In order to put this Dark Mofo 2023 review into context, indulge me for a moment as I reflect on my first experience at Hobart’s long-running winter festival.
“Did you see what they just did to Marcus Teague?” the then-publicist for Red Bull asks. “They blindfolded him and threw him into the back of a blacked-out van, I’m not sure where they’re taking him,”
“Are you sure it was part of the performance?” I laugh nervously. A journalist – someone I’m not personally acquainted with – just got kidnapped, and here we are thinking it was all part of this festival. That is, Dark Mofo – the weirdest, most eccentric, and most challenging cultural event in Australia.
It’s 2015, my first Dark Mofo. I’m down in Hobart with Red Bull to attend an unconventional club night they’ve scored an old warehouse for.
The party itself is as subversive as all the other wacky happenings throughout the two-week festival. A giant tarpaulin drops over the dancefloor and at some point a dwarf pops out of nowhere, driving a go-kart around the floor while Ludacris’ ‘Move Bitch’ blasts over the speakers.
Meanwhile, towards the back of the section are two booths and a long queue for each. “Those are the mystery make-out booths,” my travel companion points out. “You queue up, get to the booth, it’s pitch black and you’ve got, like, 60 seconds to just make out with whoever is in the other booth through a window. Let’s do it!”
In a post-pandemic world, I don’t think the make-out booths will ever see another day, but for one of Dark Mofo’s wildest years, the activation seemed very appropriate. As appropriate as a well-known journalist being blindfolded and kidnapped, that is.
I never did find out what happened to Teague that night until recently, when he penned a long-form reflecting on his many experiences at Dark Mofo via The Guardian. It was a nice little bit of closure for me, reading about how he was, as it appears, used as a prop for a man in a gimp outfit and given some Polaroids of the moment as a keepsake.
While I can’t claim as many Dark Mofos as Teague, I just got done with my fourth, wrapping myself in the deranged world of David Walsh’s notoriously tricky and cryptic art festival. Stretched over two weeks in Hobart each year, the devilish winter event has quickly become somewhat of an antithesis to the bright, glossy commercialism of Vivid Sydney. If it makes you say “what the f**k” aloud, then it probably qualifies as part of the diverse program.
That’s not to say Dark Mofo is all about shock value. And while that has not stopped the criticisms and crude dismissals, it’s hard to deny that many of these unorthodox performances that are curated as part of the Dark Mofo program each year have a great degree of shock and awe – the surface layer of what is usually a profound, meaningful and often poignant reason for inclusion.
Yet there’s no denying that Dark Mofo’s edge has been softened over the years. Politics, controversy and cultural sensitivities have blunted a desire to be different. There are boundaries, yet it still feels like a boundless festival.
What Happened At Dark Mofo 2023?
A lot. And while I was only down there for 3 of the 14 days that Dark Mofo runs, I felt like this was one of the busiest and most exciting programs the festival has offered in years.
I missed some of the sure-shots like Max Richter’s high-concept ‘SLEEP’ performance, taking place while attendees catch some shut-eye. I would have loved to see one of the four Borderlands shows, where international DJs explore contemporary electronics. TRANCE would have been fun, helmed by Chinese-born, Berlin-based musician Tianzhuo Chen who has put together a six-chapter, twelve-hour rave with a cast of “psychedelic characters.” And, of course, it was practically impossible to get my hands on a ticket for The Blue Rose Ball, which is Dark Mofo’s popular take on a masquerade ball with a heavy dose of hedonism — it’s always the first event to sell out and I am deeply curious as to why.
I however did manage to score a ticket to Night Mass: Extasia. Dark Mofo’s most aggressive and overwhelming event is a multilayered beast, kicking off at 10 AM and wrapping up closer to dawn. This year, organisers grew Night Mass to include Hobart’s popular outdoor nightclub, In The Hanging Garden, as well as a few other blocks, propping up no less than 13 different stages. On each, a roster of rave-centric producers from around the world, clearly instructed to deliver sets of the go-hard-or-go-home variety.
Peppered with barrels of fire, produce-forward dagwood dogs (that were delicious – I had four), an underground cinema with theatre performances ranging from macabre to masochistic, and a man using his anus to clutch a paintbrush and produce a live masterwork. Night Mass was a lot to take in as it incorporated Hobart’s best late-night venues including The Odeon Theatre, In The Hanging Garden and The Grand Poobah – all conceived as District X.
One of the best things about Dark Mofo is that you’re in Hobart. Food and wine here are on a level unseen by just about every other corner of the country. The Tassie capital is closer to the source for some of Australia’s pre-eminent flavours so you’ll find incredible things to eat during the day, from breakfast in humble spaces like Ed’s and Berta to inventive pub lunches at Tom McHugo’s, and fine dining blowouts at FICO, Landscape, and BH favourite Templo.
Having a nice, elegant dinner at FICO and then violently juxtaposing that with eight debaucherous hours at Night Mass. Something that can really only happen at Dark Mofo.
A two-hour performance of transgressive hell-themed theatre disguised as a comedy show? Again, that’s Dark Mofo to a tee. Austrian performance artist Florentina Holzinger curated a show that would have made Marina Abromovic blush, presenting an explicit and complicated work that featured live defecation, a female orgasm, about half a dozen naked dancers continually throwing themselves down sets of stairs, and a stuntperson on a motorbike. Equal parts head-scratching and utterly compelling.
And while I should have known when buying tickets to something called A Divine Comedy that I was in for a world of confusion, the show felt like Dark Mofo (successfully) attempting to claw back its reputation for boundary-breaking performance art. That or I just sat in a half-full stadium and watched bemusingly as spectators clapped politely in response to an elderly woman ejaculating on stage, while still profoundly exhausted from Night Mass, for nothing.
The remainder of the events at Dark Mofo 2023 presented a mixed bag of experiences.
Community of Grieving, a gorgeously haunting work by Zosia Holubowska and Julia Giertz, required punters to sit on the cold floor of Black Temple Gallery while ghostly performers sang, wailed, chanted, danced to discordant industrial tech, and invited us to purge our varied stages of mourning somewhere within the chaos of it all.
Winter Feast was as inviting as ever, with Tasmania’s finest producers, wineries and restaurants showing up with creative fare, ranging from gingerbread tiramisu to the familiar tastes of squidlipops (whole squids on skewers), smores and all sorts of mulled wines and hot toddies.
Yet, the highlights this year were the concerts. Dark Mofo has always gone heavy on more aggressive styles of music like death metal, techno and modern hip hop. Scandi shoegaze-slash-EDM composer Trentemoller played a riveting, almost blinding set on the final night of Dark Mofo.
The standout was a scattershot night of fringe electronica curated by Berlin Atonal, one of Germany’s most avant-garde music festivals with a particularly fiery performance from British experimental rapper Blackhaine (best described as Yeezus meets Death Grips, meets Nine Inch Nails, meets The Streets). The challenging musician performed across two stages on either side of the MAC 02 hall, one of which was a shipping container with a blinding white strobe giving it an ethereal quality — the other was the main stage, initially featuring a video work of Blackhaine not dissimilar to Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy’ music video.
And the lowlights? Not many. While Dark Park made its triumphant return, Dark Mofo’s conception of a sculpture garden turned into a pitch-black industrial wasteland lacked the bite of previous years. Mona also felt quite disconnected from the festival. And while visiting the museum during Dark Mofo is always fun, there weren’t enough exclusives happening on the island aside from a day party called Sex + Death, which was more just an area with bands rather than the daytime version of Night Mass the name would imply.
The familiar sense of disorientation kicks in as I crawl back to the hotel on the final night. There’s a five-hour after-party of sorts at “The Red Room” with door sales only, kicking off at midnight and ending at around 5 AM. But I’m done by that point. Exhaustion creeps in and my mind can only take so much arcane art.
Will I be going back? You bet. Dark Mofo has fast become one of the most — if not the most — interesting and engaging festivals in Australia, although it’s not for everyone.
By the time the long march to Dark Park for the ceremonial effigy burning takes place, some punters might be borderline disgusted with what’s going down in Hobart. But this massive esoteric undertaking in the bowls of Tasmania’s unbearable winter is growing in popularity for good reason. For creative director Leigh Carmichael, his final year curating the 10th anniversary of Dark Mofo was a job bloody well done.
