“When I was 16 years of age, my aunty took me to Tina Turner’s concert at the Darwin Amphitheatre in 1993 – and, really, that concert changed my life,” Benjamin (Ben) Graetz tells ArtsHub.
“It was one of the first concerts that I’d seen as a teenager – as a queer teenager growing up in Darwin – and seeing her confidence, and her ability as an artist to be able to hold the audience in the palm of her hand, just the energy she had – she was electric.
“And that really changed me as a person, and it really made me want to be an artist. It didn’t inspire me to be a drag queen – that came later. But to see that energy up on stage, and to be able to witness her presence at such a young age, where I was kind of coming of age, really – it changed my life,” he says.
Graetz – a descendant of the Iwaidja and Malak Malak Clans in the Northern Territory and of Badu Island on the Torres Strait Islands – is a multi-skilled performer and leader in the performing arts, First Nations and LGBTIQ+ communities.
He grew up in Darwin in the 1970s, where life wasn’t always easy for a queer Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child. So when he saw Tina Turner performing under the stars at Darwin Amphitheatre, the young First Nations boy was mesmerised – not realising that his experiences that sweltering night would change his life, and continue to reverberate decades later, when he had become both an acclaimed drag artist and a respected arts programmer and administrator.
A love of music embracing every genre
On 7 May at Melbourne Recital Centre (MRC), Graetz performs his acclaimed celebration and homage to the late Tina Turner, who died in 2023, aged 83.
TINA – A Tropical Love Story may seem, to some, an unusual programming choice for MRC, given that when the venue first opened in 2009, its acoustically engineered concert hall was dedicated to live performances of classical music – a perception that El Chantry, MRC’s Acting Director of Programming and Program Manager, is eager to dispel.
Chantry explains, “What drives programming at MRC is not so much about featuring any one or any array of genres, but rather the chance to showcase and celebrate artists and works across the incredible depth and breadth of an entire art form.
“Alongside offerings from our brilliant classical presenters, such as the MSO [Melbourne Symphony Orchestra], Musica Viva and ACO [Australian Chamber Orchestra], we’re also featuring contemporary artists such as Robin Fox, Meshell Ndegeocello and Harvey Sutherland, so we can continue to challenge [existing] preconceptions and position ourselves as the home to all live music,” she says.
A multifaceted gem in Melbourne’s cultural crown, MRC hosts over 500 concerts, functions and events each year. Its Elisabeth Murdoch Hall is lined with plywood panels of Australian plantation Hoop pine timber, acoustically designed to enhance the audience experience throughout the 1000-seat auditorium. The intimate, adaptively flexible 140-seat Primrose Potter Salon offers an equally immersive listening experience.
Chantry, whose ongoing role as Program Manager gives her a unique insight into MRC’s musical diversity, is quick to emphasise the range of programming at the beloved venue.
“I am so excited for the next few months of shows,” she says, acknowledging that “any music lover will know that there is much more to music than a series of disparate genres”.
Chantry highlights a range of upcoming concerts and artists, which she says embody MRC’s rich and rewarding program for music lovers of every taste and style.
“Some major highlights include [Erwan] Keravec, the master of the French highland bagpipes performing reimagined [and] iconic works by Philip Glass, the immersive audiovisual experience from Luke Howard x Simon Burgin and a wildly exciting percussive performance featuring clay shooters from Speak Percussion, Pigeons,” she enthuses.
Of TINA – A Tropical Love Story, Chantry says: “Ben is one of this country’s most incredible performers and storytellers, and I’m so excited we could work with Yirramboi to present this work at MRC.
“Much like any of the performances we program, it’s about using our stage as a platform to tell great stories, whether that’s the heartbreaking story of one of Mozart’s operas, or Ben’s sparkling, deeply personal story of self-discovery – they’re all incredible stories. And, in fact, I’d argue we have an even greater responsibility to be sharing these stories that are so deeply part of the cultural experience specific to our country. Also, it just looks like a joyous, energetic and fabulous night of brilliant entertainment!”
Sharing the limelight
The Sydney Festival season of TINA – A Tropical Love Story was praised as ‘dazzling’ and ‘the ultimate drag show’ in ArtsHub’s five-star review of the production in January – but Graetz quickly and modestly stresses that he shares such adulation with the ever-evolving array of guests he curates for each new iteration of the show.
“Originally, it was going to be a love letter to Tina Turner, and then it eventually became this variety cabaret show where I tell my story of growing up in Darwin – but also my passion for Tina and how that’s been such an instrumental part of my life,” he says.
“And I wanted to share Tina’s spirit – I didn’t want to just be the only performer. I wanted to engage other artists, to be able to share their stories of how Tina has really affected them, or has been an instrumental part of their lives as well.
“The creative sector is going through a lot of challenges at the moment, as you know, particularly independent artists and independent creators. And so I thought, ‘How can I create a model that’s viable, that can tour around to these festivals, but also engage multiple different artists?’ And so, basically, the show stays the same, in the sense that I’m still the anchor of it all., but at each new location I get guest artists to do those different numbers. And they can be a singer, they can be a dancer, they can be a spoken word artist, they can be a burlesque performer – it’s about their interpretation of a Tina Turner number.”
For the Yirramboi presentation of TINA – A Tropical Love Story at MRC, Graetz’s guests include performance/visual artists The Huxleys, proud sistergirl drag queen Crystal Love and guest choreographer Sani Townson.
“And the thing I’ve found from doing the show at multiple different festivals so far, is that everyone has their own Tina story as well, whether it’s personal like mine … whether it’s the music of Tina Turner or whether it’s her films.
“At all the shows, I love to chat to the audience afterwards, because everyone has their story about Tina and how she’s affected their lives, you know? Everyone has their Tina story, or a personal reflection about her, too – and so I think that’s what makes this show really special,” Graetz concludes.
Ben Graetz and friends perform TINA – A Tropical Love Story at Melbourne Recital Centre on Wednesday 7 May at 8pm.
