arts-and-entertainment

Chris Cornell died by suicide, preliminary autopsy shows

The Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office said it completed the preliminary autopsy on the 52-year-old, but "a full autopsy report has not yet been completed".

Cornell's death stunned his family and his die-hard fans, for whom Cornell performed hours earlier at a show in Detroit.

Soundgarden's current tour kicked off in late April and was planned to run until May 27.

Breakdancing crew brings their unique style to the theatre

Nick Power has been a "B*boy" for 25 years and is the choreographer for a new theatre production, Cypher, which will run at the Melbourne Arts Centre.

"A hip-hop jam is mostly improvised and you're reacting to the music and the moment," he told News Breakfast.

"As I've choreographed Cypher, I've used that style and feeling and taken it into a more traditional theatre context, but still keeping it true to the culture of hip hop."

Mr Power said most breakdancers were self-taught and honed their craft by practising with their "crew".

Ballarat child sex abuse survivor seeks to inspire hope through photography

Peter Blenkiron's photographs are on show at the Art Gallery of Ballarat alongside video diaries and a documentary film about his story of abuse at the hands of Christian Brothers.

Blenkiron is seeking healing from the debilitating legacy of abuse that was inflicted on him as an 11-year-old by a St Patrick's College Christian Brother.

He says he wants the exhibition to inspire hope in other abuse survivors.

"There is a story that goes with the shots which shows that journey of hope and light no matter how dark it gets," he said.

Artists live stream painting process to raise awareness of mental health

Anglicare's Arts&Mind project has seen six south-east Queensland artists living with mental health challenges document their painting process via a social media live stream.

Each artist is expected to complete a work over an eight-hour period.

Snapshots of their progress are then uploaded to billboards throughout the city every 30 minutes.

It is the first project of its kind to run in Australia.

Anglicare's Trina McLellan developed the live art project to refocus people's concepts of mental health.

Dating after the death of a partner

When Sophie Townsend, a widowed mother-of-two, began to navigate the trails of virtual matchmaking, she uncovered a weird world inhabited by faux feminists, shocking spellers, and a meat-loving "vegan" who refused to eat during a dinner date as he'd just devoured a banana.

A few years had passed since her husband's death when friends of the Sydney-based author and creative audio specialist, started urging her to "get back out there".

"Compared to 'out there' I kind of quite like 'in here'," she said.

Weaving wonders to recycle single-use coffee cups

"I just thought we should have a very simple system to teach people how to weave," she said.

One billion single-use coffee cups are thrown out in Australia each year, equalling more than 60,000 kilograms in waste.

By taking a discarded cup and cutting lines from the lips to the base, the cup makes the perfect frame to weave weeds into a bowl.

"It's a quick way of making a little vessel or basket using a coffee cup and a few natural materials," Ms Cantrill said.

The Second Lady of the United States on her passion for art therapy

As Second Lady she is making it her mission to promote the profession of art therapy.

"I may just have a short period of time to be a good steward in this position, and one of the things I'm very passionate about is art therapy," she said.

In an exclusive interview with the ABC, Ms Pence said she believed art therapy not only changed lives, but saved lives.

She said she had seen art therapy used effectively for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for children with cancer, for children with autism who are nonverbal, and for trauma.

Devastated artists pull together for flood recovery

Many of the wooden frames were buckled and the canvases shredded. All of them were covered in a thick film of pungent mud.

"I had to walk away from it, I was that upset, I couldn't handle it," Mr Moran said.

"I told my friends to leave me alone and I took a knife and ran the knife through some of them that couldn't be saved."

Mr Moran's studio had been completely submerged by floodwaters in the northern New South Wales city of Lismore.

And, like many local business owners, Mr Moran was uninsured.

Ballarat keeps Doctor Blake alive as ABC kills off crime series

Locals and tourists alike crane past barriers to get a glimpse of the filming forĀ ABC TV's The Doctor Blake Mysteries.

But not this year.

The soon-to-be-aired fifth season of the murder mystery drama will be the last after the ABC announced the cancellation of the show earlier in the year.

Set in Ballarat in the 1950s, The Doctor Blake Mysteries follow the travails of a country doctor and his housekeeper who are drawn in to solve crimes that often stump the local police.

Monkey (Magic): Here's why '80s kids loved the original TV show

That sentence will either get you jumping up to start shadow kung-fu fighting the person closest to you, cause you to break out into kitschy song or make you go, "pardon?".

There are basically two types of people in the world; those whose childhood afternoons were spent watching Monkey and those who have no idea what's going on right now.

If you're part of the former group, prepare for a walk down memory lane. If you're in the latter, you are about to get educated.

Why are we suddenly talking about Monkey?