Illuminate Adelaide festival launches MAAD program of Music & Art After Dark

The new Illuminate Adelaide winter festival has launched its music and art program for an after-dark block party.

Forget Mad March – July is officially going MAAD with the launch of the new Illuminate Adelaide winter festival’s Music & Art After Dark program.

A multi-venue block party, MAAD will take over laneways, public spaces and galleries in the northwest corner of the city from 4pm on July 31.

Virtual reality artist Jess Taylor, West Oak DJ Lewis Brideson and Liam Somerville from Capital Waste at Lion Arts Factory for the launch of MAAD, the Illuminate Adelaide festival’s Music & Art After Dark program. Picture: Emma Brasier

Illuminate creative directors Lee Cumberlidge and Rachael Azzopardi described MAAD as an “eclectic program”.

“We’ve teamed up with our favourite art spaces and music venues as well as Unsound, one of the world’s great festivals, to bring to Adelaide some of the most exciting new music and contemporary art on offer.”

Joining previously announced artists-in-residence The Avalanches, who will perform a DJ set on the outdoor stage in George Street, will be Melbourne DJ and fashion designer Soju Gang and South Sudanese born Adelaide hip hop artist DyspOra.

Iluminate Adelaide: The Avalanches. Picture: Grant Spanier, supplied

MAAD and experimental platform Unsound will also hold two ticketed events at Jive and the Lion Arts Factory.

Jive’s line-up includes HTRK, My Disco, Del Lumanta and Aviva Endean’s Vibrato Virtual, where attendees become part of a multi-speaker sound system using their mobile phones.

Lion Arts will host acts including Berlin based DJ Plead, New Zealand electronic artist Air Max ’97, video artist and cinematographer Capital Waste and Void, a new music video collaboration between Kenya’s Slikback and London’s Weirdcore.

The adjacent Breezeway Bar will feature a virtual reality installation by Adelaide artist Jess Taylor.

Pianist Gabriella Smart will perform the soundscape Primordial at Nexus Arts. Picture: Supplied by artist

Nexus Arts will present percussive artist Matthias Schack-Arnott, composer and clarinetist Aviva Endean, and the Primordial soundscape by pianist and composer Gabriella Smart.

West End galleries will also open their doors from 5-9pm, for audiences to explore existing exhibitions at night, as well as specially programmed events.

Illuminate, which runs from July 16 to August 1, has also launched the program for Kinara, a free evening of First Nations music and culture at Tandanya on July 24.

Full program and tickets at illuminateadelaide.com

SATURDAY: SA WEEKEND ILLUMINATE ISSUE