The Year's Best Arts - Melbourne

There are just a couple weeks left of this god-awful year, thank fuck. The past 12 months have dished out enough disappointment, outrage and head-shaking bewilderment to last a lifetime, but it wasn't all bad. Melbourne's arts lovers were treated to a fair few reasons to feel a tiny bit hopeful that humanity hadn't totally lost the plot.

Melbourne's leading indie theatre venue, Fortyfivedownstairs, hosted several of the year's best productions. The Artisan Collective's production of Margaret Edson's 1996 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit, delivered, by this humble scribe's estimate, the most accomplished performance of 2016. Jane Montgomery Griffiths' portrayal of dying John Donne scholar Vivian Bearing was a masterclass in emotional intensity, capturing the horrors of losing a battle to cancer in graphic, undignified detail. Loud and proud cabaret icon Paul Capsis proved himself an agile chameleon in his account of the final days of Quentin Crisp's extraordinary life. Perfectly capturing the curdling wit and repulsive personal hygiene of the noxious British raconteur, Capsis revealed a touchingly vulnerable side to his range in the fascinating biopic, Resident Alien. Firebrand playwright Patricia Cornelius and her long-time collaborator, director Susie Dee, once again proved why their take-no-prisoners approach to theatre is so radically powerful in Shit, a study of dispossessed women, shunned by society and discarded on the socioeconomic slagheap.

Matthew Lutton, artistic director of Malthouse Theatre, cemented his reputation as Victoria's most significant director and one of the most exciting theatre-makers of his generation. Two newly penned adaptations of well-worn stories - Picnic At Hanging Rock and Edward II - both thrummed with Lutton's unique brand of creative tenacity. Neither were unanimous hits with the critics, but this work's divisive nature is surely a hallmark of its unapologetic boldness. Lutton's next adaptation, The Elephant Man, promises to be one of the must-see shows of 2017.

Indigenous theatre enjoyed a particularly fruitful 2016, and three shows in particular this year were striking in the way they galvanised the duality of the contemporary Indigenous experience, which simultaneously reacts to the zeitgeist while anchored to historical injustice. Ilbijerri Theatre's presentation of Jacob Boehme's frank yet affirming exploration of being black, gay and HIV-positive in Australia, Blood On The Dance Floor, offered a view of Indigenous life that is rarely seen, articulated in a powerfully beautiful way. Nakkiah Lui's Blaque Showgirls and hip hop cabaret Hot Brown Honey both told defiant and gloriously shameless stories of what it means to be a woman of colour in a society that still clings to colonial ideals.

Dance fans were also well served this year, with several standout productions gracing Melbourne's stages. The Australian Ballet's mounting of John Neumeier's Nijinsky, charting the rise and fall of the greatest male dancer of all time, was a proud showcase of the world class skill of this company's talented men. Queensland's Dancenorth toured to the Substation with its quirky double-bill If____ Was____. Featuring a duo of world premieres by Ross McCormack and Stephanie Lake, this stellar production paired fearless experimentation with brilliantly accomplished choreography.