Public and private portrait of politician Penny Wong
A portrait of Penny Wong unveiled at Adelaide’s Festival Theatre shows both public and private sides of the Foreign Minister.
Arts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Arts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Two very different sides of Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong are now on display in the Adelaide Festival Theatre foyer, after she unveiled a double portrait of herself donated by Sydney artist Tianli Zu.
The painting, titled The Senator and Ma, portrays Wong in her dual roles as a public politician and in a more relaxed, private moment as a mother.
“I’ve said no to quite a lot of portraits over the years, but when Tianli contacted me, she spoke so much about her experiences as a Chinese Australian,” Senator Wong said.
“I hope this portrait says something more than about me: I hope it says something about our country and who we are – more accepting, respectful, and celebrating of the differences that our community encompasses.”
Zu originally painted the work as an entry for the 2016 Archibald competition. It was not selected as a finalist but won the people’s choice award at the accompanying Salon Des Refuses exhibition.
Senator Wong has been a longtime supporter of the Festival Centre, in particular its OzAsia Festival, at which Zu has also presented her work.
The painting will hang alongside a photographic portrait of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard by Peter Brew-Bevan, and paintings of former SA premiers Don Dunstan by artist Clifton Pugh, and Steele Hall by artist Robert Hannaford.
The Adelaide Festival Centre Foundation also launched a new fundraising campaign at its 50th anniversary gala event on Saturday.
Long-time philanthropist Dr Pamela Wall, in memory of her late husband Ian, will match donations up to a total of $1m.
The campaign started strongly with $200,000 raised at the gala, which doubled to $400,000 after being matched by Dr Wall.
SALA Festival to sell art at online shop all year round
The SALA Festival has launched its own not-for-profit online store to exhibit and sell works by South Australian artists to an international market, all year round.
SALA acting chief executive Bridget Alfred said a pilot program was run last year during the visual arts event, which began in 1998 and runs throughout August, and that the new shop already had almost 300 works by 40 artists.
“People often asked where they could buy local artists’ work outside of SALA month,” Ms Alfred said.
“So we created Shop SALA, a year-round digital exhibition space for artists to sell their work, and for audiences to browse and discover hundreds of artworks of all mediums and sizes, and for all budgets.”
Artists Charlotte Tatton, Lucinda Penn and Billy Oakley are among those showing their work on Shop SALA.
“To see this culture being extended across the whole year is really exciting, especially with the opportunities it offers to newly emerging artists,” Ms Penn said.
“It’s refreshing for artists to have a place to display our work that isn’t reliant on us personally co-ordinating every single sale,” added Mr Oakley.
This year’s closing SALA Awards, including the Advertiser Contemporary Art Award, will be presented at the Queen’s Theatre on Friday night, September 1.
Works for sale can be found online at shopsala.com.au
Ozark star’s film to launch Adelaide Film Festival
Hollywood superstar Julia Garner’s SA-made thriller will launch the Adelaide Film Festival in October.
The Royal Hotel, which was shot in various locations around the state last year, has been revealed as the festival’s opening night film on October 18.
Director and co-writer Kitty Green will be joined by one of the movie’s stars, veteran actor Hugo Weaving, for the gala event but Garner is not expected to attend.
The film, about two backpackers who run out of money and take a bar job in a small town, was partly shot in the tiny regional town of Yatina, 220km north of Adelaide, among other locations.
Produced by See-Saw Films, the team behind Academy Award-winning The Power of the Dog, and backed by the South Australian Film Corporation, The Royal Hotel also stars Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery).
The Adelaide premiere will follow its upcoming Toronto International Film Festival debut on September 7 and a Sydney screening on October 15.
Adelaide Film Festival’s chief executive Mat Kesting said the opening night selection was a “fitting salute to the extraordinary films that are made here in South Australia”.
“Kitty Green has established herself as one of the world’s most exciting directors and it’s
thrilling to see her collaborate again with actor Julia Garner in another tension-filled story
that will audiences on the edge of their seats,” he said.
Two-time Emmy award winner Garner previously worked with Green on her breakout hit The Assistant, which debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in 2019.
SAFC chief executive Kate Croser said The Royal Hotel was the “perfect” choice to launch the festival, which runs until October 29.
“This exciting new film will be another international showcase for the world-class talent and capability of South Australia’s screen industry set against the backdrop of our stunning Outback locations,” she said.
The festival’s opening night will also feature the world premiere of short film Blame the Rabbit, by writer-director Elena Carapetis and produced by Festival favourite, Adelaide’s Lisa Scott.
Patti Newton given star on the Walk of Fame
Veteran TV performer, singer and actor Patti Newton has been presented with her own star on the Adelaide Festival Centre’s Walk of Fame.
Newton, 78, is playing the role of the Bird Woman in the stage musical Mary Poppins, which runs at the Festival Theatre until Sunday, August 27.
“It’s like being recognised for all the work that you’ve put in over the years – even the things like going to Vietnam and entertaining the troops,” she said.
Recipients of the Walk of Fame honour are usually announced the next year, but the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust decided to present its 2023 award while Newton was in town.
Patti’s star will join that of her late husband Bert Newton – which he received for his 2001 performance in The Sound of Music – on the Walk of Fame, which runs along the Torrens side of the performing arts complex.
“That is the most special part, because we will both be there, and when I go to that big concert in the sky … I’ll always know that we’re together.”
Patti said she had accompanied Bert on his many visits to perform in Adelaide, particularly for his roles in musical theatre, and that they loved the city.
Each year three stars are added to the walkway. Votes for the remaining critics’ and public choice awards will be held early next year.
International acts return to 2023 OzAsia Festival program
Dragons and lions will be nowhere to be seen in Hong Kong physical theatre company TS Crew’s performance at this year’s OzAsia Festival.
Instead, the ensemble fuses martial arts and circus skills to deconstruct traditional Chinese dance – without the usual elaborate costumes – in its show No Dragon No Lion.
It is among multiple international acts being featured in the OzAsia program for the first time since the Covid pandemic, with more than 300 artists from 13 countries, said the festival’s artistic director, Annette Shun Wah.
“I wanted to make up a little bit for that – one of our three programming pillars is to present a snapshot of what’s interesting, exciting or topical in Asia right now,” Shun Wah said.
Other program highlights include Infinitely Closer by Singapore’s acclaimed T.H.E. Dance Company, Taiwanese choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava’s work Tiaen Tiamen Episode 1, Canadian composer Njo Kong Kie’s live music/video performance I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron, and New Zealand theatre company Indian Ink’s comic play with puppetry, Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream.
TS Crew’s No Dragon No Lion marries the classical lion dance – using just the framework of a mask – and Chinese opera with elements of beatboxing, capoeira and parkour.
“They are trying to bring these traditions and make them contemporary and fresh, so that younger generations are interested in carrying it on,” Shun Wah said.
“It’s a pretty spectacular way of doing it.”
The full program and bookings are at ozasiafestival.com.au from 10am.
Dan Sultan to open Tarnanthi festival with free concert
Celebrated singer-songwriter and Arrernte/Gurindji man Dan Sultan will open the Tarnanthi festival of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art with a free evening concert at the Art Gallery’s North Terrace forecourt on October 19.
Sultan said he knew some fans were disappointed when Adelaide was originally left off his national tour announcement in support of his new, self-titled album.
“But we promised we had something special for you and with Tarnanathi festival, we definitely have that,” he said.
“To perform on the steps of Adelaide’s premiere cultural institution there will be a real buzz, as we open Australia’s leading First Nations art festival.”
After Sultan’s performance, Melbourne based Indigenous DJ and producer Swayfever will bring his raucous energy to the AGSA courtyard as its Tarnanthi exhibition opens to the public.
Tarnanthi artistic director, Barkandji curator Nici Cumpston, said its opening weekend was an opportunity to meet hundreds of First Nations artists from across Australia.
“Dan Sultan’s voice will be the first to shine as we launch Tarnanthi festival 2023 before the exhibition officially opens,” Ms Cumpston said.
Tarnanthi’s full program, with events at 36 venues, will be launched mid-September.
Young artists express climate change concerns for Adelaide Festival project
Aspiring artists are being invited to create works in response to young South Australians’ concerns about climate change as part of a year-long project for next year’s Adelaide Festival.
Create4Adelaide is now calling for submissions, based on three climate change priorities that 2000 young people voted on earlier this year.
Those priorities were identified as the extinction of plants and animals, extreme weather events – such as bushfires, droughts and floods – and pollution of our air and waterways.
Festival artistic director Ruth Mackenzie said that hearing and responding to young people’s voices was “a vital component in our fight against climate change”.
“We’ve already gathered a strong collection of artworks through our Create4Adelaide workshops and we’re excited to see what else young people come up with now that submissions have opened,” Ms Mackenzie said.
“Climate change activism needs new voices to lead the way.”
Sophie Reid, 6, and her sister Chloe, 10, took part in the workshops.
“We have to look after all of our animals. I love giraffes the most,” Sophie said.
All art forms will be accepted, including visual arts, poetry and video, but must be able to be submitted digitally at create4adelaide.au
The top voted works will form an exhibition at the 2024 Festival.
Gremlins are the people’s choice at Ramsay Art Prize
It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain for Electric Fields singer and Yankunytjatjara artist Zaachariaha Fielding, who has won the $15,000 People’s Choice award at this year’s Ramsay Art Prize exhibition.
Fielding regards painting as an emotional experience which can capture sensations of pleasure, while also addressing painful episodes with a “therapeutically playful” approach.
His competition entry, titled Wonder Drug, is a collection of works on paper which depict what Fielding calls his internal “gremlins”.
Fielding said winning the People’s Choice in the Art Gallery of SA’s finalists exhibition, which runs until August 27, was the ultimate compliment.
“When people celebrate what you’ve created, there’s a feeling for me of being shoulder to shoulder with them, rather than in front,” he said.
“That is such a beautiful thing.”
Fielding dedicated the win to the elders and leaders who started the Adelaide studio where he works.
“It has changed my life and I will be forever indebted to them.”
The award follows Fielding’s recent win of the $50,000 Wynne Prize for landscape painting, presented by the Art Gallery of NSW, with his work Inma, which depicts Mimili community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands.
The $100,000 Ramsay Art Prize was won in May by Adelaide artist Ida Sophia with her performance video Witness, which recreates the experience of her late father’s baptism at Beachport.
Cast an eye over these figures at SALA Festival
Ancient tradition meets the latest technology in sculptor Georgina Mills’ colourful figurines at this month’s South Australian Living Artists Festival.
Ms Mills originally sculpted the life-size torso of her model Ivana from clay while studying traditional methods at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy before the Covid pandemic.
Using the latest 3D scanning and printing technology, the artist has now produced two smaller editions of Ivana, as 31cm bronze casts and 21cm miniatures printed in a rainbow of different colours using PolySmooth materials.
“I built it out of clay from life, using the model, then I brought that mould back to Australia and I’ve cast that in an acrylic resin,” Ms Mills said.
The full-scale version was then 3D scanned and the information used to print out the two smaller versions, with a new mould then being created to cast the bronze edition.
“Not everyone has the room for a life-size sculpture – or the money,” she said.
“Painters have the opportunity to make prints and it’s more accessible for people.
“The purpose behind this is an entry-level collectable for anyone wanting an original piece of artwork.”
As well as working with other artists at Kent Town studio space Mezzanine 55, Ms Mills, 42, of Glenunga teaches workshops for Adelaide Central School of Art and in Melbourne.
Mezzanine 55 is open on weekends from 11am to 3pm as part of SALA, which runs until August 31. Full program at salafestival.com
Hugo the chihuahua lands a Holiday role on stage
Every dog has his day, and 20-month-old Adelaide chihuahua Hugo is making the most of his moment in the spotlight on stage and screen.
Hugo will make a cameo appearance in State Theatre Company’s upcoming production of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, playing the late US jazz singer Billie Holiday’s pet chihuahua Pepe.
Owners Nick Fahey and Kitty Hawk said they first put Hugo on the stage after seeing a call-out last year for the Elder Conservatorium’s Music Theatre class production.
“His first job was Legally Blonde the Musical for Adelaide University,” Ms Hawk said.
“We saw they were looking for chihuahuas, so we thought, why not? He was such a good dog, and that led to a TV commercial (for Tridectin sheep drench) and now to this role.
“We never intended for him to become a show dog but perhaps we need to sign him up for Meisner technique acting lessons.”
Jamaican born actor Zahra Newman, who plays the role of Holiday, said the iconic singer was a dog lover who often took in strays.
“Pepe was given to her by (Hollywood star) Ava Gardner and was one of her most beloved dogs, becoming her primary companion in her final months,” Newman said.
“She took him everywhere and sometimes would even bring him on stage, which is what we’ll be honouring in the show.
“Hugo is so cute and very well-behaved – he’s going to be the perfect Pepe.”
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill is at the Space Theatre, August 25 to September 9.
Book at statetheatrecompany.com.au
Bangarra making tracks through dance
Both sides of new Bangarra Dance Theatre artistic director France Rings’ South Australian family history feed into her latest work Yuldea, which opens in Adelaide this week.
Yuldea explores the impact of the Trans-Australian Railway on the state’s traditional Anangu lands and peoples in the early part of last century. Also known as Ooldea, on the edge of the Nullarbor Plain, Yuldea was the site of a sacred waterhole which became a settlement that finally linked the railway between Kalgoorlie in WA and Port Augusta in 1917.
Rings, who was born in Adelaide, is a descendant of the region’s Kokatha people on her mother’s side and has German heritage from her father, who also worked for the railway in Port Augusta, where she spent part of her childhood.
“I’m passionate about the intersection of our histories, and the impact that happens to people and to country,” Rings said.
Yooldil Kapi, or the Ooldea Soak, had been an important source of water and meeting place for generations of Kokatha people, but it dried up within 20 years of the railway settlement and an ensuing drought.
“Bangarra has its way of telling stories with a language that we create – we find the words in movement and our artistic expressions,’ Rings says.
Yuldea is at Her Majesty’s Theatre from August 10-12. Book at Ticketek.
Illuminate Adelaide festival lights up city as a winter hit
The third annual Illuminate Adelaide festival has again proven to be a winter hit, with more than 1.3m attendances at the month-long program of free and ticketed events.
This included more than 200,000 ticket sales for shows including Resonate – which was extended for an extra week at the Botanic Garden – and Mirror Mirror in Victoria Square, both of which were created by Canadian multimedia studio Moment Factory.
Early data from the Adelaide Economic Development Agency showed that foot traffic in the city increased by 50 per cent on the first two weekends in July compared to last year.
There was also a 12 per cent increase in advance accommodation bookings for the opening weekend of the free City Lights display.
Artistic directors Rachael Azzopardi and Lee Cumberlidge said Illuminate Adelaide was also committed to presenting satellite events that explore art, light and technology in regional areas.
River Lights opened in Mannum on August 4 and will run for 10 days, until August 13.
Millions in extra cash for Adelaide Festival 2024-26 programs
The Adelaide Festival will receive an extra $2.3 million from the state government over the next three years to help it continue to attract major international shows.
It comes as the Festival announced that this year’s event delivered a $57.6m economic benefit to the state.
Most of the new funding will be used to mount the opera centrepieces of the Festival’s programs for 2024-26, with $500,000 allocated for that each year.
The other $800,000 extra funding will be used next year for two special projects which will be announced when the full 2024 program is released in October.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said the funding increase was “aimed at bolstering the Festival’s growth”.
The new money is on top of the state government’s annual base funding for the Festival of $8.8m.
This year’s event generated $57.6m in spending, up by $5.8m from 2022, including an estimated $38.1 million in newly created income for the state.
Visitor bed nights also increased by about 2600 to 105,943, with an average spend per visitor in SA of $4676 (up 47 per cent from 2022), while the event created the equivalent of 324 full-time jobs (up from 250).
“These figures unequivocally demonstrate the Festival not only delivers significant value but also reinforces its pivotal role in our cultural landscape,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“Being the premier international arts festival in Australia, Adelaide Festival continues to shine on the global stage.”
However, the Festival has yet to return to the record levels set by its last event before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019, when it took $6m at the box office, attracted 19,046 interstate and overseas visitors for 141,258 nights, and generated $76.8m in spending.
The Festival has already announced that next year’s opera will be The Nightingale and Other Fables, directed by Canadian artist Robert Lepage and featuring Vietnamese-style water puppets in a flooded orchestra pit at the Festival Theatre.
Festival chairwoman Judy Potter said the additional funding was essential to attract major works.
“The support plays a significant role in delivering a successful and impactful Festival, driving positive economic outcomes and fostering cultural enrichment and growth,” Ms Potter said.
Mariza brings the feeling of fado to WOMADelaide
It was Portuguese star Mariza’s destiny to become a fado singer – drawing on deep feelings of life to tell stories in song at WOMADelaide.
Reviews: The ultimate guide on what to see at Fringe and Festival
Some of the hottest acts are returning to Adelaide for the 2025 Fringe and Festival, we got a sneak peek and here’s what’s looking hot for this year’s event.