Adapted from a Media Release
The Adelaide Festival Centre has announced a new fellowship program for a young South Australian Aboriginal arts worker who aspires to a rewarding career in the arts.
An endowment from Richard Ryan AO made the new position possible. Commencing in March 2015 the 12 month Fellowship will go to an individual who is keen to develop a career in the arts. In 2015/16 the role will have a particular focus on programming and marketing of Indigenous work. The successful candidate will also be working on the GreenRoom Program (Adelaide Festival Centre’s youth arts membership program for 18 to 30 year olds), and attracting younger and multicultural audiences.
Richard Ryan AO says “This is an outstanding opportunity for a young South Australian to step into the fascinating world of the arts. This is hands-on experience in a world-class arts organisation and the aim of this fellowship is to set this young person on a course to future success as an arts leader.”
The original Steel Fellowship was created in 2000 in recognition of the Adelaide Festival Centre’s first CEO and distinguished Arts Administrator and Artistic Director, Anthony Steel. It provided 12 months of intensive professional experience in South Australia’s centre of creativity and heart of the arts.
Anthony Steel says “I am delighted that the Anthony Steel fellowship has expanded this year into the Steel Ryan fellowship, which has enabled the Festival Centre to employ its first Aboriginal arts worker to join the administrative team."
Adelaide Festival Centre CEO & Artistic Director Douglas Gautier says “For many years the Adelaide Festival Centre has nurtured the careers of young arts administrators under auspices of the Anthony Steel fellowship, named for the AFC’s first director Anthony Steel. This year, following a generous donation by former AFC Chairman and current Chairman of the Adelaide Festival Richard Ryan, we are able to offer the Steel Ryan Fellowship with a focus on the programming and audience development for indigenous work. We are grateful to both Anthony and Richard for their continued support and mentorship for the Adelaide Festival Centre.”
The Adelaide Festival Centre has today released its 2015 program of events.
All of the usual suspects are in there with programs from the Adelaide Festival, State Theatre Company of South Australia, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Windmill Theatre, The Australian Ballet, Australian Dance Theatre, Come Out Festival, Cabaret Festival, Oz Asia, Greenroom and more.
The full program will feature over 211 performances and 845 artists; 137 of which will be international guests from the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, United States, Argentina, Germany, Russia and Scotland. Of particular note, more than 450 of the performers will be South Australian locals.
“We strive for excellence and the 2015 season is testament to that and puts a very large spotlight on the arts in Adelaide” says Festival Centre Artistic Director and CEO, Douglas Gautier.
“Here at the Festival Centre we continuously work with other arts organisations to bring you concerts, shows and exhibitions that would not otherwise be possible.”
In usual style the New Year will be kicked off with a big budget main stage show in ‘Thriller Live!’ The theatrical concert spectacular celebrates the songs and dance-moves of legendary entertainer Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five. The show, which has played on London’s West End since 2009, entered the record books this year as the 20th longest running musical in West End history.
Returning for their third instalment ‘The Illusionists 1903’ will grace Adelaide stages once again featuring a band of eight world-class illusionists from across the globe. After finishing their second world tour on Broadway in New York, the world premiere of this new production which showcases the ‘Golden Age of Magic’ will play in Australia in January 2015.
For music lovers there will be plenty of choice in addition to the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s programming with more ‘Morgans International Piano Series’ concerts, ‘Cocktail Concerts with Niki Vasilakis’, the ‘Count Basie Orchestra’, ‘Musica Viva’s’ 70th birthday recital tour, ‘Max Raabe and Palast Orchester’ and ‘An Aids Activist’s Memoir in Music’.
Lovers of Monty Python won’t be disappointed by a one night only performance from the man himself, Michael Palin, live on stage and in a South Australian first the ‘National Play Festival’ will be hosted here, celebrating the very best of new Australian theatre.
There will be dance-galore with performances from ‘The New Zealand Dance Company’, ‘Sydney Dance Company’, ‘The Australian Ballet’, and ‘Australian Dance Theatre’ each bringing their own unique programs and as part of the inSpace program two of Australia’s most exciting dance collaborators, Lisa Griffiths and Adam Synnott, will present the world premiere of ‘Chance’ a piece inspired by science fiction; a study on humanity’s beginnings, behaviours and cycles.
The centre’s popular festivals will remain key to the 2015 program with the ‘Come Out’ festival, the ‘Cabaret Festival’, the ‘Oz Asia’ festival and the ‘Guitar Festival’ each delivering their own unique blends of art and music. Also, the new bar ‘The River Deck’ will become a destination of choice as the weather warms up with live music every Friday and Saturday night in a new program called ‘Summer Sessions on the River Deck’.
Whatever your artistic persuasion, the Adelaide Festival Centre’s 2015 season has something for you – and we havent even scratched the surface! More information and the full program is available online at adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au.
Paul Rodda
When: 2015
Where: Adelaide Festival Centre
Bookings: bass.net.au and adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au
It’s back! The Adelaide Convention Centre will once again play host to the Cellar Door Wine Festival in Adelaide in 2015.
Launched on the Torrens with a boat cruise aboard the Popeye on Thursday 23rd of October, the 2015 event promises to be everything of previous years and more. The multi award winning event will showcase over 170 food and wine producers between the 20th and 22nd of February next year.
The event can be enjoyed in many different ways over the 3 days including master classes, complimentary tastings, demonstrations and more.
Wander through 15 wine regions while enjoying samples of the amazing food and wine on offer. The regions will include the Adelaide Plains, Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley, Coonawarra, Clare Valley, Eden Valley, Yorke Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, Langhorne Creek, Limestone Coast, McLaren Vale, Padthaway, Riverland and more!
There are scheduled events on every day, like ‘Sexy Cheese’ between 6 and 7pm on the opening night Friday, the ‘SA Seafood and White Wine Showcase’ on Sunday at 4pm and a ‘Long Table Lunch and Brunch’ on both Saturday and Sunday to choose from.
Don’t despair if you are not a wine drinker though – there is also a selection of Beer and Cider samples available for tasting from a host of local brewers.
If it’s education you are after you would be crazy to miss out on the master classes on offer. The 2015 event will see 6 masters classes available. Friday’s 6pm class ‘Sexy Cheese’, presented by Valerie Henbest & NWETC Wine Educator, will tantalise your tastebuds with its decadent cheese and wine pairing. Cheese will be transformed into sensual soul food ranging from gooey softs to bitey cheddars.
Saturday at 11:30am, Matt Skinner will present the ‘Plumm Wine Glass Experience’ to show participants how the right glass can mean the difference between a good glass of wine and a great one. Then Valerie Henbest is up again at 2pm with ‘Four Seasons of Cheese’. Henbest, a cheese importer, consultant and renowned national cheese judge will walk participants through a range of delightfully flavoursome cheeses, all paired by an internationally renowned winemaker who will introduce you to some new combinations that will both surprise and delight the senses!
On Saturday afternoon ‘Party Favourites and Plumm’ kicks off with hosts Matt Skinner and Tze Khaw who will be giving a whirlwind tour of the newest and most exciting varietals making a splash in the wine world. As well as some amazing wines the class will include the tastiest party canapés in a new twist on modern party food that will take the stress out of entertaining.
Sunday’s events include the ‘ SA Seafood and Light Wine Showcase’ hosted by Tze Khaw, Neil Pyke & Angie Del Medico. The class will bring two of South Australia’s world renowned products – seafood and wine – together, and place them in the perfect pairings! ‘Aging Gracefully’ is the last of the master classes and will see Valerie Henbest & Rhys Howlett sharing their expertise on the cheese aging process and how to make a great cheese selection.
Tickets for all of these classes and more events are available for purchase from cellardoorfestival.com during pre-sale, or at the door on the day for a small additional fee.
But this doesn’t even scratch the surface of the events on offer over the 3 day festival; there’s interactive tastings by TAFESA, a Penfolds Collection Master Class, the Varietal View interactive wine hub, Meet the Maker demonstrations, a Farmers Market and heaps more. The event will run from 5-9pm on Friday February 20, then from 11am to 6pm on the Saturday and Sunday.
Foodies, wine lovers and Radelaidians alike would be crazy to miss this event! So get in quick while places in the master classes are still available.
Paul Rodda
When: 20 to 22 Feb
Where: Adelaide Convention Centre
Bookings: cellardoorfestival.com
"Like a kids' nativity play gone bonkers".
That is an odd descriptive drawcard for an Adelaide Festival show - but then again, a theatre company which dubbed itself Stan's Cafe after the cafe in which it met, is hardly likely to be hidebound.
Hence, as Stan's Cafe brings a production with the deeply earnest title of ‘The Cardinals’ and even presents it in a church, it is anything but old-fashioned theatre. It is a religious experience of the most alternative kind. According to Stan's Cafe artistic director James Yarker, it is as good for atheists as it is for Christians. It can be interpreted in many ways, even as a "Marxist construct."
It tells the story of the world's creation but, at the same time, it sends it up just a little bit. The audience gets to see not only the actors performing their given roles but also the actors in their backstage environment - simultaneously.
"There are dozens of costume changes going on backstage," explains Yarker from the company's base in Birmingham, England. This is all because the three cardinals were intending to present their religious story with puppets and went to the trouble of making wonderful sets for them. When the puppets went missing, the crimson-robed cardinals turned on the show without them - doing a lot of it wordlessly.
"They are massively keen on doing the show but they are not good theatre makers and they make a lot of kids' errors like tweaking the curtains to look out on the audience,' says Yarker.
"They're very earnest but also absurd.
"The show looks ravishing but their performance style is quite naive.
"To get Jesus walking on water on top of the set, they have parallel bars.
"While the audience can concentrate attention inside the proscenium and it is beautiful, you also see the cardinal struggling to keep his position above.
"It is inside/outside, slapstick, with lots and running around outside while inside a beautifully serene scene is taking place."
Yarker says that it was talks in the British media about British presence in the Middle East and the Crusades which sparked his interest in creating The Three Cardinals. "It got me reading about the Crusades, old and current situations in the Middle East and their parallels. The Crusades are not that fascinating but what excited me was that when the Crusades were not happening, people got on really well and it was so peaceful. Why there were crusades needed explaining."
Onwards from the beginning of the world to the end of the world and this unusual production of Bible stories.
But there is one other element - a woman. And she is a Muslim. She is the company stage manager.
"The cardinals take her for granted but she is crucial to the show," says Yarker "When she downs tools, their show falls apart.
"Her part allows us to show how much the Bible is shared in both religions. It allows us to reflect on the notion of martyrdom and that one person's martyr is another person's terrorist."
The Syrian-born performer who usually plays this role encountered visa problems and can't tour so one Rochi Rampal, a Birmingham actress has learned the part in a hurry.
Among the cast, there are varied religious stances - one practising Anglican, one non-practising Roman Catholic, one whose father is a Methodist preacher and an atheist.
But, while the cardinals had an evangelistic hope with their puppet play, Stan's Theatre Company sees ‘The Cardinals’ more as a play that is interested in religion's place in society. "Provocative but not controversial" is how the company wishes to come across. Hence, such a grand concept as the hand of God is shown as a hand appearing from aloft to the Bible characters on the set but, aloft, for all the theatre world to see, is the actor playing the cardinal, reaching his hand down from above.
This Festival event will be the first Adelaide appearance for James Yarker but the company has a history here. "We've done a couple of WomAdelaides," he says.
"Those who came had a fantastic time here."
Their last appearance was at the Earth Station in Belair National Park, Stan's Cafe presented ‘Of All the People in the World’, a work which revolved around grains of sand representing populations of the world. And after the Festival, they are off to Tokyo and their next project about when Japanese silent film had live commentators.
Samela Harris
The Cardinals. Part of the Adelaide Festival 2015
When: 11 to 14 March
Where: Flinders Street Baptist Church
Bookings: bass.net.au or adelaidefestival.com.au
The State Theatre Company of SA unveiled its 2015 program in the way in which it wishes to be seen. Not a bit like the conventional season program launch, this event was delivered with a glamor of carefully considered production values. A darkened stage arrayed with a hanging garden of spot-lit costumes, a large video screen backdrop, a grand piano illuminated OP and a lectern on prompt.
The aesthetic spoke of mystery and expectation.
And so it was.
But first, General Manager and patriarch Rob Brookman was to triumph the immense successes of the past season of the State Theatre Company - sellout shows, a quarter of million in sheer profit and an exciting future in discarding the 42 years of government statutory authority to burst forth as a free entity in brand new premises which were to be announced at the launch but now cannot.
Now, here's Geordie to do the 2015 program reveal.
Therein, top actors Nathan O'Keefe and Kate Cheel entered to occupy their own spot-lit spots and, as Geordie offered teasers on each show, they performed extracts of the script before, if the theatre-wise audience did not recognise the style, Geordie announced the name of the play itself and then stars of said shows extrapolated on their roles and the characters of the plays on the big video screen.
This was altogether stylish and effective - a classy, no-expenses-spared unveiling from a company riding high on its success.
The forthcoming season was very well received. It is a ripper of a season with luscious treats for everyone.
It bursts forth with a thrill of little-performed Beckett as the STC's Adelaide Festival 2015 star turn.
The ‘Beckett Triptych’ consists of Footfalls, Eh Joe & Krapp's Last Tape performed in the STC Scenic Workshop and starring Peter Carroll, Pamela Rabe and Paul Blackwell and directed by Geordie Brookman, Nescha Jelk and Corey McMahon.
The Ray Lawler classic, ‘Summer of the Seventeenth Doll’ will hit the Playhouse in April and an ambitious all-the-family co-production of Masquerade, a Kate Mulvany adaptation of Kit Williams's book, will come to Her Majesty's before touring in May.
Harold Pinter's ‘Betrayal’ and Ben Jonson's ‘Volpone’ (or The Fox) follow and then Angela Betzien's crime thriller play, ‘Mortido’, will have its world premiere in the Dunstan Playhouse in October.
‘The Popular Mechanicals’, as originally directed by Geoffrey Rush and written by Keith Robinson and Tony Taylor with William Shakespeare will amuse and close the season in The Space in November.
But, there's more on the program – ‘This is Where We Live’, a State Ed co-production with Hothouse, a State Extra return of Miriam Margolyes in ‘The Importance of Being Miriam’ and a State Umbrella presentation of ‘Madame, the Story of Joseph Farrugia’, otherwise known as Madame Josephine of the Crazy Horse. This, a co-production with Vitalstatistix and Torque Show productions with Farrugia in interview with Ross Ganf.
New fundraising initiatives and a different form of State Friends were announced, and commissioned plays under the Jill Blewett umbrella. Six shows would tour and STC would feature in hosting the four-day National Play Festival 2015.
Watch this space to see how the season unfolds.
Samela Harris