The Black Arm Band

About Arts House

Arts House is a City of Melbourne initiative which supports the arts and makes Melbourne a more creative and liveable city.  Arts House is committed to the development of new arts practices, works and audiences.

Each year Arts House presents a curated program of contemporary art featuring performances, exhibitions, live art, installations and cultural events which are programmed to inspire dynamic community engagement.  Central to this program is a commitment to contemporary arts practices and provocative new ideas.

Arts House offers funding, producing and presentation support, brokers international and national opportunities for artists, hosts and partners festivals and other agencies, provides creative development residencies and commissions, develops and realises new work.

Arts House continues to present a multi artform program annually across two sites supporting the work of a myriad of artists both emerging and established:

• Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall, which features flexible performance spaces, rehearsal rooms, office and administrative infrastructure; and
• Arts House, Meat Market, which features creative development space, flexible performance spaces, two galleries, conference centre and office spaces (owned and funded by Arts Victoria, managed by Arts House).

Bold initiatives already undertaken by Arts House include:

• CultureLAB, a creative development residency program based at Arts House, Meat Market. This program has assisted more than fifty projects in just over twenty months;
• TransLab, in partnership with Performance Space in Sydney and supported by the Theatre Board of the Australia Council  is a residency program that will provide critical and supportive environments for artists from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to undertake: research and development; experimentation with new processes for making artistic work; and creative development of new intercultural performance projects.
• Special Projects, The Black Arm Band was conceived, developed and realised as an Arts House Special Project and was awarded a Helpmann award for best contemporary music concert for 2006 for murundak presented as part of 2006 Melbourne International Arts Festival at Hamer Hall. The Black Arm Band continues to perform murundak both around Australia and internationally. The Black Arm Band was invited by the 2008 Melbourne International Arts Festival to create Hidden Republic, a collaboration between the Band and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.