Empire Theatre’s Curious Arts Festival entertains with unique performances and artists
The Empire Theatre precinct was buzzing with activity, music art and entertainment with the third Curious Arts Festival inspiring and thrilling enthusiastic crowds.
Entertainment
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While the blankets in Irena Kobald’s award-winning children’s book My Two Blankets were metaphorical, the Curious Arts Festival helped bring them alive using the power of language.
Inquisitive minds were treated to an array of sights and sounds over the weekend at the event which transformed the Empire Theatre Precinct into a haven of circus, dance, cabaret and contemporary music.
As part of the festival, critically acclaimed author Ms Kobald held a workshop to allow participants to write or draw on pieces of calico to create a wall-hanging blanket based on the metaphor of language which drives My Two Blankets.
A story of how a young girl transitions between her old and new life as a refugee, with the blankets representing the culture she is familiar with and the new culture she is experiencing, Ms Kobald said she was inspired by watching her daughter befriend a Sudanese girl.
Since it was first published in 2014, My Two Blankets has gone on to win the 2015 Children’s Book Council Award for Picture Books and was short-listed for the 2015 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Children’s Books
A multilingual Austrian immigrant, who has taught in outback communities, Ms Kobald has called Toowoomba home for the past four years and said it was exciting to be a part of the festival.
“I’m fascinated by language and learning languages was a trigger for me to write the story,” she said.
“It only took six years to become a book and since then it has gone around the world and I’m thrilled that it was able to inspire people to do all kinds of things.
“The Curious Arts Festival was great and it allowed the audience to interact with the artists, and to see children and adults engaged their curiousity did come alive.
“Toowoomba is a very interesting and diverse place, not just in language but in minds, but it can be a bit closed and traditional so festivals like this are important.”
Curious Arts Festival director Ruth Atkinson said 82 artists and performers thrilled crowds across Friday and Saturday with a variety of shows and productions.
“There was a spontaneous standing ovation for the Casus Circus International production You & I and after the cabaret performance from Snug Shorts I think we all found our happy place,” she said.
“We also had four musicians all making their mark in the music industry, with the oldest being 23, so we held our own Curious nightclub at the Empire Theatre which sounded fantastic.”
Ms Atkinson said with the festival now in its third year, the Garden of Curiousity again proved to be a big hit especially with families.
“Lots of people went through and explored the curiousities of every nook, and there was lots of fun and thought-provoking things to find,” she said.
“I think people found some surprises. While they may have had an expectation to go to the Empire in the usual way there was definitely a twist where they could talk and listen to the artists and be immersed for the weekend.”
With Covid still plaguing the entertainment industry, forcing cancellations and postponements at the last minute, Ms Atkinson said only two artists were unable to perform at Curious Arts Festival due to the pandemic.
“We were impacted by Covid a little bit but we had glorious weather and fantastic days across the whole precinct,” she said.
“The artists all came together to create some beautiful work and they were the big winners, especially lately with many artists struggling because of cancellations and postponements.
“I’m pretty sure everyone enjoyed themselves which was the goal.”
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