I discovered The Motley Bauhaus in probably the best way you can discover a place like The Motley Bauhaus: by getting slightly outside my comfort zone.
I recently did my first-ever open mic there, reading one of my poems in public for the first time. I wasn’t particularly sure what to expect walking in, and I was probably more focused on not completely butchering my poem than checking out the venue. But somewhere between arriving, getting up in front of a room full of strangers and surviving the experience, I realised I’d stumbled across somewhere pretty special.
Because The Motley Bauhaus isn’t really a bar. Or a theatre. Or a gallery. Or a live music venue.
It’s all of those things, often at the same time.
Sitting at 118 Elgin Street in Carlton, The Motley describes itself as a completely independent, multidisciplinary art and craft house. That sounds slightly grander than the reality of actually being there, which is refreshingly unpretentious. You can walk in for a drink without having the faintest idea what’s happening elsewhere in the building and potentially find yourself surrounded by theatre, comedy, poetry, jazz, cabaret, burlesque or an exhibition from an emerging artist.
And that seems to be the whole point.
The venue takes its inspiration from the original Bauhaus school founded in Germany in 1919, particularly the idea that different creative disciplines don’t need to exist in their own little bubbles. Artists, craftspeople, performers and audiences can actually occupy the same space, learn from each other and — radical concept — have some fun while doing it.
The building itself reflects that slightly chaotic creative philosophy. There are two live performance areas, including a more intimate theatre and an upstairs cabaret stage that can accommodate everything from stand-up and music to burlesque and presentations. There’s also a light-filled gallery supporting independent and emerging artists, workshop and studio spaces, rehearsal facilities and even a recording studio.
Then there’s the front bar.
It would be easy for the bar at a place like this to feel like an obligatory holding area before the “real” entertainment starts, but it’s actually part of the appeal. Pressed-tin walls, cocktails, boutique wines, beers, alcohol-free options and the sort of atmosphere where you can quite happily turn up without a ticket to anything. There’s free live music too, including jazz on Saturdays.
That crossover is what makes The Motley interesting.
Melbourne obviously isn’t short of bars. It isn’t short of theatres, galleries or comedy rooms either. What feels increasingly rare are places where those worlds collide without everything needing to be a major production.
Someone can try something.
Someone can suck at something.
Someone can get better at something.
Someone else can wander in for a beer and accidentally discover an artist they would never have encountered otherwise.
As someone who had literally never read a poem publicly before walking onto that open-mic stage, there’s something pretty cool about that. Creative spaces can sometimes feel intimidating from the outside, particularly when you’re not sure whether you qualify as a “real” writer, musician, comedian, actor or artist. The Motley seems deliberately built against that idea.
In fact, buried within its wonderfully unhinged manifesto is essentially a celebration of experimentation — of artists testing things, developing their craft, taking risks and occasionally failing spectacularly along the way.
That philosophy matters more than it might initially seem.
Independent artists need audiences, obviously. But they also need rooms. They need stages where the stakes aren’t enormous. They need somewhere to test ten minutes of comedy, read a poem for the first time, put a new work on a wall, rehearse something strange, play to 30 people or meet somebody working in a completely different discipline.
And audiences need those places too.
Not every night out needs to involve buying a $150 ticket six months in advance. Sometimes the best version of Melbourne is simply walking through a door, ordering a drink and having absolutely no idea what you’re about to encounter.
The Motley Bauhaus feels like one of those doors.
I walked through it because I wanted to read a poem.
I’ll be going back because I discovered everything else.
