art
vs
extinction
introduction
Working across the disciplines of science communication, human rights, theology, gender studies, archetypal performance, magical realism, and cabaret, the Art vs Extinction project aims to develop a new form for climate performance that privileges radical hope through strategies of visceral, hyper-factual, ritualised performance. Using the logic of fairy tales in which small kindnesses and small cruelties have epic consequences, and the dramaturgical frame/provocation of rapture (spiritual, physical, emotional transportation) and magic-realism, the work creates transformative and ceremonial spaces to envision hope & opportunity. The Art vs Extinction project engages audiences in participatory processes that have real-world consequences, creating new knowledge about methods that effectively bridge the climate crisis knowledge-action gap.
Rapture Chapter II. Berlin, Prague, Denmark, China. 2019 (2 mins)
The Art vs Extinction project engages in the epic and the lavish/abundant to attack patriarchal/misogynistic, neoliberal and reductive narratives of mediocrity, complacency, cruelty, feminine diminution and scarcity. Through theatre dramaturgies and live and cabaret performance methodologies of immersion, lavishness and provocative hospitality, this work creates safe spaces to subvert false binaries between nature and culture, human and non-human, spiritual and rational.
Across 10 years, this climate performance has created new knowledge through the development of virtual and hybrid performance and practice/methodologies that use magic realist strategies to create real- world change by disrupting narratives of despair, as well as new ‘hijack methodologies’ drawn from circus, cabaret, cabaret, burlesque and archetype to engage historically inaccessible/exclusive discourses and institutions (science/art/power/museums).
This body of work is widely recognised as transformational for climate performance through its generation of visceral and sustained hope in participants. It innovates through use of diverse epistemologies and mediums (scientific enquiry, political change, faith-based action); the works are acknowledged for their impact on science communication for diverse audiences. The work’s intersection with gallery and museum settings, collections and museology has resulted in unprecedented inclusion; animating meaning, democratisation and redemptive opportunities hidden in patriarchal and colonialist settings.
Rapture Bathtub Edition hybrid live work (Arts Centre Melbourne 2020, Copenhagen Stage Festival 2021, Finucane & Smith Winter Season 2021)
Recognition summary
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Awards & Fellowships (7): national & international
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Keynotes, presentations & invited residency leadership (13): national & international, invited
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Peer reviewed grants (16) local, national and international peer reviewed grants;
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Articles (10)
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Critical acclaim and engagement (50 + reviews) (national and international);
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Commissions (5) to create iterations of work
Rapture Chapter I. Commissioned by Mesto Zensk Slovenia & Climakaze Miami 2017 (2mins)
winner Climakaze Award for outstanding art in climate justice
awardS & fellowships
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Inaugural Creative Fellow Museums Victoria (2024 – 2025)
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Inaugural Creative Fellow National Gallery Victoria: Art as Rapture (2015-2017)
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Australian Exhibition Prague Quadrennial (2019)
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Climakaze Award Outstanding Art in Climate Justice (USA) (2017)
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Living Legend Award Melbourne Fringe Festival (2023)
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Green Room Award, Outstanding Design (2017). Nomination.
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Invited Inaugural artist-in-residence Polar Pioneer Arctic Expedition (2024)
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Inaugural International Artist-in-Residence, Ringling Museum, State Museum of Florida (2021-25)
Keynotes & invited presentations (selected):
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Invited keynote address, headline work, inaugural Ecoperformance Festival, Ringling Museum, State Museum of Florida (2024)
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‘Another Heaven and Another Earth Must Pass’ Monash University Progress Festival, ‘Antarctica: Purposeful connections with the world’s loneliest continent’. With Professor Steven Chown Professor of Biological Sciences at Monash, Director of Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future, an Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative; and Professor Andrew Mackintosh, Head of the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash, Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative ‘Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future’. Invited Performance Presentation and Speaker. (2023)
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‘The Art of Urgency’ Copenhagen Stage Festival International. Literaturhaus, Copenhagen. Masterclass. (2023)
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As a Dog Returns to Its Own Vomit Melbourne Now, Conversation Salon, National Gallery Victoria. Invited Presentation & Panellist. (2023)
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‘Another Heaven and Another Earth Must Pass’ Australian Performing Arts Market. Climate Reflections. Sofitel Melbourne On Collins. Invited Presentation. (2023)
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Rapture Bathtub APAM @ Pause Play Perform Festival. Invited full-length presentation (2023)
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‘The Feast Has Many Flavours: intercultural exchange and rich collaboration in the creation of new understandings.’ Daliangshan International Theatre Festival. Masterclass & Keynote. (2023)
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‘The Art of Urgency’ World Pride Festival. Folketeatret, Copenhagen. Masterclass. (2023)
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‘The role of theatre in the life of the city, the evolving relationship with audiences and the future of theatre.’ World Theatre Meeting. Daliangshan International Theatre Festival. Heads of key theatres and festivals in New York, Edinburgh, Belgium, Shanghai. Invited Speaker. (2021)
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Hope in Action, Transit Festival, Odin Teatret Nordisk Teater Laboratorium, Holstebro, Denmark. Invited Speaker. (2019)
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‘I am Standing on the Edge, I am Thinking of Extinction’ Words On Fire, Wheeler Centre Gala, Atheneum Theatre. Closing Address. (2018)
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‘Harmony & Inspiration: The Things You Never Get Warned About.’ A Night in The Barkly Barkly Regional Arts (NT) First Nations Artists Showcase, Melbourne. Invited Speaker (as key collaborator). (2017)
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Invited Residency Leader. Artistic Director. Hybrid Residency engaging across 5 countries. Women, Climate, Art Residency Beakkelund International Residency Centre for Contemporary Art (Denmark) (2021)
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Invited Residency Leader. Artistic Director. Onsite. Women, Climate, Art Residency Beakkelund International Residency Centre for Contemporary Art (Denmark) (2023)
'Aria of the Krill' from The Rapture Chapter II
Recorded in September 2019 at fortyfivedownstairs by Picture Start Productions. Performed by Piera Dennerstein and Mama Alto with Rachel Lewindon on piano. Words by Moira Finucane. Music by Rachel Lewindon.
Peer Reviewed Grants
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2024 Australia Council (Projects) $100,000 for Finucane & Smiths ‘Acts of Paradise’ program including next hybrid/live iterations of Rapture
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2023 Creative Partnerships Australia (Plus 1) $50,000 for Finucane & Smiths ‘Acts of Paradise’ program including next hybrid/live iterations of Rapture
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2022 Australia Council (Arts Projects) $14,800 for Rapture iteration: HYDRA hybrid/digital/IRL self-directed residency with 5 international feminist artists exploring filth, femininity, water, extinction and getting clean.
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2020 RISE (Restart Investment to Sustain & Expand) $188,000 Finucane & Smith’s Phoenix Pivot including hybrid iterations of Rapture
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2020 Australia Council (Arts Projects) $26,940 for Rapture Evolves, the next R&D projects & presentations of The Rapture.
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2020 Besen Family Foundation $10,000 for Moira Finucane’s Shop of Hope, an installed iteration of The Rapture project for Festuge, Holstebro, Denmark
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2020 Creative Victoria (Arts Projects) $116,000 Finucane & Smith’s Phoenix State including hybrid iterations of Rapture
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2020 City of Yarra Stimulate Grants $10,000 for lockdown works including I Miss You Antarctica/Rapture Bathtub
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2020 Arts Centre Melbourne & Melbourne Fringe (Take Over!) $5,800 micro-commission funding for I Miss You Antarctica hybrid/digital performance creation.
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2020 Creative Victoria (Sustaining Creative Workers) $10,000 F&S Total Arts Plan to Survive & Thrive including hybrid iteration The Rapture (Shop of Hope + gallery/museum response to Luna Park ‘Miss Finucane’s Lunarium’)
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2020 Australia Council (Resilience Fund Adapt) $19,800 for digital adaptation and development of digital/online works.
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2019 Australia Council International Market Development $28,000 to take Rapture Chapter II to Wuzhen Festival, Wuzhen, China
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2019 Creative Victoria Strategic Initiatives $14,000 to take Rapture Chapter II to Wuzhen Festival, Wuzhen, China
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2019 Creative Partnerships Australia (Plus 1) $25,000 for Finucane & Smith’s program of Total Art including next hybrid iterations of Rapture including I Miss You Antarctica (a haptic mass mortality event)
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2019 Besen Family Foundation $10,000 for development Moira Finucane’s Rapture Chapter II
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2016 Australia Council (Arts Projects) $30,400 for creative development of The Rapture project and support for NGV Creative Fellowship international activities
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2018 Creative Victoria Creator’s Fund $38,000 for ‘EPIC: Moira Finucane’s EPIC journey to vast horizons of land, art, spirit, stories’
'Queen of the Krill'
Choreographed and performed by Raksha Parsnani as Queen of the Krill, exploring and embodying the movement of krill through bellydance, from their delicate drifting and pulsing to their collective rhythms and underwater flow. Set to Now We Are Free and an authentic Egyptian drum solo, the piece was created for Moira Finucane’s Audience/Artist Salon, as part of her PhD exploration, Art vs Extinction.
Articles (selected)
The Age (2017) ‘Moira Finucane's Rapture unwraps the transformative power of costume’
“She is, I know now, a world-renowned, multi-award-winning performer, writer, producer, a national treasure no less, according to this newspaper … The average Finucane & Smith production is where flummoxed audiences are actually a good thing, a first step towards shock, laughter, then maybe, culture-cracking revelation. A momentarily confused audience, in other words, is wide open to new ways of thinking..”
Arts Centre Melbourne (2020) Penguins, Hope and Epic Consequences.
“this work stitched live exhibition to immersive theatre. With an audience via Zoom, the compelling At Home Residency Showing explored grief, loss, isolation, stark beauty, deep time, ice melting and hope – all at epic scale. The audience was invited into an imagined Antarctica, the only place on Earth with no permanent human habitation, to imagine a future together. Attendees were asked to bring along a paper penguin of their own creation, a drink on the rocks and a bowl of ice…”
ArtsHub (2023) Moira Finucane honoured with 2023 Living Legend Award
She’s a writer, a director, a performer, a legendary creator of salons. She makes incredible variety and theatrical spectacles; she is internationally renowned. She has defined and redefined cabaret. Fringe is in her blood and she drinks that Fringe blood live on stage,’
The Age (2021) Theatre: ‘If 2020 proved one thing it’s that pollies don’t deserve the arts’
Moira Finucane has spent 2020 engaging in a series of ‘hope campaigns’ https://www.theage.com.au/culture/theatre/if-2020-proved-one-thing-it-s-that-pollies-don-t-deserve-the-arts-20201223-p56ptm.html
ArtsHub (2021) Inspiration During Isolation: the long term benefits of artist residencies https://www.artshub.com.au/news/features/inspiration-during-isolation-the-long-term-benefits-of-artist-residencies-262497-2370893/
Star Observer (2020) ‘Moira Finucane reflects on a cataclysmic year’
“A national treasure who grew up as an Irish Catholic with a love for the ocean and fairy tales and the lives of Saints, Moira Finucane’s imaginative landscapes as a child were filled with museums and taxonomy and the natural environment. Today, she stands tall as one of Australia’s most thought-provoking and pre-eminent performance artists, a passionate advocate against injustice and the penultimate purveyor of all things wild.”
The Age (2018) ‘Animal instinct: our long fascination with hybrids’ https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/animal-instinct-our-long-fascination-with-hybrids-20180622-h11qbi.html
Miami New Times (2017) Moira Finucane Stages The Rapture to Address Climate Change
Finucane’s background in environmental science informs her work. She sees climate change as symptomatic of other pressing human concerns. For Finucane and many others, climate change is not an isolated problem, and the killing of ecosystems can be compared to the death of culture when oppression and discrimination become the norm. The earth, humanity, and the actions and reactions of all are part of the dynamic fabric of the planet’s existence.
French, S. (2017) Pleasure, Pain and the Politics of Affect: Moira Finucane’s Gotharama and The Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina. In: French, S. Staging Queer Feminisms. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-46543-6
Verhagen, D. (2017) The Rapture: Art vs. Extinction. RMIT https://researchrepository.rmit.edu.au/esploro/outputs/other/The-Rapture-Art-vs-Extinction/9921858728701341
Fifteen Trees (2022) Rapture Bathtub. https://15trees.com.au/tree-plantings/moira_finucane/
the penguin parade
'Every penguin here has been made by someone at the request of artist Moira Finucane, as part of her Art vs Extinction suite. Moira says; in fairy tales, small kindnesses and small cruelties have epic consequences. So too is it in life. Make a penguin, a small kindness, and reap an epic consequence.
Each penguin made becomes a native tree in the ground courtesy of the tree planting organisation 15 Trees.
Make/draw/sculpt/sew your penguin, and we'll include it in the exhibit and 15 Trees will plant a tree.
The tree, and your hope, will live for many many years.'
Reviews (selected)
Hybrid Work
Fur Can’t Fly: The Mourning of the Fur for ‘My Monster’ Exhibition, RMIT Gallery (2018)
Rapture Bathtub (2020 - 2022)
Artlink (2018) Review. Fur Can’t Fly.
“Several contemporary artists address the anthropomorphism that threatens to destabilise an equal meeting of species by positing a non-human animal sensory perspective….Moira Finucane and Shinjuku Thief’s new installation work The Rapture/Fur Can't Fly (2018) is an affective and immersive experience that speaks to a human yearning for flight but becomes a visceral sensory experience of potential otherness. The visitor sits alone in a chair in a dark room that is filled with feathers, and with closed eyes, a combination of vibration, movement, light and sound ensue to evoke the idea of flight. These works speak not only to a human longing for the non-human animal, but also to the difficulties of bridging the species divide. We are tantalisingly close to the non-human animal in genetic terms, yet as Barbara Creed notes, our sensory capabilities are so very different as to pose a continual challenge to artists seeking to inhabit and aesthetically express the human-animal boundary.”
https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/4696/my-monster-the-humananimal-hybrid/
My Melbourne (2018) Review. Fur Can’t Fly.
A highlight of the exhibition is in mythos, with Moira Finucane and Darrin Verhagen’s Fur Can’t Fly (The Mourning of the Fur). This is beautifully conceived immersive, multi sensory installation that tells of a transformative journey in the mountains of Brazil. The evocative score by Shinjuku Thief and the soothing yet commanding voice of Finucane aid you through your journey. The specially designed vibrating chair and the lighting design by Thomas Dahlrnburg and Verhagen are simply stunning. With your eyes closed, every movement of the chair and sliver of light slipping into your vision makes you believe you are living this uplifting tale.
http://www.mymelbournearts.com/2018/08/my-monster-human-animal-hybrid.html
Melbourne Critique (2018) Review. Fur Can’t Fly.
Moira Finucane’s piece ‘Fur Can’t Fly’ as part of the ‘mythos’ (stories/tales/narrative) section was a stand out for its immersive and visceral intensity – akin to her most recent cabaret work, ‘The Rapture’. Her sultry, dark voice takes you on a journey to another world and leaves you feeling like you could grow wings and fly if you just believe hard enough.
https://melbournecritique.com.au/blog/2018/07/09/my-monster/
Melbourne Critique (2021) Review. Rapture Bathtub.
The fourth wall is successfully broken down, even in this online format, with audiences asked to create and text in an image of penguins that have created. For each of these creatures, a new tree is to be planted. It’s a small gesture with potentially big impacts- proving that art can indeed enact real and positive change within the world at large…. Rapture: Bathtub Edition all in all was a perfectly executed meditation on themes of isolation and the destruction of our natural and wondrous world.
https://melbournecritique.com.au/blog/2021/08/08/rapture-bathtub-edition/
Theatre Travels (2021) Review. Rapture Bathtub.
An entangled tapestry of storytelling, startling images and a powerful script that weaves indisputable facts about the current global climate crisis and the effects on the world, particularly Antarctica. A great portion of this is performed by Finucane alone in her bathtub, writhing in the water covered in a gossamer black sheet. Surging with raw passion and power, she is both ethereal and at times, quite terrifying.
https://www.theatretravels.org/post/rapture-bathtub-edition-by-finucane-smith-zoom-performance
What Did She Say (2021) Review. Rapture Bathtub.
Decrying a Melbourne drowning in plague and propoganda, and politicians looking for who to blame, Finucane brings hope and invites us all to participate in a penguin parade. Every penguin on parade equals a tree she will give back to our planet. This is the true magic and gift of The Rapture series. Finucane and Smith are not just about performance, and they do not rest with just putting ideas out in the world. Their true goal is metanoia and everything they produce is an invitation to join them in making real change in the world. It can be as small as making a penguin which will ignite new life or it may be writing to a politician to speak to change. It may even result in opening hearts and doors to difference.
http://www.whatdidshethink.com/2021/07/the-rapture-art-vs-extinction-bathtub.html
Rapture: Performance Work Reviews
Transit Festival (2019) Denmark. Review. Rapture.
“Her embodiment of opposites was particularly inspiring… naivety and provocation, political awareness and belief in fairy-tales, outspokenness and respect, naked body and highly researched costumes, irony and extreme seriousness…Moira put Australia on the map”.
The Age (2017) Review. Rapture.
“This work dances across a fine line between the ecstasy of hope and the tragedy of disillusionment… Embracing complexity in performance through dialoguie characterisation and them is the reason The rapture is hard to pin down. These are the same resonas the work is so interesting and what makes Finucane such an engaging artist. In the end we are part of it, and as this show reminds us, being “part of it” also means taking responsibility for shaping the world we inhabit https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/the-rapture-review-human-frailties-wrapped-up-in-fur-20170706-gx5und.html
Bob Lai, Critic/Writer, Wuzhen Festival (2019) China. Review. Rapture.
"They had never seen a show so wide ranging in its concerns, so striking in its presentation, and with so many conscious and subconscious reverberations. They had never seen such a sexy woman. And what does that mean. What makes a sexy woman? To which the answer is self-confidence. …the multifaceted totality left an impression that was coherent and invigorating”.
Mesto Zensk (2015) Slovenia. Review. Gods & Demons.
"She comes to life in the full complexity of emotion, vulnerability, love and evil, often all at the same time. She creates a new world, a new essence of woman”.
Black Hole Sun (2017) Review. Rapture.
“The term ‘abyss’ is used as a metaphorical representation to invoke the unfathomable depth of the unconscious mind. To reside on the edge of this abyss is to oscillate between two intimations of reality: the actual, and the imagined; and it is on this cusp that Moira Finucane situates her performance Rapture. This dichotomy is further accentuated by the inescapable fact that any representation in art of the so-called actual world remains, (like its imagined counterpoint), a sepia version of reality and nothing more.”
file:///C:/Users/jsnai/Documents/A%20THE%20RAPTURE/2017%20Rapture%2045DS/reviews/RAPTURE_%20BLACK%20HOLE%20SUN%20_%20tonyreck21c.html
Australian Stage (2017) Review. Rapture.
I wanted to be a more conscientious reviewer … but to be honest I was just too enthralled by what was happening on stage to take notes…. In The Rapture, she is a shapeshifter. She is a growling, dark and dominant Goddess who it would be wise not to anger, then the most feminine of girls going through the phases of love. Physically, she can have a strong, almost masculine presence, but she can also appear, well, just really beautiful. And that beauty would appear to come from within. Moira is obviously a feminist, but there is an all-embracing feel to what she does. There is an undeniable celebration of the feminine in this show, as there has been in all her previous shows, but it would appear that she wants to celebrate the beauty of life in all its forms.
My Melbourne (2017) Review. Rapture.
Her performance is more honest (sometimes brutally), evocative and inspiring than it has ever been before as she exposes her fears, frustrations, hopes and joys. Moira Finucane is considered a national treasure in Australia and this sublime show perfectly explains why. The Rapture is here, there's no denying it. The question is: what are we going to do about it
http://www.mymelbournearts.com/2017/07/the-rapture-review.html
Wuzhen Theatre Reviews, China (2019) (translation)
“The Rapture makes me cry. This is a very big theme. The relationship between people and humanities, people and the environment, and the entire society. All the performers are women, which makes this big topic expressive and touching. Rather than ecstasy, it is better to say crying. After all, many audiences were crying, including myself.”
The Age (2019) Review. Rapture Chapter II.
In a very tangible way the second instalment of The Rapture stays with you long after the show is over … calamities smuggled as autobiography” ««««
Time Out (2019) Review. Rapture Chapter II.
“Finucane’s queens are women who will change the world. This one is hundreds of years old and made from Antarctic ice. With dark flowing hair, sinewy arms and a bejewelled dress layered with ice-blue tulles, she’s the type of intimidating that is impossible to look away from. She’s unafraid of the lines on her skin and has a confidence that ignores ego because she never doubts her worth. She also knows why those gigatons of Antarctic ice sheet have to stay frozen.” https://www.timeout.com/melbourne/theatre/moira-finucanes-the-rapture-chapter-ii-art-vs-extinction-review
What Did She Think (2019) Review. Rapture Chapter II.
It is dark and it is searing. You know the world is in trouble when Finucane, goddess of love, stands bare chested roaring a warning against waking terrible monsters. Under the biggest glacier in the world there lies deep secrets and lots and lots of bones. In the same way you do not want to wake a vicious dog, a crying baby or an angry man do you really think it is wise to melt this glacier and add 17 meters to the height of our oceans? How many bones will be under water then? http://www.whatdidshethink.com/2019/09/the-rapture-chapter-ii-art-vs.html
Broadway World (2017) Review. Rapture.
“In the end, you come to realise that you are witnessing pure art that leaves an aftertaste of destroying mediocrity.”
Stage Whispers (2017) Review. Rapture. http://www.stagewhispers.com.au/reviews/rapture
Sometimes Melbourne (2017) Review. Chapter 1. Sometimes Melbourne: Review: The Rapture
Australian Stage (2019). Review. Rapture Chapter II. https://australianstage.com.au/201909089041/reviews/melbourne/the-rapture-chapter-ii-art-vs-extinction-%7c-finucane-smith.html
cards of hope
Handstamped and gifted to in-theatre audiences
International Peer Reflections from Cultural Leaders
Violeta Luna (2023) Leading Mexican Performance Artist working in feminicide, colonised bodies, and community cultural activism. Reflection on Rapture (2019) and Clima Crucible (2021)
“I first became acquainted with Moira’s work in 2019 through her performance The Rapture presented at the 9th TRANSIT International Theatre Festival and Meeting at the Odin Teatret in Holstebro, Denmark. Since then, I have established a relationship and followed her career and I feel that I have come to know her work quite well. As a performance artist, I have always found her performance pieces to be most engaging, innovative, and executed with ethical and careful consideration for the thematic material that she works with. In addition, she is an engaging presenter and a dedicated artist who seeks to represent in her work those realities that are most important in our society. Her creative work is significant precisely because it expands our understanding of the ways the arts have contributed to craft and forge new identities and histories.
At this major festival of women, Moira’s performance, presented to a full house, was not only thought-provoking, but also filled with a visual poetics that moved the audience profoundly. Her piece forces the audience to be faced with the unpleasantness of a situation that we have all been, for the most part, complacent about. This direct provocation and inclusion of the audience is a key feature in her work, and part of what makes her such an important artist. At a time when theatre and performance have become more involved with form and style rather than content, Moira Finucane reminds us that these are not incompatible possibilities. She continues to create pieces that are filled with personal and corporeal memories in order to produce a collective protest and political denouncement that forces the audience to question and break with passivity.
This 2021 I have been fortunate to be part of the artistic virtual residency BIRCA RESIDENCY Climate, Art and Women “KLEMENSKER TERRA: THE CLIMATE CRUCIBLE” that she organized in collaboration with the Foreningen BIRCA Residency, Denmark, and I can attest for the impact that it has had in me. As a facilitator, Moira engaged with us participants a true artist-leader helping us recognize other realities that are often silenced: the very real space of social exclusion and marginalization due to gender, race, sexuality, etc. embodied through her artistic act.”
http://www.violetaluna.com/About.html
Meng Jinghui (2021) China’s one of China’s most celebrated directors. Director of Wuzhen Festival where Rapture was presented in 2019. Reflection. (translation)
“In the early summer of 2014, I went to Australia to work with local artists to create Brecht's ‘The Good Man in Sichuan’, and met Moira Finucane. Her performance style is very unique. When she created, she did not care about the threshold between different types of art, such as song and dance performances, fairy tales and myths, history, burlesque... She is a creator of multiple performances. Since working with her, she has created many excellent works with me and the Chinese artists I am familiar with.
Her troupe "Finucane and Smith's” work "Dark Night Undercurrent" (The Flood) is also the first Australian drama to participate in the Shanghai Contemporary Theater Festival (2016). In 2017, Finucane’s Chinese work "Flood" directed by Shii Theater was widely acclaimed. The starring Su Li won the Best Actress Award of Modern Drama Valley. In 2018, Finucane collaborated with Qinghai Acrobatic Troupe to create key commissioned works for the Sydney Art Festival.
In 2019, we invited her to write, direct and perform "Ecstasy" to participate in the 7th Wuzhen Drama Festival. You can see her life as an environmental scientist and humanitarian development worker in Finucane’s works; you can see her travels in the desert from Antarctica to Australia; you can see her fascination with fairy tales and fables; you can see her research on the huge threats facing the human world and life on earth.
Finucane uses the human spirit and art as its means of expressing power, mixing various art forms, allowing unique and outstanding artists to create unforgettable visual wonders that show humanity, freedom, power and desire. She creates synesthetic works that dissolve artistic boundaries, inspire unique and niche artists, and take audience experience as the core of art.
Moira Finucane is an artist who is loved and respected by creators and audiences alike”.
antarctica
'Oh The Whales'. created & recorded live Whaler's Bay Antarctica inside these whale oil drums
written & performed by Finucane. score Ben Keene
'Don't Wake The Ice' field recordings various. score by Adam Hunt
moira finucane
Moira Finucane, one of the world’s greatest performance chameleons, literary genius and apocalyptic rock goddess brings her major new work. A transcendent emporium of gothic-erotic dreams, rock’n’roll angels, soul-searing music, skin-shedding tales, and total art.
Dripping with visual art relics, porcelain icicles, & an otherworldly choir, The Rapture is a cult & shimmering throwdown. This is art vs extinction, with drinks at the bar at the end of the world.
Audiences & critics across 5 continents call Finucane ‘transcendent’, ‘exquisite’, ‘sumptuous’ & ‘volcanic’. Now Finucane sets fire to her legendary variety oeuvre, reincarnating herself as a transformer, a snake always shedding her skin; writhing through a visual feast of prophecy, Gothic dreams, birds of prey, soaring wings
and apocalyptic fairy tales.
Couturiers, composers, jewellers, sculptors, painters, performers, singers & faux-furriers. This is preposterous talent in a party on the edge of the abyss.
Reviews
“Moira Finucane’s gothic appropriation of a Catholic Mass, is a surreal and spectacular series of monologues, most of them addressing issues of climate change, feminism, and surprisingly, given the shape of the vehicle, only a little of religion. The high priest(ess)-creator is a role she’s made for herself, and she takes it with all the confidence you’d expect of one of Melbourne’s most iconic performers. The action is delivered with an intensity that shifts at times between the charming and the vicious, the histrionic and the droll, the pathetic and the passionate.”
DAILY REVIEW, AUSTRALIA
“Directors Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith understand better than most how to set the mood for a show. Their fingerprints are all over the theatre from the outset; the lights are low, the air is hazy and there's a slightly shabby, mysterious atmosphere, with sculptures hanging like stalactites from ornate chandeliers..........Embracing complexity in performance – through dialogue, costume, characterisation and theme – is the reason The Rapture is difficult to pin down. These are the same reasons the work is so interesting and what makes Finucane such an engaging artist.
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
“The tale of systemic oppression could not be more illuminating if somewhat literal. Sitting beside that is the visual and sonic portrait of a woman in a bikini by the beach. First we see the photoshopped fairytale but then Finucane looks deeper and we see the truth behind the picture. It is small and dark and painful and it is reality - a reality we don't want to see and one we definitely don't ever want to speak out loud.Words are dangerous and words which come from women are so much more dangerous. I heard a quote on TV the other day from Once Upon A Time. A character says "There is nothing more dangerous than an untold story". The story of women is the longest untold story in the history of 'man' kind.Beware The Rapture. Ecstasy is a double edged sword and The Rapture is sitting on the knife edge. It is sublime. It is divine. It is dangerous. Do you dare to hear what this prophet has to say? Can you risk not hearing her? I think not!"
WHAT DID SHE THINK. COM
“I am speechless. I have just experienced something extraordinary. If you've never seen a Moira Finucane performance, you've probably never seen anything like it. The Rapture, Moira's latest show which premiered in Melbourne last night, is unique. It is definitive Moira. I decided during the show that Moira is burlesque sans frontiers; what Moira wants to do, Moira will do. Want to make a political statement? Sure! Want to get naked? Goes without saying! Want to don claws and feathers and threaten to rip out audience members' hearts? - well, yes, if it's in a good cause.
WEEKEND NOTES
“Finucane's strong storytelling skills are evident as she has us hanging of her every word. It's a shame however that the sound was not always up to scratch, with moments where we are unable to hear what Finucane is saying. Her recollections of her time in Chile and France are fascinating and linked in well with the performances. "A Sunny Afternoon" is a breathtaking act, and a personal favourite, where Finucane makes a powerful statement about our expectations and idealisation of beauty and women in society. This non-verbal piece is paired with U2’s hit song "With or Without You" and its gradual fierce impact is easily felt throughout the audience........ While usually performing with an ensemble, The Rapture has allowed Finucane to open herself up in a way that is not possible when sharing the stage. Her performance is more honest (sometimes brutally), evocative and inspiring than it has ever been before as she exposes her fears, frustrations, hopes and joys. Moira Finucane is considered a national treasure in Australia and this sublime show perfectly explains why. The Rapture is here, there's no denying it. The question is: what are we going to do about it?
MYMELBOURNEARTS.COM
