ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.
Listen "'Dance Hall Days' by Christos Tsiolkas, read by Alex Dimitriades"
Episode Synopsis
In this week's episode we're going to hear 'Dance Hall Days' by Christos Tsiolkas, read by Alex Dimitriades.
Tsiolkas is the Melbourne-born, Greek-Australian author, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter internationally known for his award winning novels, Dead Europe, Loaded, The Slap, and Barracuda.
In this story, we meet Dimitri and Marlene, former friends who haven’t seen each since the 1980s Melbourne’s party and music scene. The story is from the anthology Into Your Arms: Nick Cave’s Songs Reimagined. Twenty Australian writers were asked to write a short story in response to a Nick Cave song.
‘Dance Hall Days’ is Tsiolkas’s riff on that Nick Cave challenge – a moving story about having been young, getting older, forgiving shitty parents and Melbourne’s 1980s music scene, back in the days when Nick Cave was just starting out.
‘Dance Hall Days’ is read by Alex Dimitriades. There’s quite a history between these two creatives, with Dimitriades starring in the film Head On, adapted from Tsiolkas’s first novel, Loaded. He’s also starred in the Slap, based on Tsiolkas’s hugely popular novel. Alex Dimitriades is known for many other film and television roles including Heartbreak High, The Slap, Total Control and The Tourist. He won the Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Actor for his role in Head On.
Into your arms: Nick Cave's Songs Reimagined, Fremantle Press, 2023.
StorySALOON is hosted by Jane Messer. Find out more about StorySALOON's live shows and podcasts at www.storysaloon.com.au
Tsiolkas is the Melbourne-born, Greek-Australian author, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter internationally known for his award winning novels, Dead Europe, Loaded, The Slap, and Barracuda.
In this story, we meet Dimitri and Marlene, former friends who haven’t seen each since the 1980s Melbourne’s party and music scene. The story is from the anthology Into Your Arms: Nick Cave’s Songs Reimagined. Twenty Australian writers were asked to write a short story in response to a Nick Cave song.
‘Dance Hall Days’ is Tsiolkas’s riff on that Nick Cave challenge – a moving story about having been young, getting older, forgiving shitty parents and Melbourne’s 1980s music scene, back in the days when Nick Cave was just starting out.
‘Dance Hall Days’ is read by Alex Dimitriades. There’s quite a history between these two creatives, with Dimitriades starring in the film Head On, adapted from Tsiolkas’s first novel, Loaded. He’s also starred in the Slap, based on Tsiolkas’s hugely popular novel. Alex Dimitriades is known for many other film and television roles including Heartbreak High, The Slap, Total Control and The Tourist. He won the Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Actor for his role in Head On.
Into your arms: Nick Cave's Songs Reimagined, Fremantle Press, 2023.
StorySALOON is hosted by Jane Messer. Find out more about StorySALOON's live shows and podcasts at www.storysaloon.com.au
More episodes of the podcast StorySALOON
In the SALOON with Jake Dean and Adam Dunn
30/09/2025
In God we trust