Elise. Writer & caffeine-based life form. Exploring my city and discovering its best kept secrets. Join me on my adventures!
09/10/2025
Wonder explores the poignant story of the entwined lives of Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms through music, movement and the words of their letters.
A collaboration with Australian pianist Aura Go, Southern Cross Soloists and Queensland Ballet’s Jette Parker Young Artists, these intimate works of love, grief, and friendship are woven with a luminous new composition for didgeridoo and ensemble by Ray Lin and Chris Williams.
At QPAC this Sunday, 12 October.
Image supplied by Southern Cross Soloists Step into a world where friendship, love, and artistry intertwine. More than a classical concert, Wonder explores the poignant story of the entwined lives …
08/10/2025
Hamish and Bella have known each other since they were kids, but their friendship is tested as they both chase loves that aren’t very good for them (or to them) and push each other (and the truth) away. Friendship, the one true love, ultimately finds a way.
This new ensemble work from Sophia Davidson Gluyas stars emerging Queensland actors and seeks to capture the humour, complexity, and heart of q***r lives.
Playing 29 October – 1 November at Metro Arts, as part of Melt Festival.
Tell Me Something 29 October – 1 November Metro Arts, West End What happens when you just don’t want to tell the truth? Hamish loves Matthew but doesn’t want to tell him. Emilie loves Bella …
03/10/2025
Next Saturday, Plantapalooza will transform the Saturday Fresh Market into a dream of lush greenery, blooming flowers and garden accessories, plus market stalls bursting with produce, chilled deli goods and baked treats.
Whether you’re a proud plant parent or a serial succulent killer, this is your chance to stock up, skill up and soak up Brisbane’s biggest celebration of all things green. There is also a range of family-friendly activities including interactive reptile shows, children’s seedling and pot painting, face painting, and a jumping castle.
Plantapalooza will run from 6am - 12pm on Saturday 11 October 🌿🌱🌷
Plantapolooza at Brisbane Markets, 2023. Photographed by Claudia Baxter Plantapalooza 6am – 1pm, Saturday 11 October 2025 Brisbane Markets, 385 Sherwood Rd, Rocklea Plantapalooza will transfo…
02/10/2025
Joshua Hinton’s A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen (or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry) was a delicious family history, presented by Merrigong Theatre Co as part of Brisbane Festival. Alongside his brother Dominic, Hinton told a story about lineage, cultural connection, and searching for a sense of belonging while he cooked his grandmother Mehmeh’s chicken curry live onstage – the Cremorne Theatre at QPAC has never smelled so good!
Read my review online now.
Image credit: Tracey Leigh Images Joshua Hinton’s A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen (or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry) was a delicious family history. Alongside his brother Dominic, H…
01/10/2025
A group exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal artworks from Central Australia, Contours offers a reinterpretation of the landscape and its enduring spiritual, cultural, and ancestral significance to First Nations people. The exhibition challenges colonial cartographies and asserts Indigenous ways of seeing, understanding and interpreting the land.
Showing 23 September – 18 October at Mitchell Fine Art Gallery, Fortitude Valley.
Contours exhibition, photographed by Claudia Baxter Contours 23 September – 18 October 2025 Mitchell Fine Art, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane Mitchell Fine Art in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley presents a…
30/09/2025
From the first uncurling fingers of a child in utero to the energetic sprint of adulthood and the return to a frail, small body requiring care, The Chronicles travelled through a lifetime and all the connections, fears, loves, and moments that make it meaningful.
A visually and choreographically exciting reflection on the cycle of life, from womb to tomb, this new work from Stephanie Lake Company was both a primal scream and a gentle hug at Brisbane Festival.
Read my review online now.
Photographed by Daniel Boud A spectacular contemporary dance work about the cycle of life and the journey from birth to death, The Chronicles was presented as part of Brisbane Festival by the Melbo…
29/09/2025
A jaw-dropping intercontinental collaboration between Australasian Dance Collective and Club Guy & Roni, Studio Boris Acket, and HIIIT, Bad Nature was a transportive new work about the relationship between humanity and the rest of the natural world.
Making its world premiere at BRISBANE POWERHOUSE as part of Brisbane Festival, Bad Nature was a propulsive, unforgettable performance, exemplifying the very best of contemporary dance – collaborative, thrilling, innovative, and emotionally and intellectually engaging.
Read my full review online now.
Bad Nature for Brisbane Festival at The Powerhouse Theatre, photographed by David Kelly A jaw-dropping collaboration between Brisbane’s Australasian Dance Collective and The Netherlands’ Club Guy &…
27/09/2025
Presented by Musica Viva Australia in August, Takács Quartet with Angie Milliken was an energised and engaging concert with the world premiere of Cathy Milliken’s Sonnet of an Emigrant as a shining centrepiece, exploring themes of immigration, cultural displacement, and ideas of home.
Read my full review online now.
Takács Quartet with Angie Milliken, photographed by Cameron Jamieson Takács Quartet with Angie Milliken toured Australia’s major cities throughout August, celebrating 80 years of Musica Viva Austra…
25/09/2025
Opera Queensland presented a stunning, fully staged production of Puccini’s beloved opera La bohème in QPAC’s Lyric Theatre as part of Brisbane Festival 2025.
La bohème follows the lives of a group of young bohemians in interwar Paris. While the romantic love between poet Rodolfo and seamstress Mimì is at the centre, it is also a moving story about the sustaining love of friends and community through dark times and dire circumstances.
Read my full review online now ❄️✨️
Elena Perroni and Valerio Borgioni as Mimì and Rodolfo, photographed by Steph Do Rozario Opera Queensland presented a stunning, fully staged production of Puccini’s beloved opera La bohème in QPAC’…
24/09/2025
Grab your leg warmers, slip into your sequins, and join Common People Dance Project for a free, all-in, feel-good dance showdown in front of Brisbane City Hall at 4pm this Saturday (27 September). Dancers from all over the city will compete to be crowned The People’s Dancefloor Champions.
Museum of Brisbane has also teamed up with Brisbane Festival, inviting visitors to explore the inspiring stories behind Common People Dance Project with an exhibition and workshop series.
Image credit: Claudia Baxter King George Square Showdown 4pm, 27 September 2025 King George Square, Brisbane City Grab your leg warmers and slip into your sequins for Brisbane’s ultimate dance batt…
23/09/2025
Presented by Soft Tread Enterprises as part of Brisbane Festival, The Platypus put a genre-hopping spin on the kitchen sink drama, using a naturalistic style when Jessica and Richard are together but veering into other genres outside of their crumbling marriage. The play is built from seemingly incongruous pieces, like the monotreme of its title, but it revisits a well-worn story in a stylistically fresh way and is carried by strong leading performances.
Read my full review online now.
Rebecca Bower and John Leary in The Platypus, photographed by Mark Gambino Francis Greenslade’s The Platypus is a metatheatrical two-hander that puts a genre-hopping spin on the kitchen sink drama.…
19/09/2025
Inspired by George Balanchine's iconic Jewels, created for the New York City Ballet, Gems is a trilogy of contemporary dance works commissioned by jewellery brand Van Cleef & Arpels from French dancer, choreographer, and founder of the L.A. Dance Project Benjamin Millepied. Combining lyrical movement with large-scale visual concepts, these three works were performed together for the first time as part of an exclusive Brisbane Festival season at QPAC.
My full review is online now.
On the Other Side, photographed by Jade Ellis Inspired by the three-part classical ballet work Jewels, which was created for the New York City Ballet by its co-founder George Balanchine in 1967, Ge…
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Backstreet Brisbane posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
I’m not sure where I heard that (I think the idea came from a TED talk event at the State Library) but, grounded in the romantic idea of being a tourist in your own city, I started Backstreet Brisbane in 2014 as the guide I wish I’d had. Coming from a hometown of less than one thousand, the sheer vastness and unknown of the city overwhelmed me initially and I stuck mainly to Queen Street until new friends took me outside my comfort zone to see and experience new things – wonderful bars and cafes tucked down alleys, parks and green spaces I might never have found, live music venues I would have been afraid to enter alone.
Whether you are in town for a few days or have lived here all your life, there is always something new and surprising to discover. The story of our city is constantly changing, and we are a part of it (which is why I also started Backstreet Brisbaners, a verbatim interview series with Brisbane’s brilliant community).
Backstreet Brisbane is now in its fifth year, and it has grown and evolved as I have, from cheap-as-chips student days to something resembling adulthood. Backstreet Brisbane has come to cover a broader range of lifestyle and events in our city – food and drink, things to see and do – and has developed a focus on performing arts, which is one of my great loves. If you’d like the best of Brisbane delivered to your inbox each month, you can sign up for the Backstreet Brisbane Bulletin here.
If you’ve read this far, thank you – I’ll continue to get to know Brisbane a little better, and these things are always more exciting with friends. I look forward to sharing these ongoing adventures with you.
