In itself, her name rings a sense of gentle beauty with firm resolve.
And, in herself, so it very much seems to be - which fills one with a deep pleasure that our dear Ian Scobie and team have done it again. They’ve picked a jewel to adorn WOMADelaide.
Reb’s lyrical name is well known in New Zealand, we hear. She’s a multi award winning songwriter. She’s just finished touring with Crowded House.
But Covid has been a patchy business for entertainers, Reb Fountain among them.
"I performed at WOMAD New Zealand,” she says. “It was my last gig before lockdown.”
WOMADelaide will be her first foray into Australia and she seems effervescent at the thought.
“It is pretty special and the band is excited."
Fountain has worked with her touring band of Dave Khan, Karin Canzek and Earl Robertson for two years now and, says she warmly, they feel "like family" to her.
Despite a music education in jazz, Fountain has evolved style which defies the pigeon holes of musical definition. Melodic, anthemic, sometimes ethereal.... Some cast it somewhere between "noir folk-punk" and pop. There’s an occasional zephyr of Kate Bush in there somewhere.
She undulates arms and sways, tossing a luxurious cascade of hair as she performs. She does not push out her songs. She uses the art of underplay and a subtlety which simply magnetises the attention. She is different.
“I enjoyed singing jazz and it taught me a lot but I don’t throw in any trills or frills to fill in the space in my songs. There’s no need to be flashy to communicate,” she says.
She relates to the word “nuanced".
She feels that hers is the style of the outsider, the person who does not belong.
She feels thus because, while she comes to us from New Zealand, it was from San Francsico that she came to New Zealand - aged 11 with hippie-spirited parents who had decided to migrate and then found it was more of a culture shock than perhaps they had anticipated, seeing Christchurch and the little town of Lyttleton where they had settled was not at all as progressive as San Francisco had been. They felt like outsiders then and, says Fountain, she has never lost that feeling.
But Lyttleton had a folky tradition and her family were of that ilk, raising her on a diet of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. So it comes to pass that today she cites Joni Mitchell and Joan Armatrading as subjects of her admiration and, above them all, Marianne Faithfull.
She attributes the “migrant family” phenomenon to her urge to write her own music.
“It was a way of making sense of myself and my relationship to the world,” she says.
“Although I had, had some formal education, most of what I have learned in life has been on the road, making mistakes, working on myself. It has been more a journey of inner work than practical. I’ve been trying not to be self-centred and impossible for people to relate to.”
As an interviewee on the phone from New Zealand, she conveys modesty and an engaging personality. She expresses herself as soul still growing and exploring the new.
“I’m 48 but I feel like a spring chicken,” she laughs.
“I had a lot of issues when I was young and they toughened me up and freed me so I became more able. Now I feel liberated.”
But she is not unencumbered. Fountain has a strong political conscience and she applies energy to causes such as climate change, lamenting the lack of action on that front. Injustice to the people of Palestine is another.
“Everywhere there is a lack of mindfulness,” she laments.
“In a market-driven economy it is difficult to be mindful, to remind people of the importance of mindfulness.”
Perchance the messages of her sublime music will offer just such reminders to people in these troubling times.
You can get a taste of her here: YouTube
Samela Harris
When: Fri 11th Mar / Sat 12th Mar
Where: Botanic Park / Tainmuntilla
Bookings: Womadelaide.com.au
Are disabled people “unseen” by the able-bodied?
Kelly Vincent thinks so. Indeed, she believes they have lived under assorted misconceptions, some of which she describes in words reminiscent of a Victorian novel.
"Either we are sad, sick, and sorry, sitting at home staring wistfully out of a rain-streaked window, or we are these inspirational, superhero mega-humans who have to be ‘overcoming’ our disabilities by doing extreme sports or something,” she says.
“But”, she swiftly asserts, "most of us don’t fit those stereotypes.”
Just as with the able, everyone has a different story.
The rise and rise of disability arts has been delivering those stories - right into the popular mainstream.
Theatre ever was one of the world’s greatest tools of communication.
Here in Adelaide, a big nod goes to Pat Rix who earned the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Adelaide Critics Circle for her foresight and vigour in founding the famous Tutti ensemble, now directed by Gaelle Mellis.
Kelly cut her performance teeth on the No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability. It was No Strings which last year teamed with Singapore’s Diverse Abilities Dance collective to do a pioneering cross-cultural Zoom production called SAME-SAME which drove home the message of human universality. Able or disabled, people of both worlds were sharing the same experience of Covid and lockdowns.
From her beginnings with No Strings, Kelly Vincent's talents have kept rising. She has become not just an actress, playwright, and poet but also an influential activist.
She is well remembered as a Member of the Legislative Council for the Dignity Party. She was aged just 21 in 2010 when elected, becoming the youngest member of the Parliament of South Australia and the youngest woman elected to any Australian parliament.
These days she is being hailed as creator of the True Ability Ensemble which is working with the renowned Alirio Zavarce to present this new show in the Festival Centre’s The Space. It opens on December 1.
It’s called UnSeen. It aims “to give disabled people the opportunity to tell their stories and be seen for who they really are.”
Hence, it features an all-star cast of disabled performers who are liberated to present the world from their own perspective. It’s a lively ride of true-story time delivered by the cream of professional theatre. It is clever, funny, heart-warming, sad, and surprising.
"Since leaving Parliament it has been a joy to get back to writing and theatre,” she says. "I’ve always felt like my realest self there.”
Kelly is not only one of the creators of UnSeen, she is one of its performers.
“I appear physically in about four scenes, but there is a lot more of me in the writing,” she expounds.
"Even though the writing is based on the experiences and words of the other cast members, as disabled people we have a lot of common experiences. It’s been an adventure finding the poetry and the humour in that.”
Kelly also has been enriched by her co-performers. She cites Wren Dow, a queer, neuro-divergent writer, actor, and hip hop dancer.
"I particularly love Wren’s monologue and dance,” she says. "It’s a really powerful statement about disabled people taking agency over our own bodies."
Wren is in good company.
Among them is Kym McKenzie who has been a disability theatre stalwart and star since joining No Strings Attached in about 1999. Restless Dance veteran Rachel High has extensive international experience and even a Best Performance nomination in the SA Screen Awards. Singer Sergei Jakube comes out of the Choir of Hard Knocks and Tutti. There’s Dion Allen, Ad'm Martin, the legendary Jamila Main, Jye Parry, Lucy Lopez Rivera, Justine van Eyssen along with a strong production team and, of course, the beloved director Alirio Zavarce at the helm alongside Kelly.
"It’s funny, when we attend meetings for True Ability together, it’s not uncommon for someone to assume Alirio is my boss,” reflects Kelly. "I guess it’s because he’s this able-bodied man with a big voice and even bigger energy. In fact, our work comes from a completely equal partnership where we encourage each other’s strengths and fill the gaps in each other’s knowledge. We have this connection where he can say 'I want you to write something like…' and make a bunch of vague gestures and I know what that means, and vice versa.”
Of course, it is not all smooth sailing. Artistic disagreements can arise.
"But we love and respect each other enough to tell each other when we’re falling short and take on that feedback. That’s important for any creative partnership and friendship. We know pretty much all of each other’s buttons and how to push them. But that’s the price you pay for the special love we have.”
Meanwhile, Kelly has other irons in the fire.
She keeps in touch with the human rights policies which are so important to her by working part-time for an LGBTIQA+ rights advocacy organisation.
And, she has just published a book, her first.
It is called Dandelion Heart and is a collection of essays and poetry on disability.
And there is another book in the wings.
As for Gravity, that State Theatre Young Guns award-winning play which in 2009 brought her talents to the attention of the arts world, it never did get produced.
"Producers, if you want a short black comedy about identity crises, love and mental health, email me,” she laughs.
Unseen
Kelly Vincent and Alirio Zavarce and the True Ability Ensemble
When: 1 and 2 Dec
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: ticketek.com.au
How seriously do we dare to take the promises of the cosmetics industry?
And, what is beauty, anyway?
Such are the questions which permeate the script of White Pearl, a dark comedy which headlines the 2021 OzAsia Festival.
It is the work of Australian/Asian playwright, Anchuli Felicia King. She is a bright millennial whose cross-cultural education and life experiences have given her a particular insight and perspective on the world of women in both Asian and Western cultures. Wherever women come from, the one thing they have in common is that they all want to seem younger-looking. They also seek to be more beautiful. And, as King pointedly laments, these are yearnings driven by a sense of shame and self-hatred inculcated by cultures and marketing.
This is what her play, White Pearl, explores, she says, this and the slippery world of skin creams.
The play is set in Singapore where a group of young women are touting a supposedly breakthrough whitening skin cream. Not all Australians will understand the Asian market for whitening creams since, as King points out, Western women are usually more interested in darkening their skin by tanning. White is not the white woman’s quest for chic.
But in some Asian cultures opposite values are attached to light skins. White can be deemed beautiful because it signals wealth and class.
So, while white women seek sunshine and tanning cosmetics, their Asian sisters are on the quest for a perfection of pearly white.
And, of course, the marketplace wants to sell to all of them, and its highly competitive strategies are riddled with “innovations”.
As one who has grown up amid Thai, Philippine, Australian and American friends and relatives, King has found a front row seat to observe the skincare nuances of all of them, finding certain common threads, and definitely streaks of sad irony.
Hence, her play takes a sardonic look at the contemporary beauty phenomenon and hence, successfully having touched a universal nerve in doing so, it has been produced in London, Washington DC, Sydney, and now, thanks to OzAsia artistic director Annette Shun Wah, it arrives in Adelaide.
With it, audiences will be learning the new word of “cosmiceuticals”.
“I have done a lot of research into the pseudo-science of ‘cosmiceuticals', says King.
“They go in fads and cycles of ingredients including strange things such as snail mucin and bee pollen, all mythologising anti-aging because people are desperate.
“The conversations around the world are changing. I think we are at an historical juncture.”
White Pearl does not leave the global conversation simply at skin creams but reaches into the depths of how skin defines race and how racism is expressed against blacks and Asians.
This conversation is hurled in the play by a skin cream advertisement which goes viral online and is deemed to be racially offensive.
Racial sensitivities and the ability to both express them and respond to them have been largely liberated by the Internet and, as one who has grown up with the internet, 27-year-old King has been observing the evolution of such conversations.
“The internet has defined how my generation thinks about politics,” she says,
"On the plus side, we are global and some are having empathetic conversations about race and gender. It allows us to get outside the local and national bubble and see others from their point of view."
King observes these evolving cross-cultural and cross-racial exchanges to be rising to what she calls “an historical juncture”.
White Pearl was King's first play and has been developed in productions through the collaborative chemistry of the rehearsal process. King says she finds this richly rewarding.
White Pearl was first produced in 2019 as was King’s next play Golden Shield which had its world premiere with the Melbourne Theatre Company. Golden Shield has been promised more productions in the UK and USA while her play, Slaughterhouse, was picked up by Melbourne Theatre Company and premiered at 25A, Belvoir. Another play, Keene, was awarded a New Contemporaries Award by the American Shakespeare Centre.
Hence, one may say that King is as prolific as she is promising as a playwright and she is the current Patrick White Fellow at the Sydney Theatre Company. Her latest work springs forth to the television in an imminent HBO series called The Baby.
She says she is driven by the love of finding and telling good stories. She is a dedicated researcher and says she researched a great deal as a foundation for White Pearl but, oddly, her preferred places for the subsequent act of writing tend to be public, particularly bookshops and airports.
It was easier in the pre-pandemic days when King’s life involved a lot of travelling as well as living and studying in New York. Indeed, she describes herself as “global” through both background, travel and world view.
A lot of the issues which beset Asian women, including the cosmetic quests illustrated in White Pearl, she attributes to the legacy of colonialism.
“The play tries to explore all our conversations about the changing world of beauty standards,” she explains.
“How dated they are.
“Now women are accepting their skin as it is.”
Who knows how this movement may influence the future world of the cosmiceuticals?
For the moment, White Pearl shows its present with a portrayal of the venality of a toxic corporate culture, but King injects this with a sharp sense of satire and, adding a smart cast has delivered a show which has been reviewed as fast and funny as well as pertinent and erudite.
Significantly, not only does this OzAsia production present a dark comedy about the cynical world of the dubious promises of beauty products, it also offers a springboard for the understanding of a millennial perspective. Perchance it signals the cutting edge of a much-needed new generational voice in the theatre generally.
Samela Harris
When: 20 to 23 Oct
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: ozasiafestival.com.au
In this dire time of pandemic Adelaide’s Holden Street Theatres is making thrilling history with its famous Edinburgh Fringe Award of 2021.
It is breaking ground where there is no ground to break.
It is rising above the limitations of covid and creating the theatre you have when you can’t have theatre with - wait for it - a special venue for international streaming!
The Edinburgh International Fringe’s winner of the famous Holden Street Award is coming to us hot from Canada with bells and whistles and its own cutting edge artistry and excitement.
“Leading the way forward,” laughs Holden Street’s Martha Lott.
“With international touring companies brought to a halt, we simply cannot get international’s fringe shows to our shores.
“It is now a requirement for the performing arts, and in particular theatre, to be able to offer work in both the live and digital formats that audiences across the globe are wanting.
“This is the way, if we are to support our artists in the future.
“With many international theatres only now opening doors to live audiences, they have focused on creating exceptional work for the screen, in some cases by reimagining previously staged theatre productions.”
The 2021 Holden Street Theatres Edinburgh Fringe Award winner is actually a positive slew of shows.
It leads off with:
The Darlings, a provocative evening of drag from Vancouver which, says Lott, is probably the most avant-garde of the winning pieces.
The Darlings feature non binary performers with the most exquisite of names - Continental Breakfast (Chris Reed), P.M. (Desi Rekrut), Maiden China (Kendell Yan) and Rose Butch (Rae Takei).
They are said to turn conventional drag upside down by exploring the "genderqueer, non-binary, and trans experience through the use of movement, poetry, performance art, theatre, and immersive installation.”
Not only but also, on the winning Holden Street ticket is The Boy in the Moon - a hit play about Canadian journalist Ian Brown’s life with a severely disabled son. It is written by Emil Sher and has been heralded as one off the most emotionally engaging productions of Canadian lockdown.
Then there’s Inside/Out: A Prison Memoir, a darkly vivid account of years spent inside a Canadian prison. True story and “darkly funny”, say the critics.
These striking works are part of the East Van to Edinburgh push, a really entrepreneurial global platform of theatre companies under the imprimatur of award-winning British producer Richard Jordan.
It is part of a production force called The Clutch, previously known as the Vancouver East Cultural Centre - a long-established and innovative Canadian arts hub.
2021 was the first year for this eclectic electric Edinburgh invasion from Canada and, covering some of the key artistic and social issues of the moment, its works certainly stirred the Holden Street soul. Its attention to First Nation artistes and concerns was among its attractions, along with diversity, disability and gender equality.
And here emerges the very positive new direction for international theatre presentation — the result of savvy theatre people who will not be defeated by the pandemic.
These positive arts entrepreneurs were quick to show their creative wares to Edinburgh and thence, by acclaim, to Holden Street.
Martha Lott said that the Holden Street judges had been steadily watching shows throughout the Festival month with keen entrants sending in links.
The Holden Street Fringe Award is now extremely well known and sought-after in Edinburgh.
Says Martha Lott:
"This is the only award of its kind in the world to tour work from Edinburgh to Adelaide, or in fact Australia and in the past thirteen years we have toured over 70 productions including award winners and many of the runner up shows, with winners such as Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum With Expats, Build a Rocket, Bound, Angel by Henry Naylor and the incomparable Flesh and Bone.”
Thus has Holden Street received more than 80 awards for its Fringe program from industry and media.
Similarly, it has earned very loyal audiences who have made clear that, come what may, they want to be at the venue for the Fringe.
“They have shown that they wanted to experience the atmosphere of the hub, not watch theatre online at home,” explains Lott.
“They wanted to watch their performing arts live and get back to their familiar and secure surroundings and engage socially at the venue. ‘
So, Holden Street provides a solution.
Yes, patrons can gather at the theatre and see international work.
They will be rewarded by an On Screen program in which shows will be presented in high quality digital format.
And, they will experience them in the comfort of armchairs in a spacious and swish lounge room, where they can enjoy luscious wine and cheeses from the Holden Street bar and café.
“This intimate cinema will house ten people who will enjoy an evening of great international theatre and entertainment,” declares Lott.
“And then they walk outside and see amazing live local theatre.”
Samela Harris
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com
Local South Australian youth theatre company Wings2Fly Theatre have announced an extension to their scholarship program. The company are excited to announce 12 fully funded scholarships are now available for eligible applicants for productions through to July 2022!
Established in 2017 and run by local arts industry professionals, Michelle Nightingale and Alicia Zorkovic, Wings2Fly Theatre offer workshops for 6 to 10 year olds (Juniors) and 10 to 21 year olds (Youth) during the school holidays. With several other organisations offering development opportunities in musical theatre and the respective disciplines, Wings2Fly Theatre has deliberately decided to focus their unique training program exclusively on spoken theatre craft and straight plays.
“We are all about supporting young actors and giving them the opportunity to gain practical professional knowledge of the theatre and stagecraft” says company co-director Michelle Nightingale.
“It is about giving young actors a taste of professional theatre, the expectation and the intensity of creating characters and live theatre, the thrill of the lights and the effect of the applause.”
Due to the generous support of local sponsors the Jeffery family, LR&M Constructions, Adelaide Theatre & More Social Club, and Jonathan Arts Centre, Wings2Fly Theatre now have 12 fully funded scholarships to their programs available for productions into 2022.
“We have always been conscious of the expense involved in quality acting training, and that this would exclude some young people who simply don't have the means or come from a disadvantaged background” explains co-director Alicia Zorkovic.
Zorkovic and Nightingale are incredibly grateful for the support of the company’s generous sponsors. “Jenn & Michael Jeffery's son, Byron, has been performing with Wings2Fly since January 2019, and they have been thrilled with his development as an actor” says Alicia.
“He has learnt to manage his ADHD”, she adds “and the standard of learning is something that the Jeffery’s want to support in other young actors.”
The 12 scholarships will be spread across the next three show seasons in October 2021, April 2022, and July 2022. Each holiday season will see support offered to two youth participants and two junior participants who many not have otherwise been able to take advantage of this training.
“We also have financial support available for regional students to assist with travel and accommodation” says Alicia.
“We are so excited to extend the opportunity state-wide,” adds Michelle.
“These positions are fully funded and include two tickets to one of the performances plus a Wings2Fly hoodie“.
Youth hopefuls are required to prepare a 10 minute individual audition to secure a place in the show.
“This is where the training starts,” says Alicia. “We work one on one with each student, providing feedback, advice and positive reinforcement.”
Once the plays are cast, costuming, sets and props are designed and sourced and the entire company comes together to meet each other prior to the commencement of rehearsals.
“They have a read through of the play, get professional headshots taken, and try on their costumes,” Alicia explains, “It's an opportunity to meet other cast members, eat pizza and ask any questions they may have.”
Workshops run Monday to Friday thereafter and consist of character and script analysis, blocking, and technical rehearsal. The company also has two special guest presenters at each holiday workshop to increase exposure to industry professionals.
“In the past we have had Paolo Castro, Rory Walker, Corey McMahon, Adrian Barnes, Jennifer Innes and Pat Wilson,” Michelle says.
The workshop culminates with four performances at Holden Street Theatres on the Saturday and Sunday at 2pm & 5pm.
“We want every young person who shows an interest or has a dream of being an actor to have the opportunity to receive a quality and supported education and performance experience” concludes Michelle, “And now they can!”
Further information about the scholarships and how to apply can be found at wings2flytheatre.com.au/scholarships
Paul Rodda
When: April, July, & October School Holidays
Where: Holden Street Theatre
More Info: wings2flytheatre.com.au