IN Beaux Arts

Dress-up, put on your dancing shoes, shake off any winter blues and indulge in a bygone era at the first Beaux Arts Ball in Perth.

A passion for film and the aesthetic of the pre-World War II period has led Kat Black and Jasper Cook to bring fashion, art, theatre and film together for a night of celebration.

Better known in Perth as VJzoo, they’re the organisers of the first Beaux Arts Ball – an evening paying homage to the 1920s and 30s and taking its cue from the balls and salons held in Europe and America at the time.

“It was such an important and exciting time culturally,” Kat Black says. “Modernism was forming – Cubist artists like Picasso and Surrealist’s like Dali. There was so much experimentation, especially with young art forms like film. Man Ray laid household items like pins directly onto negative film and exposed it to create abstract art films while Paris was the heart of the avant-garde movement.”

For the pair that dovetails perfectly with their love for old films and their VJ work. They’re passionate about anything from the late 1800s through to the 1950s but Kat and Jasper’s very favourite period is 1929 – 1934, after the development of the talkies.

“It was a crazy time where pretty much anything went. Movies like Flying Down to Rio with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Busby Berkeley classics like 42nd Street or Cecil B. de Mille spectaculars like Cleopatra with Claudette Colbert. They were huge, dramatic, fantastical pictures – escapism for depression-era audiences whose lives could not have been further removed from the opulence shown on the silver screen.”

Entertainment at the Beaux Arts Ball will include Perth’s premier jazz artists led by Graham Wood of The Ellington, with guest vocalist Gina Williams, Michelle Smith playing jazz harp and Zoe Kikiros from the West Australian Opera. There will be also plenty of opportunity to dance – from the Charleston to swing.

One of the attractions of the ball will be 50 Living Works of Art. Some of Perth’s hottest young artists, designers and stylists will be creating costumes that blur the line between art, fashion and performance. There will be a grand procession of these Living Works of Art in the tradition of the original Parisian artists’ balls and the winners will be judged by a panel on the night.

VJzoo will be projecting some of their favourite scenes from movies of the era to complement the live acts. Some of the footage will be obscure – like the fabulous scene of a costume ball on a zeppelin in Cecil B. de Mille’s Madam Satan and a scene from Fashions, featuring more than fifty fan dancers in the 1934 Busby Berkeley film plus the classic scene of girls dancing on biplanes from Flying Down to Rio.

“We’re film nerds and we’re really looking forward to showing off some of our rare footage. We usually work in nightclubs and while we love bringing film history alive to a new audience there, it’s also great to be able to play to fellow enthusiasts of the period occasionally too.”

Be ready to escape and immerse yourself in another time, another place at the Beaux Arts Ball. While this won’t be a perfect historic recreation, VJzoo are aiming to capture the spirit of the Jazz Age – glamorous, wild, creative and free.

The Beaux Arts Ball at the Perth Town Hall on August 6. Tickets from BOCS. Ticketholders have access to free workshops to create their own head-dress and other costume pieces.
Check out http://thebeauxartsball.com for details and the latest news.