arts
By Carole Lander
Bringing
people
together
The arts have an uncanny
ability to bring people
together and as Link writer
Carole Lander discovers,
two Melbourne Fringe
Festival events have done
just that. She reviews two
shows performed at the
Northcote Town Hall as
part of the Darebin Arts’
Speakeasy program.
32
arts
“C
ome one, come all,
“My unique look is very similar to
come small, come tall,” the original KooKoo the Bird Girl, so
Sarah Houbolt cries it was a natural choice of character,”
to audience members gathering in
the studio foyer at Northcote Town
Hall. This catch-cry neatly covers the
aim of two stunning events staged
she said.
“KooKoo’s story is one that’s not
often told, and it’s an important one.”
The original Bird Girl was Minnie
there for the Melbourne Fringe Woolsey, born in the United States in
Festival, both performed by people the late 19th century, who performed
with disability, and both warmly in side shows and features in Tod
welcoming people of all abilities. Browning’s iconic 1932 film Freaks.
Excerpts of this film are projected
KooKoo the Bird Girl onto the back wall of Houbolt’s show,
Sarah Houbolt is multi-talented embellishing her own performance as
with credits such as TEDxSydney
speaker, United Nations delegate,
a ‘freak’, a word she has reclaimed.
Houbolt weaves circus skill,
Paralympian, and featured actress multimedia and story into her
in Cirque du Soleil’s Worlds Away. production. She knows how to
She created KooKoo the Bird Girl to mesmerize her audience, shifting the
celebrate the beauty of difference. mood to keep us on tenterhooks one
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