ASSITEJ 2008
\nPerforming Arts Festival for Young People
\nMay 9-18.<\/p>\n
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
In only the second time in 43 years, ASSITEJ (French acronym for the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People) has held its triennial world congress in Australia – and, again, it has chosen Adelaide as host city. Along with some 600 delegates the event gathered artists, teachers, parents and young people \u2013 around 2000 in all, plus thousands more school children attending the Performing Arts Festival curated by director, Jason Cross. <\/p>\n
For nine days, theatre for children has not only been widely discussed but put on show. Jason Cross chose \u201cOld Knowledge, New Word\u201d as his theme and the focus was on traditional and indigenous themes as well as innovation and new technologies. Among the international performance companies were
\nthe Kijimuna troupe from Okinawa and Pacific Island company ,The Conch, based in Wellington, New Zealand. On opening night, in the Ridley Centre, a smoking ceremony and exchange of gifts was held between local indigenous hosts and delegates and performers from the Creek and Kickapoo first nations in the US.<\/p>\n
The centrepiece that night was Nyet Nyet\u2019s Picnic \u2013 another big construction spectacular from the talented Snuff Puppets, in collaboration with indigenous groups. The giant Dreamtime creatures \u2013 bunyips, monsters and the ghostly Nyet Nyet women themselves \u2013 produced squeals of delight from the groundlings fascinated by the visuals, but the narratives, including some clunky satire on European invasion, were meandering and badly staged, making a celebratory event overlong, low in energy and sometimes hard to follow. In contrast Headhunter, from the Polyglot Puppet Theatre and the Ilbijerri company took a lively trip \u2013 in a bright red puppet car- through indigenous country and culture. With fresh performances from Megan Cameron and LeRoy Parsons and neat direction from Sue Giles and Wesley Enoch, the play not only touched on matters of history and regret but motored along some future paths raising pertinent questions for all young Australians. <\/p>\n
The international program, like many of the events in ASSITEJ back in 1987, favoured traditional forms – but of a cautious and conventional kind. Gamoonjang Baby, from Play BST Korea, proved a rambunctious exception. Based on legends from the Jeju Island region, the brave heroine of the title, accompanied by tumultuous music and challenged by players using strange, earthy, grumpy looking masks, endures many travails before creating a golden harvest which is shared with the audience in the form of rice cakes. In its epic mix of shamanism, adventure and agrarian rite, Gamoonjang Baby provided theatre that was both fascinating and fun. <\/p>\n
The festival set itself the daunting task of catering to audiences from one to eighteen years of age. I suspect fifteen would be a better target \u2013 and even at the pre-school end, there are open questions about the relative importance of behavorial and educative considerations and theatre for its own sweet sake. From Sweden, HalliHalla, an earnest two-hander about a boy and girl learning to share a ball, was scrupulously attentive to its young audience but very short on surprises. By contrast, Christine Johnston\u2019s zany toy story, Fluff, not to mention local companies Windmill and Patch with The Green Sheep and Mr McGee and the Biting Flea \u2013 all confirmed what we already knew, that much Australian theatre for young people is both more inventive and intrepid than that of many international counterparts. <\/p>\n
The older crowd is more problematic and the approach for adolescents still seems to be to play tough with the boys and largely overlook the girls. There was plenty about hoodies and hip-hop, gamer talk, tagging and getting into trouble. For instance, Kage\u2019s Headlock, about a boy\u2019s first 24 hours in remand, which valiantly used choreography to tell the story. But it was the funny text and freshness of performances that made Zeal Theatre\u2019s Australia v South Africa more lightly effective and enjoyable. <\/p>\n
And, confirming that the play\u2019s the thing, writer Angela Betzien scored twice – with Hoods, an imaginative underclass Hansel and Gretel from Real TV in Queensland and Girl Who Cried Wolf, from Arena Theatre, an ambitious mix of schoolgirl angst, shopping mall satire and serial crime, with sharp video d\u00e9cor and music \u2013 all capably managed by Rosemary Myers, who, lucky for us, is now the newly appointed artistic director for Windmill here in South Australia. <\/p>\n
\u201cTradition mixed with innovation\u201d The Adelaide Review, No.340, June, 2008, p.28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ASSITEJ 2008 Performing Arts Festival for Young People May 9-18. Reviewed by Murray Bramwell In only the second time in 43 years, ASSITEJ (French acronym for the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People) has held its triennial world congress in Australia – and, again, it has chosen Adelaide as host city. Along with some 600 delegates the event gathered artists, teachers, parents and young people \u2013 around 2000 in all, plus thousands more school children attending the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-international","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":875,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}