MY BICYCLE LOVES YOU
Before aqua-tinted 3D avatars and mind-warping CGI technology, air-conditioned complexes and cult film festivals, there were the Corricks. A travelling family of vaudeville performers from the early 1900s, they were part of the first wave of cinema to crash on Australian shores. One part singing, dancing and oration, one part cutting-edge celluloid, their show roamed the memorial halls of the country from 1901-1914 until the patriarch, Albert, passed away. The remaining reams of highly flammable nitrate films – around 200 in total, from which 130 survive – then sat in a garage in Launceston, Tasmania, until their recent re-discovery.
“It is amazing that so many have survived and are screenable. In world terms, it’s a collection that has been really celebrated,” says Meg Labrum, from the National Film and Sound Archive, who have been charged with restoring the Corrick Collection. “They range from amazing trick photography, crazy vaudeville, to fairytales and even documentaries before the idea even existed,” says Labrum, citing Living London, a 1904 record of the metropolis British cinephiles feared had been lost forever.
“When you see the films … they were cutting edge, with magic things happening. There literally is a bicycle that is a trained lion jumping through hopes … flowers and chickens becoming the chubby dancing women of the time.”
It’s this magic that captivated Legs on the Wall, the physical theatre troupe known for combining acrobatics, music, multimedia, text and theatre. In their new show, My Bicycle Loves You, headed by director Patrick Nolan, they bring the magic back to life … and, as befits our current cinema-going audience, to 3D. Out-takes from films such as the 1907 surreal French La Poule Aux Oeuf’s D’Or collide with characters from the Marvellous Corrick menagerie and the inhabitants of a modern Australian apartment block.
“It will be surprising for us all, I think!” laughs Labrum.
Jan 11-15, Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, $30-60, 1300 668 812, sydneyfestival.org.au
