Jurassic Lounge

The Jurassic Lounge team are currently riding high on their win in the Remix the City category at the recent FBi SMAC awards. The night beat out some of Sydney’s coolest events, including Alaska Projects and the Date Presents No Fixed Address, to take out the gong.

February, then, seems the perfect time for Jurassic Lounge to roll out its third programme of music, art, film, talks and dinosaurs at the Australian Museum.

There are some exciting changes afoot, too: the museum’s ground floor atrium has been renovated and a new stage area, ripe for performance, has been added; the silent disco is moving to the Surviving Australia exhibition, so you can pull shapes with the nation's flora and fauna; and a new museum theatre has been reserved for lectures and film screenings to add to Jurassic Lounge’s already bulging arts line-up.

As always, guests will also have free, drink-in-hand roam of the museum’s permanent collection and specialist exhibitions, including the always-impressive Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.

After the success of last year’s Time Out presents event, we’ll be doing another curator cameo this season. On Tuesday 28 Feb you’ll find a taste of the talent we’re featuring in our March issue, and Gold Coast boys Oceanics will be leading the live music charge in the dinosaur room. The Kooks-like four-piece will be throwing down pop-tastic tracks from their debut EP Get Friendly, Mistress Maybe. 

TheTime Out team are hard at work locking down the rest of the line-up, in-your-face performance art included, so keep your eye on our website to find out more.
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Jurassic Lounge 2011 preview: If the round-the-block line at the final Jurassic Lounge event in April was anything to go by, Sydneysiders are hungry as a T-Rex for another helping of exciting after-hours events at the Australian Museum. And they're in luck. Jurassic Lounge is back for a second eight-week season starting August and the new line-up may even be more impressive than the last.

This time around different rooms of the museum will become stages for live music, DJs, art demonstrations, talks, screenings and performance art. Leading the charge at the season's launch event will be local Burlesque beauty Lillian Starr and it seems she's the perfect woman for the job. "I really like when different fields cross over each other creatively," says Starr. "I love taking the language of burlesque and doing a mash-up with other creative fields, like performance art, circus and video works."

This creative cross-section is one of the things that makes Jurassic Lounge so special. As you explore the museum, drink in hand, you might stumble across a local songstress singing beneath a skeleton; catch sight of a film projection of an artist in action; or find Starr strutting between the museum's exhibits. Basically, you never know what to expect. "It can be a little awkward if people don't really feel like they consent to what's going on," says Starr, "But most people will then loosen up and it's really delightful and kind of raw."

So what can we expect from Starr's opening night performance? "I'll be doing two quirky camp shows," she reveals. "And lets just say they both riff on an element of nature." 

Unlike more mainstream art and music events, Jurassic Lounge positions its performers right in the thick of the crowds. "Normally in club and theatre shows, the performer is framed by the stage, which only allows for a certain amount of interaction. But I'll have a different relationship with the audience – I'll be on their eye level and will have much more direct interaction." 

When the sun goes down on Tuesday nights this month, get ready to get up close and personal with taxidermy and bones, as well as some knock-out showpieces that are very much alive.