Category Archives: Rising festival

Rapper Lil’ Kim to headline Melbourne’s 2026 Rising festival

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‘Trailblazer’ rapper returns to Australia for first time in 15 years, with body horror performer and dance biennale also on lineup

The pioneering female rapper Lil’ Kim, the vomit-inducing performance artist Florentina Holzinger, and the first ever Australian Dance Biennale are among the lineup for the 2026 Rising festival, which is staged around Melbourne each winter.

Lil’ Kim, who last played in Australia in 2011, will perform at Melbourne’s Festival Hall to celebrate her landmark multiplatinum records Hard Core – which turns 30 this year – and The Notorious KIM.

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All fores! Miranda July among artists to create feminist mini-golf course in Melbourne

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Swingers, which aims to celebrate the sport’s feminist history, will take over the Flinders Street station ballroom as part of the 2025 Rising festival

The acclaimed author and film-maker Miranda July is among a group of artists who are building a mini-golf course in Melbourne to celebrate the sport’s little-known feminist history.

Swingers: The Art of Mini Golf will take over the Flinders Street station ballroom, an abandoned space above the busy Melbourne railway station, as part of the city’s annual Rising festival.

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Rising festival 2024: theatre-maker to be drugged unconscious in ‘deeply unnerving’ show about date rape

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A Brazilian artist will have her body manipulated while passed out, in a lauded work about sexual violence that headlines Melbourne’s winter festival

A theatremaker will be drugged unconscious on stage in Melbourne this year, in a controversial and highly lauded theatre work about sexual violence that will have its Australian premiere at Rising festival.

Cadela Força Trilogy: The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella is directed by and stars Brazilian artist Carolina Bianchi, who recounts her experience of being drugged and sexually assaulted, before taking a drug on stage. Once unconscious, female performers then move her body around, even at one point inserting a speculum and camera into her vagina, with a live video feed shown to the audience in a simulation of a post-rape forensic examination.

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