I have been compiling my Best of the Year lists for a while now but 2020 has presented all kinds of problems. How to report on a year which was mostly cancelled ? What an awful year of COVID-19 havoc and dismay. So many projects postponed, thwarted and abandoned. It has been a global catastrophe – medically, socially, economically and creatively.
In Australia the problems for the creative arts have been enhanced by federal government spite and indifference – in …
Continue Reading Back to topVengeance and resolution, exorcism and benediction, this excellent new production captures the visceral drama of Angus Cerini’s remarkable play.
Four and a Half Stars . Ngunyawayiti Theatre, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide.
Reviewed December 11, 2020
by Murray Bramwell, published online December 12, 2020.
Amongst the anxiety and havoc of Covid-19, the performing arts in 2020 have been systematically clobbered. So many productions abandoned and cancelled, so much effort and commitment brought to nothing.
Adelaide independent company, Theatre Republic’s …
Continue Reading Back to topGaslight
by Patrick Hamilton
State Theatre Company South Australia
Her Majesty’s, Adelaide.
September 8. Tickets $ 35 – $ 69.
Bookings : 131 246 bass.net.au
Until September 19.
The first night of a show is always an event. But the opening of State Theatre’s Gaslight has put so many things into the spotlight that it is a matter for particular celebration.
When Mitchell Butel announced his 2020 program, his first for State, who could have known that seven scheduled productions …
Continue Reading Back to topTruckload of Sky – The Lost Songs of David McComb
The Friends of David McComb
Level 5, Union House,
The University of Adelaide.
RCC . March 12.
Formed in Perth in 1978, after morphing from a band called Dalsy and (name-for-a-day) Logic, The Triffids produced five studio albums, six EPs, six live recordings/ compilations and nine legendary cassettes including Dungeon and Son. Singles such as Wide Open Road and Bury Me Deep in Love became etched in the Australian …
Continue Reading Back to topCold Blood
by Thomas Gunzig.
Michele Anne De Mey, Jaco Van Dormael,
Kiss & Cry Collective.
Ridley Centre, Adelaide Showgrounds.
March 5. Duration: 1 hour 15 mins (no interval)
Mouthpiece
by Kieran Hurley
Traverse Theatre Company
Odeon Theatre.
March 6. Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Tickets: $30 – $69. Duration 1 hour 35 minutes (no interval)
Until March 15.
The Belgian Kiss & Cry Collective, led by choreographer Michele Anne de Mey and filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael have turned Cold Blood into a …
Continue Reading Back to topEight
by Michael van der Aa.
Featuring Kate Miller-Heidke, Livia van den Bercken,
Vakil Eelman
Hetzel Lecture Theatre, Institute Building
State Library of South Australia.
February 27. Until March 15.
When we talk about immersive experience increasingly we mean Virtual Reality. VR is not only the newest frontier, it the most mind-bending kingdom of them all. Netherlands composer and director, Michael van der Aa has gained prominence for his progress in merging music and visual experience to create art works …
Continue Reading Back to top150 Psalms
Leadership (Concert 9)
Pilgrim Church, Flinders St.
March 2.
150 Psalms, a choral presentation of twelve themed concerts performed over four days, is one of the centrepieces of the 2020 Adelaide Festival as it celebrates its 60th year. It is an extensive project, conceived by Tido Visser, managing director of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, and was first performed in 2017 at the Utrecht Festival Oude Muziek.
The Adelaide event is its fourth version, featuring The Netherlands …
Continue Reading Back to topDirector Ian Scobie talks with Murray Bramwell about Adelaide’s most enduring international music event.
This coming Friday, March 6, marks the opening of the four day WOMADelaide music festival. With its odd portmanteau name (WOMAD is an acronym for World of Music and Dance) the South Australian version of the UK festival, originally founded and promoted by Peter Gabriel, began as part of Rob Brookman’s Adelaide Festival in 1992.
There have been 23 festivals since then – it became an …
Continue Reading Back to topErth’s Dinosaur Zoo
Elder Hall. University of Adelaide. RCC
February 29. Until March 12.
In the extensive kids program in the Adelaide Fringe there is even something for the junior palaeontologist. And no better than the gee-whiz large scale puppetry of Erth-Visual and Physical studio to bring the ancient past vividly back before us. Erth certainly has nothing to show more fair than its Dinosaur Zoo travelling show (written and directed by Scott Wright) returning to the RCC program to …
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Reviewing the Adelaide Festival : Recollections in Grateful Tranquility
March 11, 2020
File under Archive, Current, Festival, Commentary.
Adelaide Festival
Reviewing the Adelaide Festival : Recollections in Grateful Tranquility.
Murray Bramwell
My life in Adelaide has always included the Festival. Less than a month after I arrived, in February 1972, to begin postgraduate study at Flinders Uni, I was in the thick of Writers’ Week. Beat legends Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg were reading in the Town Hall. Ginsberg had invited Indulkana songmen from APY lands to share the …
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