Regional Arts Australia promotes the development of the arts for the one-in-three Australians that live in regional, rural and remote parts of the country. Our members give country Australians access to outstanding cultural experiences that are either home grown or tour from other towns and cities. In this way, Regional Arts Australia gives a voice to artists and puts culture at the heart of community life across country Australia.
welcome
Welcome to the new-look Regional Arts Australia newsletter, my first official newsletter since taking on the role of national communications manager in the closing days of 2006. It has been a busy few months, immersing myself in the culture of the organisation, meeting the members of the vast regional arts network and attending a variety of forums where the place of art in regional Australia is at the heart of just about every conversation. Among the many pleasures of this job has been talking daily to people in corners of the country sometimes thousands of kilometres from my work desk. I’d thought my geography was pretty good, but I’m discovering whole towns, communities, regions I’d known little or nothing about. Places where great art is happening each day and people’s lives are made vastly better by seeing, hearing, being part of something special, something unexpected, something beyond the everyday. Often they are things that began as an idea by one person such as the Cossack Art Exhibition in the historic disused mining town of Cossack in the Pilbara. Its genesis was in 1991 when the town’s caretaker, Brian Hoey, wondered if hanging a few painting by local artists in the newly restored Post and Telegraph Office might bring some visitors to town. It worked. Last year, five thousand people visited Cossack and its glorious restored granite and bluestone buildings to see 300 works by some of Australia’s leading artists. The Cossack Art Prize is now the richest acquisitive regional art prize in Australia.
It’s a great pleasure to welcome our new federal minister, Senator George Brandis SC. In Melbourne in February, members of Regional Arts Australia had a farewell dinner with the man who’d supported regional arts in the federal arena for the last four years, Senator the Honourable Rod Kemp. His passion and commitment to supporting the arts in regional Australia was the stuff of legends and we wish him well in his retirement. We all look forward to getting to know Senator Brandis and working with him to provide people in the bush with the same creative opportunities as those living in metropolitan Australia. We are delighted that Senator Brandis has agreed to visit our headquarters in Port Adelaide to announce our half a million dollar round of Regional Arts Fund projects in June.
This newsletter in no way seeks to comprehensively list each big arts event happening in regional Australia. That would be impossible, In any case, each state regional arts office produces an excellent newsletter that covers the stories in their State. The aim of this newsletter is simply to give the flavour of what’s happening around Australia - big events, tiny events, the stories that delight, inspire, excite.
Vivienne Skinner
Communications Manager
Regional Arts Australia
vivienne.skinner@countryarts.org.au
Disappointment in the arts budget for the one-third of Australians living in the bush
The Secretary of Regional Arts Australia, Mr Ken Lloyd, has expressed disappointment that a bid totalling $60 million over four years had failed to gain support in this month's Federal Budget. “Just over one-third of Australians live in regional, rural and remote communities,” said Mr Lloyd “It is the regions that are doing the heavy lifting for Australia right now and it is disappointing not to have this recognised.
“They are supplying a lion's share of the national wealth that the budget papers document. “Our bid was result of a two year national consultation process with many thousands of people right around the country. “It was highly considered and would have greatly improved the opportunities for regional Australians to see, hear, enjoy and participate in a rich and varied artistic life in their communities,” said Mr Lloyd.
“Again and again we find that people in regional Australia are great supporters of the arts. More than their city counterparts, they grab opportunities to be part of locally initiated arts projects and turn up in great numbers to shows and exhibitions.” “We will now be reviewing our bid to see how it could be more successful next budget round.”
Regional Arts Australia is the peak body for the national network of regional arts organisations delivering arts programs across the country. During 2005, RAA undertook arguably the regional arts sector's most comprehensive ever national consultation into the future needs and aspirations of people living outside the metropolitan centres.
The six budget priorities were:
- A national regional arts day every second year where up to 40 regional communities would participate in significant community celebration;
- A biennial regional capital of culture program where one regional centre would be given the opportunity to showcase new programs and activities with long-term, tangible and sustainable outcomes;
- A pilot program to better use libraries as arts hubs;
- New funding to create better opportunities for young people;
- Touring high-quality shows to smaller, isolated and remote communities;
- Funding to improve local arts infrastructure so that they are in a better position to receive high quality touring shows and exhibitions.
Further information: Vivienne Skinner 0411 206 224, Ken Lloyd 0401 126 070
New President
Regional Arts Australia held its annual general meevclientsting on May 10 and elected Broome-based publisher, Ms Suzie Haslehurst, as its new President. She replaces Ms Meg Larkin, from Tamworth in NSW, who has been chair of the organisation since 2005.“I wish to publicly thank outgoing president, Ms Meg Larkin, whose contribution to our organisation and to the arts across regional Australia has been extraordinary,” says Ms Haslehurst. “She has steered the organisation through an extremely busy two years, which included a major national consultation, the creation of a new set of directions for Regional Arts Australia, a summit in Canberra and the national conference in Mackay last October attended by 750 delegates.”
“It is a privilege to take over from Meg at the helm of this dynamic organisation. Living and working in a remote regional area, I'm a passionate advocate for the arts as I see every day the benefits they bring to regional communities.” Ms Haslehurst is the Chair of Country Arts WA and a graduate of the Academy of Performing Arts in Perth. She has worked in educational administration, setting up arts programs and managed one of Western Australia's leading dance companies for ten years.
She lives in Broome and is the General Manager of Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation, a highly respected national publisher of Indigenous arts and culture established in 1987.
Walk my Path, Feel My Rhythm
Two remote communities, two cultures, two worlds are to meet via the beauty, humour and magic of circus. In a first for the children of Ernabella Anangu School four hours south west of Alice Springs in the remote Pitjantjatjara Lands of South Australia, ten children will leave their desert homes for the first time in August for the 3,000 kilometres trip to Christmas Island, the bridge between Australia and Asia. They are part of the Pukatja Youth Circus, a group started eight years ago by members of Kindred Circus and in September they will travel to Christmas Island to create a performance with students from the Christmas Island District High School. Kindred Circus’s writer and choreographer, Sally Richardson, says for many of the children of Ernabella, it will be the first time they have left their desert community. “They haven’t seen the sea, flown in an aeroplane, or seen a jungle landscape.” The 20 children they will be working with on Christmas Island are from many ethnic backgrounds including Malay, Indonesian, Islander and European and religious faiths - Buddhist, Moslem and Christian. “Christmas Island is a giant volcanic atoll covered in thick jungle so it will be a totally different environment for the Ernabella children,” says Richardson. Circus has been an active part of Ernabella life for eight years, with two generations of young people now skilled in the art. Training involves back-flips down sand dunes and somersaults off the boughs of trees. Training was made easier when the Ernabella Anangu School provided an air-conditioned room. Richardson says although the cheapest route to Christmas Island was via Singapore, this was ruled out because many of the Ernabella children had no birth certificate and no passport. They will now fly via Perth. The Kindred Circus team is made up of professionals who have been part of other circuses such as the Flying Fruit Fly Circus and Circus Oz. Its director is Stephen Burton, the former associate director of Circus Oz.
Further information: www.ernabella.sa.edu.au/circus
Now big art: how the little beanie grew and grew
It unites communities, generates income, brings thousands of visitors and teaches economically valuable skills to town camp residents. The remarkable Beanie Festival, now 11 years old, will run this year from 29 June until 7 July with the theme My Journey. People not able to attend the festival can catch a national tour of up to 80 beanies from the 2006 festival which are beginning their tour at the South Australian Museum from 18 May - 15 July..
Last year, 10,000 visitors attended the festival and bought 2,800 beanies created by 160 beanie makers from Australia, New Zealand and Japan. In collaboration with Indigenous beanie artists, the festival team also took the beanie making craft to seven town camps, allowing residents to participate in a creative and economically sustainable activity from their homes. Several women from the camps entered their beanies in the 2006 National Beanie Competition.
Organisers write: “Pitjantjatjara and Arrernte peoples trace beanies back to a time before white people. The mukata were worn as ceremonial headdress, made from human hair and emu feathers. Old men would often store sacred objects under their mukata. Elders are still known to keep a car key or photo of a grandchild under their beanie. The indigenous and Western beanie traditions intersect almost magically in Alice Springs. It’s the weather. The Central Australian winter is both cold and dry—a perfect time to camp out with a swag and beanie.
On its own, this shared use of beanies would remain a curious cultural coincidence. However, one beanie lover was inspired to use this cultural intersection as a bridge between the two cultures. The result is what’s known today as the Alice Springs Beanie Festival.
The Beanie Festival began six years ago when an education officer started using crochet as a way of winning the trust of women in an Aboriginal community. Adi Dunlop found that more beanies were being made than could be used. She decided to put the excess beanies on sale at the Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs. They sold out instantly, encouraging her to initiate a regular event. Word began to spread around the fibre world and beanies were soon flooding in from all over Australia.”
This year, further workshops are being held for residents of the remote communities of Yuendumu, Mt Liebig, Areyonga and Titjikala. The workshops have been made possible by a $10,000 grant from the Commonwealth Government’s Regional Arts Fund. Further information: Jo Nixon 08 8952 2615 www.beaniefest.org
Regional Arts – the way forward
Regional Arts Australia has prepared a major action plan and presented six funding proposals for 2007/2008 – 2011/2012 to the Australian Government, all aimed at strengthening the arts in regional and remote communities. The plan emerged from a national summit held in Parliament House in Canberra last year with sector leaders, decision-makers and service organisations hosted by the then Federal Minister for the Arts, Senator Rod Kemp. The priorities to emerge from the summit included improving recognition of regional arts, extending the network and improving partnerships with local government, extending opportunities for Indigenous arts and improving arts facilities in regional towns.
The funding proposals presented to the Federal Government are: a National Regional Arts Day, a regional Capital of Culture, a pilot program to use libraries as local arts hubs, a funding program aimed at young people, better opportunities for high-quality touring shows to perform in smaller, isolated and remote communities and a major capital works program. Further details: www.regionalarts.com.au
Big wet no bar to entries in 2007 Telstra prize
Organisers of this year’s 24 th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award are delighted at the quality and quantity of entries received for this year’s award. Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory director Anna Malgorzewicz said 307 entries had been received, ten more than last year. “When you consider the high level flooding and heavy rain that affected Top End communities such as Oenpelli and Maningrida earlier this year, the number of entries received is even more remarkable. What is also pleasing is the number of entries we received not only from the Northern Territory but also interstate, with almost 90 from the NT/SA/WA Desert and Kimberley/Pilbara regions, 32 from Queensland, 13 from Victoria and 11 from New South Wales. Prize money for the Telstra Award is $40,000 with an additional four categories each valued at $4000. This year’s Award ceremony and presentation night at will take place at the Museum and Art Gallery on 10 August with works on display until 18 November 2007. Further information: (08) 8999 8220
Out of the kitchen, the saleyards, the schoolroom and onto the stage
Last year, it was Songs in the Key of Bloke. It was inevitable then that this year’s Moorambilla Festival in Coonamble in the NSW north-west would feature Songs in the Key of She. The brainchild of musician, singer and conductor Michelle Leonard, who lives in Sydney but grew up in Coonamble, the three day September festival will this year bring hundreds of non-professional singers out of the sale-yards, off the tractors, out of the kitchen and onto the stage. “When I grew up in Coonamble, I was given so many opportunities to develop my musical potential. Those opportunities aren’t there anymore. The great thing about voice is that everyone has one. It costs nothing to use. It’s the simplest of instruments.” Singers come from right across the State’s northwest – from Cobar, Bourke, Warren, Brewarrina, Lightning Ridge, Walgett and farms and communities in between. To recruit the ‘blokes’ for last year’s festival, Leonard directly approached farmers in their paddocks and urged them to join in. “Many of them didn’t think singing was a blokey thing to do. But farming can be a solitary thing and joining a choir has given a whole new dimension to their lives. Often, they can sing alongside their father’s and sons.” It’s also a chance to mix with city people because Leonard also brings several choirs from Sydney to join the September singing fest where they can also enjoy a vast array of musical and artistic workshops. “We shut the main street on the Saturday and do workshops on everything from gospel singing to making street lanterns and Indigenous baskets.” This festival, the focus has been on attracting women and girls to join in the various choirs, a process Leonard has found far easier than getting the blokes signed up. “Women have been leaping at the opportunity, especially after seeing what a wonderful time the men had last year.” And like last year, Leonard is encouraging the participation of school children. She recently completed a nine day trek across eight rural shires where she conducted 58 singing workshops and auditioned 132 children. In total, she expects around 400 singers to be part of the three days of singing festivities from 14 to 16 September, including a massed performance in Coonamble’s historic art deco Plaza Theatre where performers will sings works including original compositions by one of Australia’s most acclaimed young composers, Dan Walker. Further information: www.moorambilla.com
Fresh and Salty = water + art
Water and the lack of it will be the centrepiece of a major two-year project by Regional Arts Victoria called Fresh and Salty. Like most of Australia , Victorians are learning to adjust to the force of on-going drought. Regional Arts Victoria’s manager of creative communities, Susan Strano, says water often shapes a community’s identity as well as its economic, cultural and leisure activities. “We will be calling on our network of Regional Arts Development Officers to help show the role that artists can play in providing positive ways for communities to express their concerns about how water influences and supports our way of life,” says Ms Strano. Stage one of Fresh and Salty will involve the creation of five art projects using differing mediums such as film and animation, mosaic and architecture and public art and sculpture in five regional areas including Wimmera, Ballarat and Gippsland. A theatre performance using regional theatre practitioners will form the projects second stage, with an accompanying mentoring and touring program. Further information: Susan Strano, Regional Arts Victoria 03 9644 1800.
Regional Arts Australia offers skills training for Indigenous workers
Regional Arts Australia has won a Federal Government bid to train Indigenous arts volunteers in regional and remote communities. Two as yet unspecified communities will be selected to be part of a pilot program which will get underway shortly. Last year, Regional Arts Australia undertook a scoping project to identify barriers and provide strategies to improve the take-up by Indigenous people of the organisation’s Creative Volunteering – No Limits program. The volunteering program has been operating successfully within mainstream regional and remotes arts communities since 2002, offering training in many management fields including the creation of business plans, marketing plans and working with collections. RAA’s chief executive, Ruth Smiles, says literacy and numeracy levels, the remoteness of the some of the communities and the fact that for many of them English is a second language, are just some of the challenges to be addressed by the pilot program.
A Taste of Tamworth Country Music for WA
They might live on the other side of the continent but regional WA communities are enjoying their own taste of the famous Tamworth Country Music Festival. From April until June, a swag of Golden Guitar winning country music stars will take Tamworth on Tour – Unplugged to towns across the west including Newman, Port Hedland, Halls Creek and Broome. The show will feature country greats James Blundell, Felicity Urquhart and Anne Kirkpatrick, each of whom was presented with awards at Tamworth in January this year. Backing up the main performers are musicians Mick Albeck playing fiddle and acoustic guitar, Jeff Mercer on acoustic guitar, mandolin and lap steel guitar, and Michael Vidale on upright bass. As an indication of the excitement about this show, Shark Bay has been fundraising for two years so it can feature as a free event in its annual Fishing Fiesta. At Tamworth in January James Blundell was inducted into the Hands of Fame for leading the new wave of contemporary country music in the late 80s and early 90s, while Felicity Urquhart and Anne Kirkpatrick received the Country Music Association of Australia Video Clip of the Year and Bush Ballard of the Year awards respectively. www.countryartswa.asn.au/touring/
The clowns head to outback WA
Aboriginal communities in Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing are being offered the chance to learn skills from the circus masters themselves, Circus Oz. The company is undertaking a series of residencies as part of a tour of regional and remote communities in WA. This follows Circus Oz’s sell-out season at Perth International Arts Festival. In the booming iron ore town of Newman, BHP Billiton has funded community training sessions with the circus which will culminate in a big town performance in September. As part of the program, circus skills have been added to the curriculum in local schools. Further information: Stephanie Clarke 08 9175 2888.
Art and history collide in the Pilbara
It’s described as the most isolated acquisitive art exhibition in the world and with a prize pool of $65,000 it is also the richest acquisitive art award in regional Australia. Entries close on 21 June for the 2007 Cossack Art Award which has been held every year since 1993 in the historic town of Cossack in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Last year, 5,000 people visited the old disused mining town to see around 300 works by celebrated artists such as Robert Juniper, Jack Absalom and Ken Done. The works are displayed on the walls of the Old Post and Telegraph Office and the Old Bond Store with their magnificent granite and bluestone masonry. Cossack is leased and managed by the Shire of Roebourne. Further information: Shire of Roebourne 08 9186 8555, or jenni.griffiths@roebourne.wa.gov.au
Common Ground – building harmony, exploring culture
An Indonesian artist-in-residence, a humble fruit packing bin, bark fishing boats and bamboo poles across a bridge all featured in Regional Arts Victoria’s stunningly visual Common Ground Festival which involved hundreds of people in the towns of Shepparton, Horsham, Sale and Lakes Entrance. The artist, Eko Prawato, who is also an architect and lives and works in the ancient Javanese city of Yogyakarta spent several months in the four Victoria regional centres as a guest of Regional Arts Victoria. He worked with local artists and festival directors creating four separate festivals, all based on the themes of migration, cultivation and cultural harmony.
The Festival of Fire and Water, the second of the Common Ground projects, took place in Lakes Entrance on Australia Day. It featured the work of several local Indigenous artists who noted the irony of creating a celebration on Australia Day, traditionally a day of mourning for Indigenous Australians. Said artist Elaine Terrick: “The most important thing is respecting each other’s cultures. That is the most important lesson we can learn if we are to move on together.”
Gooniyandi Reggae Music Project kicks off in Yiyili Aboriginal Community in the Kimberley
In extraordinary collaboration between Melbourne hip hop musician Monkey Marc and the Yiyili Aboriginal Community of Louisa Downs station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, a group of young people are learning valuable music writing and recording skills. It is all part of Country Arts WA’s Out There program which creates opportunities for young people in regional Western Australia to work in various art forms within their communities. The Gooniyandi Reggae Music Project (named after the local language) will start with a group of 25 young people and elders heading bush to record a traditional story. It will then be worked into modern reggae music by a group of Yiyili musicians, called The First Camp Band. Marc Peckham (aka Monkey Marc) from the Melbourne band Combat Wombat is a respected traditional story recordist and musician. He will help the First Camp Band create a reggae performance that will be shown to the Yiyily community in September. Peckham is being supported by Matt Noffs of the Ted Noffs Foundation. Country Arts WA’s youth regional arts officer Rebecca Cockram is coordinating the project and says the young people involved have few opportunities when they leave school. “Unlike their metropolitan counterparts, few young people here have a guided career path into employment or further education. This project provides training in the use of the recording technology, sound gear and in performance. There will also be a music video element that will complement the music tracks. It’s a great way of developing local skills in arts management,” says Cockram. Out There is supported by the Australia Council’s Audience and Marketing Development Unit and the Regional Arts Fund. Further information: rcockram@countryartswa.asn.au
Expect the extraordinary
In a first for Alice Springs , 35 local, interstate and international artists are coming together to showcase art in the landscape of our everyday life in Alice Springs. Organisers say that Shifting Ground aims to change people’s perceptions of art, nature and culture in Alice Springs. It will take place in public indoor and outdoor sites in Alice Springs for three weeks between 4– 25 May. Says producer Kieren Sanderson: “This event breaks out of the traditional confines of what is considered art. It engages in real world issues by giving artists an opportunity to create scenarios, objects, and human and physical displays that link people to nature, tell stories of places, explore the concept of sustainability and to be responsive to the unique arid Lands environment we live in.” The program will include outdoor installations, workshops, films as well as site-specific dance and multimedia performances. A full program of events is available on the website wts@wts.org.au or call Kieren Sanderson 08 8952 1949.
Harvest – Ten Days on the Island
The fruit that gave Tasmania its affectionate nickname the Apple Isle grabbed centre stage at Cygnet during the recent arts festival Ten Days on the Island. Harvest revisited the time when Tasmania’s apple industry flourished throughout the Huon Valley and a high point of the annual calendar was its Apple Festival and the Apple Queen float. With mechanisation and demographic change the workers who gathered in Cygnet for many months during the long thinning and harvesting season eventually drifted away, leaving the huts that clustered by the orchards to disintegrate.
Artist Nicolas Goodwolf reconstructed an apple pickers' village to illustrate this change and to celebrate the people, the produce and the tradition. The event showcased the apple industry using oral histories, screenings of rare archival footage and a farmers market.
Sea Flowers a vista of beauty – Ten Days on the Island
‘Sea Flowers’ was one of the more visually stunning of Tasmania’s Ten Days on the Island celebrations. Using the beauty of the tidal flats at Bridport as her stage, Sandra Lancaster’s star fish morphed into mythical flower sculptures that bobbed and paraded with the pull of the tides. The crowds watched and joined in a procession to see the Kayak Ballet ‘dance’ amidst the flowers, illuminated by sea flares let off by local fire fighters. Bridport celebrations also included youth culture with street flags, wire sculptures and photo-voice images and a performance by the Sardinian singer, Simona Salis.
GRAVITY - places that attract
Living in regional and remote Australia is no boundary when it comes to using new media technologies. Young Tasmanian artists using mobile phone and blog technologies are being brought together through the Gravity project. It is being run by artist Sarah Howell via an internship with Tasmanian Regional Arts funded by the Australia Council’s Young and Emerging Artist Initiative. Sarah, an established artist and producer, will create a series of media art events in five regional centres in Tasmania exploring the challenges of using new media in regional areas. Further information: Tasmanian Regional Arts (03) 6426-2344
Mubali – art means better health for teenage Mums and their babies
The award winning Mubali program which uses art to improve the health of young Indigenous mothers and their babies in the Moree district of western NSW, is to be rolled out to three additional communities. The brain-child of arts company, Beyond Empathy, Mubali has just attracted the financial backing of Goldman Sachs JB Were for the further roll-out. Mubali began in Moree two years ago when local midwives realized that young Indigenous mothers were arriving at hospital for the very first time, as they were in labour. They had had little if no access to pre-natal care or breast feeding advice.
Through Mubali, 20 pregnant young women were encouraged to attend a special room at Moree Base Hospital to make and decorate plaster casts of their pregnant bellies with the help of their aunties and professional artists. While they were painting, they received health advice from breast feeding and birthing specialists, dentists, and other health workers. Twelve months later, 80 percent of the young women were still breastfeeding and the weight of their babies was considerably higher than those of mothers who hadn’t taken part. The decorated casts formed a highly-attended regional exhibition at the Moree Regional Gallery. Mubali won the NSW Department of Health’s Baxter Award. The two new communities to follow the Mubali model are Nambucca and Walgett. A third will be announced shortly.
Further information: Kim McConville: 02 6772 0101.
Limestone lure for public art talks
A taxidermist chipping sandstone? How about a felt maker or a painter or a puppeteer? The recent National Limestone Sculpture Symposium saw 46 national and international artists from a vast variety of art forms converge on the Old Mount Gambier Goal precinct to chip, saw, rasp, grind and chisel their way through some hefty blocks of local coralline limestone, and the much harder local reddolomite. A highlight of the symposium was the master classes run by Sylvio Apponi, an experienced stonemason and sculptor from Adelaide. The Symposium was organised by Country Arts SA in cooperation with the City of Mount Gambier. It follows similar events in 2003 and 2005, part of a program of lectures and debates exploring the importance and development of public art. The event was made possible with the assistance of the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund www.countryarts.org.au
Terra Arts – curbing suicide by teaching creative skills
The Millicent Water Tower and the Old Customs House in Robe in the South Australia had never seen anything like it. The two iconic structures became the unlikely backdrop for a giant video projection, part of the Red Tape project which had the twin aims of curbing youth suicide and training young people in art and design. The participants created a stunning series of images to express their views about boredom, drug use, alienation and other concerns. Red Tape is part of the Terra-Art project, a joint initiative between Country Arts SA and the South East Regional Health Service. Four artists mentored 39 young people from the Wattle Range and Robe districts, all of whom had suffered hardship due to complex issues such as mental health, drug and alcohol problems. Many of them had been before the criminal justice system. The project offered hands-on training in a broad spectrum of visual arts as well as the opportunity to become confident, self-aware, creative and articulate. Participants learnt computer programs such as Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and I-Stop Motion. Two of the participants have got jobs as graphic designers. Another is now studying at TAFE and a fourth is now working with Terra-Art.
Generations in Jazz
It’s grown into one of the largest youth music events in Australia today. Mount Gambier ’s Generations in Jazz Festival is a success story that began 25 years ago when a few young musicians performed a tribute for their fathers and grandfathers. This year, an estimated 2,000 young people in 85 bands from around Australia will make their way to Mount Gambier from 11th - 13th May to share music and learn from greats such as James and John Morrison, Daryl Somers and Graeme Lyall. They’ll be booking out every bed in the town and also competing for the City of Mount Gambier National Stage Band Awards and the Generations in Jazz Vocal Scholarship. Four former scholarship winners are about to embark on a tour of Europe with James Morrison. With up to 500 parents expected to attend the festival this year, organisers estimate it contributes at least $300,000 to the Mount Gambier economy. www.generationsinjazz.com.au
Dry Humour – it’s a laughing matter
So you’re a theatre company. You want people to turn up to your shows. But you’re in the middle of the worst drought in memory and pretty much no-one can afford a ticket. What do you do? You slash the ticket price to zero and take three first-class shows on the road to the big towns and the little towns, right across your district. Dry Humour is the NSW Riverina Theatre Company’s response to the drought. The RTC’s artistic director, Michael Smalley, says the free performances became possible when the manager of Wagga Mutual Credit Union, Glenn Elliot, rang him saying he wanted to do something for the people about the drought. “He said he could give them drought relief, but what they really wanted was a few good laughs. I said we could guarantee that. That’s how Dry Humour began. Glenn’s become a major sponsor.” Three productions, all guaranteed to provoke laughter form the Dry Humour program. Just a Minute, an improvised show loosely based on the successful commercial TV series 'Thank God You're Here' and The Role Model, a new Australian comedy about a retired sports star trying to restore his image, will visit towns across the Riverina including Temora, Coolamon, Tumut, Cootamundra and Tumbarumba. The third performance in the program, the popular musical Summer Rain by Nick Enright and Terry Clarke, will follow later in the year with patrons being brought by bus to Wagga. Dry Humour has the financial support of the Regional Arts NSW’s CASP fund. Further information www.riverinatheatrecompany.com.au
Mothers’ tales in country Queensland
Famous mothers and not-so-famous mothers will be the centrepiece of a giant arts project taking place across ten Queensland towns. Using spoken word, dance, circus, music, song and other forms of performance, director Marcus Hughes will lead a team which will work with regionally-based artists to create a series of ten-minute stories called Tales My Mother Told Me. Bringing to life stories carried down by generations of mothers, it follows the hugely successful 2005 project Voices, which recalled the women of prisoner of war camps in WWII. Both projects are the initiative of the Queensland Arts Council and give regionally-based performers, directors and writers a chance to work with a professional artistic team. Participating towns include Dalby, Charleville and Mount Isa.Further information: Paul Osuch 07 3004-7510
Mighty design for Thor’s wild cover
Sky surfing on an ironing board, singing into a hairbrush, playing guitar on a broom and painting with house paint all came together in Thor Elias Engelstad’s winning design for the front cover of Queensland Arts Council’s Ontour Directory. The directory is a remarkably comprehensive guide to hundreds of performances, exhibitions, workshops, masterclasses, scholarships, funding opportunities and competitions being run by the Queensland Arts Council this year. Engelstad says he took inspiration from QAC’s ability to reach every corner of the state, particularly working with whatever resources are in town. Last year the artist was awarded three honourable mentions in the International Photography Awards in Los Angeles and was a finalist for the 2006 competition for emerging artists in Australia. “Illustrating my concept through photomedia proved to be a big challenge. There were lots of …models, costumes, props and post production,” Engelstad said of his winning entry. For a copy of the copy of the directory phone Queensland Arts Council on 1800 177 789.
