HAPPENSTANCE ⋆ A community arts festival held on the Merri Creek in Coburg North.

About

Happenstance is a surprising new community arts festival held on the Merri Creek in Coburg North and Fawkner. From 12pm on the 17th of November, we invite you to take an unexpected journey along a well-trodden path, and see the creek in a new light. Discover a trail of music, art, and performance celebrating the Merri Creek and all it has to offer.

Happenstance is about engaging with the beautiful natural environment of the Merri Creek, bringing together local communities and highlighting the importance of sustainable practices in urban environments.

There will be so much to discover: enchanting creatures wait to lead you on a journey beyond the physical. Stay a while and revel in the colours and richness of this trail through stories told with dance and movement. Give in to your curiosity, seek out new adventures, and delight in the magic of happenstance.

Happenstance is completely free and is proudly supported by the City of Moreland.

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What's On

Click on the images below to read about the artists who will be appearing at this year’s Happenstance. Stay tuned as we announce more artists over the coming weeks!

Adolfo Aranjuez is a dancer who works primarily in the genres of hip-hop/urban and lyrical, and whose practice centres on queering and ‘collisions’ of word and movement. He has performed for Midsumma, ABC TV, Federation Square, Liminal, Signal, NIDA, the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Emerging Writers’ Festival. He is also the editor of Metro magazine, the editor- in-chief of Archer magazine, and a freelance writer and speaker. Adolfo’s nonfiction and poetry have been published in Meanjin, Overland, Right Now, Cordite Poetry Review, Peril and elsewhere. http://www.adolfoaranjuez.com

Ornob Sheikh is a musician and an artist. He plays an Indian classical instrument called 'Sarod'. He listens to nature, chaos, conversations and interprets them into his music. Ornob is fascinated by the power of adversary, obstacles and sensory deprivation. He will hold a space where you can experiment with your sense of touch and spatial awareness. Explore the world around you with your tactile sense. Put on a blindfold and seek out your treasure from the sand. Draw unknown objects explored through touch. Pick up the right grain from the magic grain sac. Complete few tasks with restriction of vision. He will be playing a meditative music accompanying the exploration.

Richard Datson is a New Zealand born artist who is currently living in Melbourne’s inner North. Richard studied a Bachelor of Creative Arts at Melbourne University majoring in Visual Media. From there he went on to develop a practice in media arts including surreal animation, photography and game design. He has recently been experimenting with virtual reality software and Happenstance marks his first public exhibition of this new phase of work. Richard is passionate about environmental conservation and has advocated for native fauna and flora welfare and preservation in both Australia and his native New Zealand. Native animals and natural landscapes have been prominent themes in his photography practice. He has also worked as a photographer for Melbourne Zoo.

Vidya is an award-winning writer, comic, and performance-maker working across stage, screen, and page. She has trained and performed extensively in improvisation and sketch in Australia and the States. She has recently worked with QPF, Melbourne Festival Director’s Lab, ABC Comedy, Theatreworks (associate artist program) and is a 2018 recipient of Screen Australia’s Developing the Developer initiative. She is a current writer in residence at the Malthouse Theatre.

Xanthea O’Connor is a writer, musician and performer based between Melbourne and Perth. Performing as a living statue on Swanston Street sporadically over the past 5 years, she’s maybe creeped you out while you were just trying to go about your day, minding your own business. Particularly interested in creating intimate and unexpected spaces to hear music, Xanthea ran a series of shows in a cosy Leederville laundromat during 2014 and 2015 called Laundry Nights. Xanthea has collaborated with Rajan on two other works: performing as a living statue for the 2015 FRINGE WORLD run of FRIENDQUEST and as sound designer for immersive new theatre work Sleepover Gurlz earlier this year.

Hari Sivanesan is one of the UK’s most acclaimed Veena Artists. Born in the UK, but trained in both the UK and India, he is now a unique artist and recent Melbournian. He has featured at various festivals such as Darbar UK, WOMAD UK. At a young age he worked with exBeatle George Harrison and sitar Maestro Ravi Shankar on their Chants of India Album, touring through the USA with the Festival of India Project and featuring as the veena artist in various projects at Dartingon Festival. Hari was chosen by BBC Radio 3 as their Would Routes Mentee to produce a series of radio programs presenting Carnatic music to UK radio listeners. He presented the first South Asian Classical BBC Prom in 2011 (the first time Carnatic music featured at the Proms).He recently released an EP with Multicultural Arts Victoria and has now started teaching and sharing his unique style of singing and playing.

Born and brought up in Sydney, Bala has been an integral part of the Australian classical Indian performing arts community for over 25 years. Initially trained in Carnatic vocal by renowned artist Sri M. S. Ramanathan and Hindustani Tabla by Sri Niranjan Deodhar, Bala went on to learn the mridangam (South Indian drum) of his own accord by keenly observing the great maestros of the art. Known for his versatile and rich yet subtle style of accompaniment, over the years Bala has received guidance from many senior artists. Spanning a concert career of more than two decades, Bala has performed extensively in Australia and abroad, having toured India, Asia and the USA accompanying several of India's top ranking artists and past masters.

Dr. Priya Srinivasan is an artist/scholar and author of the award winning book “Sweating Saris.” She is the Artistic Director of “Serpent Dreaming Women” and “Churning Waters” bringing together Indian Australian, Indian and Indigenous artists from Australia to re-imagine water futures from an intercultural feminist perspective and whose work has been selected for Australia Festival in India in 2019. She is a dancer, choreographer and scholar who combines theory and practice. Her performances and research prioritize decolonization making visible minority women's histories. Priya was trained in the classical and contemporary Indian and Asian arts by Dr. Chandrabhanu and performed extensively in Australia and Asia with the Bharatam Dance Company. Her work brings together live bodily performance with visual art, interactive multimedia and digital technology to think about archives of the body, migration, and female labor. She has performed in several prestigious international festivals and created site specific intercultural performance work in diverse settings such as universities, museums, galleries, and theatres in USA, China, UK, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Netherlands and India.

Sarah Seahorse is Melbourne’s neon saturated award winning wearable artist, costume designer and craftivist specialising in wearable art that creates strong social, environmental and political commentary. With over a decade of costume making experience, Sarah is a talented designer, seamstress, innovative pattern maker and mind-blowing maker of theatrical headwear. Her personal wearable art work is embedded with strong environmental and anti consumerism themes, such as her cult range of dumpster-dived wearable food art, encouraging conversations about food waste and consumerism. Sarah creates bespoke costumes and millinery for many of Melbourne’s LGBTIQ and underground circus and cabaret performers such as Glitter and Snatch, Tenfingerz productions and Candy Bowers from the award winning Black Honey Company. Sarah has recently graduated from an applied bachelor of Community Development at Victoria University. A passionate believer in the importance of creative self-expression to transcend social barriers, and create a new way of connecting and sharing stories. Sarah sees wearable art and costume as the perfect vehicle to spread the important message of personal and collective development & social change, especially through her delivery of fun, colourful creative craft workshops with recycled materials as the focus.

Daniel has worked in a variety of fields including illustration, graphic design and motion graphics. In more recent years Daniel has turned his creative energy to puppet making and performance. You can check out Daniel’s diverse body of work on Instagram @daniel_bruce_atkinosn or check out his website at danielatkinson.com.au

Amaryah Hedges lives in Collingwood and was born in Melbourne, but her family is from Sri Lanka. She has always been interested in the experience of migrants and how they find their way in a new place. Amaryah is a multidisciplinary artist and has explored ideas about migrant experience across a range of mediums including creative writing, large scale visual arts murals, tiny intimate sculptures and cello. Amaryah is also a practicing psychiatrist in her spare time.

Volunteer at Happenstance

Interested in volunteering at Happenstance? You’ve come to the right place!

Happenstance is a community-run, not-for-profit arts festival. We rely on the support of generous volunteers to make this amazing event happen.

We’re after enthusiastic individuals to help out on the day (that’s Saturday the 17th November), assisting with bump-in and greeting and directing patrons as they arrive.

Shifts will be short, 100% shaded and will allow plenty of time for you to go and explore the festival. Ideally you’ll be able to start at 10am to help with bump in, or 1pm/3pm if you’re interested in being the face of the festival.

If you’re interested, fill in the form below and we’ll be in touch shortly. Any questions, shoot us an email at hello@happenstance.org.au, or check us out on the social medias via the buttons below.

Location

Happenstance is situated alongside the Merri Creek in Coburg North and is easily accessible by public transport, walking, cycling and by car.

Via tram:

Catch the 19 tram to the final stop in North Coburg (Stop 40). From there the Merri Creek is a short 4 minute walk along Bakers Road. Check out www.yarratrams.com.au for further information.

Via train:

Happenstance can be reached via Merlynston station on the Upfield line. From the station the creek is a 900m walk along Sydney Road and Mathieson Street. Visit www.ptv.vic.gov.au for all the details.

On foot/two wheels:

Happenstance is situated on one of Melbourne’s loveliest trails – perfect for walking or cycling. Situated adjacent to Parker Reserve, the site is only 1km from the Coburg Lake reserve and 6km from CERES.

By car:

While we encourage sustainable methods of transport for getting to and from Happenstance, there is ample street parking available at Parker Reserve and on the surrounding streets.

A note about accessibility:

We have endeavoured to cater to all levels of accessibility to ensure everyone can enjoy Happenstance. The trail is paved and suitable for wheelchairs and walkers. Please note however that there are stairs leading to the trail at Keady St. The Bakers Rd, Goleen St and Mathieson Rd entrances are all wheelchair accessible.

Contact

Need to get in touch or receive updates on volunteering for Happenstance?

Find us at our various social channels or email hello@happenstance.org.au.