Review: OZASIA FESTIVAL 2017: IN BETWEEN TWO at Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Thursday 5th October 2017.

With the end of this year's OzAsia Festival approaching rapidly, it is all over far too soon. In Between Two brings together two hip-hop musicians, Chinese-Australian rapper, Joel Ma, who performs under the name, Joelistics, and Filipino-Australian songwriter and bassist, James Mangohig.

Their stories begin with how they first met and discovered a mutual love of the music and then, over a little more than an hour, they go back in time to their grandparents, and then to their Asian fathers, both of whom married Australian women, their parents' lives, and their own experiences as cross-cultural men growing up in Australia. Adding to the diversity, Mangohig's mother was Dutch-Australian.

What stories they are, too, with Ma's mother running the famous Sydney night spot, Chequers, involved with the rich and famous, and gangsters, in the 1950s and 60s, while his parents lived the hippy life, travelling the world and engaging with politics. Mangohig's father ended up as a preacher in Darwin, and his rejection of Christianity caused a sensational confrontation between them.

The two cram a rich and varied series of anecdotes into their short time onstage, delivering their tales with enthusiasm, and great good humour, not to mention enormous amounts of love for their forebears.

Projected onto two large screens were a series of family photos and home movies to accompany these remarkable tales, interspersed with occasional musical numbers written especially for the production, which was directed by Suzanne Chaundy, and had William Yang and Annette Shun Wah as dramaturgs.

There were some very funny moments but also some more serious topics brought up, including racism and bullying, and the difficulty of feeling not Asian enough to be Asian and not Australian enough to be Australian, on which topic both performers touched in their presentations.

This was a fascinating and enlightening performance, and thoroughly entertaining, with two of the most likeable young men sharing their lives with us.

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