2002

International Performances
Previewed by Murray Bramwell

When, not just the wheels, but the doors, panels and mudguards began falling off the Adelaide Festival program it was fortuitous that Arts Projects Australia has been on hand to provide a seven point Plan B. In fact, the varied music and performance events being presented in Adelaide and other centres from late this month through to early March, had already been offered for inclusion in the original Festival line-up and politely declined. Now, in part through the auspices of the 2002 Fringe, we will be getting a much needed injection of quality and the kind of international perspective Adelaide has been lacking over the past year and a half.

It is noteworthy that throughout 2001 almost the only overseas performing arts ensemble we saw in this city was Ballet Rambert, also sponsored by APA. The absence of touring works has its effect on the local industry. Not only does the horizon diminish for the audience but artists also miss out on the kind of imaginative tonic that comes from a vibrant interchange between activity here and the world elsewhere.

Packaged with the slogan – What in the World is Going On, the Arts Projects Australia suite of events begins with a concert in the Entertainment Centre from leading Talking Head, David Byrne. Apart from being the driving force in one of the most influential bands of the new wave in late seventies New York, Byrne has had a whole other career as a composer with his much admired score The Catherine Wheel for Twyla Tharp, as a collaborator with director Robert Wilson and as the slightly weirdy MC for the widely admired Sessions on West 54th Street performance series. Byrne tours here for the first time since 1988 and will perform from his current album Look Into the Eyeball, a lively return to form, impeccably recorded with string arrangements worthy of Van Dyke Parks and some spicy collaborations with Mexican outfit Café Tacuba.

Little more than a week later, The Michael Nyman Band will give one recital only in the Festival Theatre. Celebrated for his film scores for a succession of Peter Greenaway productions, Nyman’s compositions are distinctive for their vibrant, almost percussive string arrangements which gather tempo with hypnotic intensity. He will perform with a twelve piece string and brass ensemble and present a program of film works including Wonderland, The End of the Affair, Jane Campion’s The Piano and Greenaway classics, The Draughtsman’s Contract and Drowning By Numbers.

Also slated for early February is Noche Flamenco, a troupe from Madrid under the artistic direction of Martin Santangelo and featuring his wife Soledad Barrio. The group of twelve flamenco dancers and musicians will perform at Her Majesty’s for five nights.

Three Dark Tales, winner of the Total Theatre Award from the 200 Edinburgh Festival, is the work of Theatre O – comprising four performers using mime, gesture, acrobatics and straight acting to present three intertwining narratives of life and intrigue in the contemporary urban office . Dream on Mr Tibble is about a downtrodden husband who gets revenge against his tormentors, The Unfortunate Predicament of Amelia Sas is about a young woman’s life with tyrannical parents, while the Frank in Frank’s Wardrobe is a manager trying to keep on an even keel at work while his family life disintegrates. Praised for their physical inventiveness, their verbal flair and a touching blend of comedy and pathos, Theatre O’s Three Dark Tales promises to put the work ethic under close inspection.

From February 24 the Torrens Parade Ground will host a sixty foot inflatable white dome. Designed by German architect, Hans-Walter Muller, it is home to the sixteen aerialists and musicians of French company, Les Arts Sauts. Literally translated, “the jumping arts,” the company aspires to the condition of ballet, taking conventional trapeze into a higher realm, nearly fifty feet above our carefully reclined heads. They have performed before at the Perth and Wellington Festivals, here they are a Fringe headliner. The show is entitled Kayassine, which is Laotian for circus.

Hopeless Games is another instance of the amalgam of dance and theatre. A co-production of the Do-Theatre company from St Petersburg and fabrik Potsdam from Germany it is directed by Do-Theatre founder, Evgeny Kozlov and performed by five actor/dancers. The production is a combination of Absurdist theatre and the kind of dance narrative we associate with innovators such as Pina Bausch.

Set in a deserted European railway station, the performers erupt into a surreal recreation of the playful, yet “hopeless” games of long-departed vagrants and transients. A quiet sensation at the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe, Hopeless Games combines poignant, sometimes menacing, stage imagery with energetic performance, evocative soundscape and video sequences. Do-Theatre has been working at a creative pitch since 1989 and fabrik Potsdam was founded by East German dancers, Sven Till and Wolfgang Hoffmann, only months after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

Also part of the Adelaide Fringe program, Hopeless Games can be seen at the Union Hall from 26 February to March 9. As well, on 24 February, watch out for the abseiling antics of French performers Amoros and Augustin in 360 Degrees in the Shade, at a venue yet to be announced.

And, finally, for two performances only at the Adelaide Town Hall on March 2, Jan Garbarek, in concert with the renowned Early Music quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble, presents the hugely successful Officium program. One of the all-time hits for the ECM label, this intriguing combination of counter-tenor and improvised soprano saxophone promises to be as memorable as Garbarek’s splendid set at last year’s Festival. And, if you already own Officium and played it to death years ago, now is the time to dust it off and discover it all over again. The new Garbarek and Hilliard CD Mnemosyne will be performed at other venues on the tour – many devotees would think it well worth an interstate trip to catch that as well.

The Adelaide Review, No 220, January, 2002. pp.23-4