Bloomsday in Melbourne: Seminar and Lunch

Bloomsday in Melbourne presents the 2024 Annual Bloomsday Seminar and Lunch on Sunday, June 16th from 10:15am to 2:15pm at the Rooftop Bar of the Arcadia Hotel.

MAIN SPEAKER: Erin M McCuskey, film artist
TITLE: “Dancing out of time”
Lucia Joyce’s archive was decimated by her nephew at pains to protect the legacy of her famous father. All that remains of her creative dancing life are the photographs by Berenice Abbott and some tantalising reviews of her prowess. It was Paris, between the wars. The Roaring 20s. Much of the culture, fashion, and self-expression were considered scandalous. Hemlines were up and stockings were down. Modernism erupted as a flame in the form of women wildly dancing. They had created the new. It is young women particularly who embraced the change with its promise of freedom. However, freedom was not to be Lucia’s destiny. Like many difficult women of the time there was a much simpler solution.

SECOND SPEAKER: Dr Steve Carey, DPhil (Oxon)
TITLE: ‘fading out… you can’t see her now’ (Finnegans Wake p226): Reimagining Lucia
Lucia Joyce has come to represent something, maybe many things, though quite what is hard to articulate, not least because her own voice is so notably lost to us. The themes of Bloomsday in Melbourne’s new play for 2024, Samuel Beckett and the Rainbow Girl, include memory, fame and the toll it takes, art as self-therapy, madness and perhaps above all the silencing of voices. Playwright Steve Carey talks about Joyce, his wife Nora and his children Lucia and Georgio; the young Samuel Beckett; how we turn facts into stories; and the experience of seeing your words transformed by a director, a cast and a creative team.

THINGS TO NOTE

– This event is being held in the Rooftop Bar at The Arcadia Hotel. There are no lifts, and several flights of stairs.

– There are vegan and vegetarian options on the menu: you’ll be ask for dietary requirements during the checkout process.

– The lunch will finish at 2.15pm, leaving you plenty of time to get 700m to the theatre either by walking, by public transport or by your own transport.

More information about the Bloomsday in Melbourne Festival can be found on https://www.bloomsdayinmelbourne.org.au/.