make change happen in one’s life demands risks,” the team says, “It is the essential ingredient… (and) as far as magic-making projects are concerned, magic takes you out of the everyday and into a place of possibilities. A realm where the ordinary routine is disrupted and a new perspective can be achieved.”

The only question really, is, where do you want to go?

Why not don the red glittery shoes and head to the Arts Centre? One of the central hubs of the festival, the Arts Centre in the first week will host a number of special performances, including Green, the working of acclaimed Japanese dancer and choreographer Saburo Teshiagawara and his company Karas. Collaborating with UK experimental music group SAND, Green sees Teshigawara’s dancers perform on a synthetic grass stage amid a menagerie of live animals – including cows, goats and rabbits. Featuring an opera singing sumo wrestler and a trombone-led parade of ducks, Green explores the thematic contrasts of nature and culture, theatre and real life. As with previous Karas works, Green involves fantastical imagery, experimental music and inspired lighting.

- Jo Higgins

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