Jane Howard

Freelance Writer

Australia

Jane Howard a freelance arts journalist and critic with a focus on performance. Her writing has appeared in publications including the Guardian, Kill Your Darlings, Junkee, Meanjin and RealTime, and her experimental digital criticism projects have been commissioned by The Lifted Brow and the Performance and Art Development Agency.

Portfolio
Kill Your Darlings
02/07/2016
Impossible Futures: Tomorrow’s Parties and This is How We Die

A man and a woman stand on a wooden pallet, backed by a string of coloured globes on an otherwise unremarkable stage. They talk us through images of the future. There is sufficient room on the pallet for each of the pair to have their own personal space, and yet he leans up against her, shoulder to shoulder, his slight height advantage causing him to bear down.

Broadsheet
Del Kathryn Barton's Spiders and Female Rage

There is something incredibly pertinent about the timing of Australian artist Del Kathryn Barton's first live-action video work, Red. The 15-minute film, in which Cate Blanchett plays a redback spider, is a powerful homage to female rage and sexuality that has new currency in the days following the marches that saw millions of women around the world take to the streets in defence of their rights.

the Guardian
12/21/2016
Australian theatre 2016: the 10 most groundbreaking shows by women

The recent Australian Writers' Guild report into the state of female playwrights showed little is improving for women at Australia's largest theatre companies. But to get the full picture of what female theatre makers are doing in this country, we need to look beyond the main stages.

Kill Your Darlings
11/23/2016
Old Spaces Anew at the Melbourne Festival

Much of Jonathan Holloway's first Melbourne Festival asked us to look at Melbourne in new ways. I caught the tram down to the Docklands, and walked through an eerily deserted shopping mall before coming across the O'Brien Group Arena, a ice rink hidden from the city.

the Guardian
11/18/2016
Blaque Showgirls review - Indigenous take on cult film is loud, proud and camp

There's a fascination in Australian theatre with adapting the classics to contemporary Australia. Our stages are ripe with retellings of Ancient Greek dramas, Ibsens and Chekhovs; adaptations of books, and of prestige films. Adapting the 1995 Razzie-award-winning Showgirls seems to be something of a different matter.

Kill Your Darlings
10/13/2016
Art for Kids, Kids for Art

It feels like I am walking around in a thick fog. All I can see is white, as I gingerly move through a forest of dangling ribbons tied to bells that jangle with every step. With no knowledge of this space, there is nothing to guide me.