2021.04.26 Escape
Getting naked outside of the confines of your home can be an utterly liberating experience.
And it seems that Melbourne is the city leading the charge when it comes to activities that involve getting your gear off … which is interesting when you consider it’s a cooler climate.
The trend came to our attention last week when we discover that the city’s newest arts festival, Rising, will be featuring a nude disco called ‘Club Purple‘.
The event, which will run for 12 nights (the festival runs from May 26 to June 6), is described as an “alcohol-free, non-sexual, naturist disco”.
Australian artist Stuart Ringholt has created the work that invites people to shed their inhibitions: “Simply remove your clothes, step onto the carpeted dancefloor, pick your favourite songs from the jukebox’s touch screen and go bananas for 30 minutes”.
You can opt to enjoy the experience solo, or attend with a small group of friends.
It’s not the only event at Rising that requires you to shed your clothes.
Also part of the festival, Flow State (created by artists Sarah Retallick and Amanda Roff) is a ‘nude sonic bathing experience’ on a tiny island.
“After disrobing and showering you’ll travel by boat on the Birrarung (Yarra) river to Herring Island, where you’ll disembark and climb into a private, heated, sound-making bathtub,” reads the event description.
Guests float in large baths fitted with underwater speakers, listening to sounds channelled through microphones dotted around the island and hydrophones submerged in the Yarra River.
“Soundwaves in the water - heard as they travel through the body’s fluid tissue; and vibrate the skull and inner ear nerves - intermingle with soundwaves in the air, inviting you to enter multiple states of consciousness,” continues the description.
As the experience is so intimate, it’s only available to a small number of festival goers. The limited number of tickets are being raffled off for $10 a pop.
But wait, there’s more (don’t put your clothes back on just yet) …
Melbourne’s Fantastic Film Festival is running nude screenings of the film Patrick, which is set in a nudist colony.
Playing in addition to regular, clothed screenings of Patrick, “these nude sessions give bold audiences a unique opportunity to engage in the unclothed spirit of the film,” says the festival press release.
Among the guidelines for the event? Everyone must bring their own towel to sit on in the cinema, and “clothing is required should you wish to leave the cinema for candy bar items”.
If all this has whet your appetite for running around nekkid, you may want to link up with the creatively named
NUDIES, a “pop-up community nudist group” based in, you guessed it, Melbourne.
“Our point of difference is that we run activity and theme-based events, to push nudism into areas and activities you might never have expected,” explains the website.
“To date, we have run a pirate party, nude trivia, house parties, pool parties, barbecues, festival excursions and naked laser tag”.
Nude pirate parties and laser tag … what a time to be alive.
