Ange Lavoipierre On Live Journalism At The Opera House’s ‘Curious’ Festival
Image: Source: Sydney Opera House
Despite working in radio and podcasting for nearly two decades, Ange Lavoipierre has rarely ever had an audience right in front of them. At the 2025 Curious Festival on the Live Journalism panel, they’re making an exception to the rule.
“I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity,” they explain to City Hub ahead of the event. “Audio is a really transportative medium, and it’s very intimate as well. But usually when you’re listening to a podcast or the radio, you’ll do that off in your own world, whether that’s headphones or the car.
“So it’s a pretty alluring idea doing that same trick in a crowd, I think. I’m really looking forward to seeing how people react to these really intimate stories en masse and see that trick done at scale where you transport people to the places you’ve been to make the story.”
Ange will be one of four speakers on the Live Journalism panel at Curious Festival, a day of talks featuring thought leaders from across the globe like M Gessen and Dr Karl. Alongside host Annabel Crabb, former Radiolab journalist Rachel Cusick and Aussie novelist Richard Flanagan, Ange will be helping to transform the Opera House’s Playhouse theatre into a live radio magazine show.
Bringing Live Journalism to the stage
In their part of the panel, Ange will be telling the story of one of the top mediums in Sydney; one they describe as ‘the witch’s witch’. Without spoiling anything, Ange explains why they became interested in it: “I recently fell down the rabbit hole of mediums and psychics, which is not my usual terrain, but the story is really about one medium in particular.
“The story is really about her, but I also wanted to find out what it takes for people to give themselves over and believe in magic. Even as a child, I always really wanted to believe in magic and mysticism, to the point that I nearly got kicked off Bible camp one year for starting a coven.
They continue: “So I’ve always had this wish for it to be true, but I never found it convincing. But I guess that wish to believe in magic, the desire to test it, stuck with me. I decided to go see this tarot reader, the mystic who other mystics in Sydney go to see. And without giving it away, the things she told me are the reason I’m telling this story at the Opera House.”
Far from their usual beat of tech journalism, Ange says it’s been a delight to pursue this story. “It’s been really fun to have the licence to apply the blowtorch of journalism to a subject like magic. And this is actually a very personal story, and I’m feeling a bit nervous to tell it because of how personal it is. I’ve been trying not to think about the fact that I’ll be able to see everybody’s faces while telling them this stuff!”
Regardless of the nerves, Ange is excited for the panel and to hear the stories their fellow panelists bring. They also spoke to the nature of the radio-style panel, and how it compares to their usual work: “I’m on the radio most weeks, so in some ways this feels like a very beautiful podcast-style story that’s being brought to life on stage.
“I think there are certain stories that are really perfect for audio, and I think a story about magic is exactly that. There’s a reason we prefer to tell and hear ghost stories over reading them. Sound is just spookier, right?” they say. “I’ll feel like I’ve succeeded if people have the sense that they’ve visited an unfamiliar world.”
You can see Ange Lavoipierre on the Live Journalism panel at the Opera House’s Curious, running on September 28th.
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