A tragic event on the Southern Eyre Peninsula brought the plight of artists into sharp relief. In the widespread destruction of the 2005 bushfires, some artists lost their homes, studios and portfolios of work built over many years. In the aftermath, the strong local community of artists developed an exhibition of work in response, for which we provided touring support and Learning Connections resources.
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A confluence of events around 2007 – the transfer of funds from Mount Gambier’s former Mainstreet Theatre to a new regionally-based Performance Development program***, and the instigation by the State Government of the Regional Centres of Culture****, both of which we would manage – brought about a loosening of the bonds of traditional funding criteria, a mandate to produce new performance works both in and with regional communities, the re-imagining of spaces, and the freedom to explore a...
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Now it was getting serious. Keen to be the first in Australia to invigorate regional centres through an intense and fully immersive level arts exposure similar to the successful European Model, the State Government selected Port Augusta as its first Regional Centre of Culture in a six year experiment which we would manage in partnership with local government.
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As our Performance Development program found its feet around 2007, the residency emerged as a foundation principle for making work that not only tells a regional story, but also has the capacity to tour beyond the community in which it is made. The role of a creative producer to pull the strings and guide the artistic process was becoming integral to our core our business.
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Broadly speaking there are two contexts for dance – one is the art of choreographed human movement performed for an audience, and the other a social form where the main game is participation. Both have practitioners at every point on the proficiency spectrum. Believing that finding the nexus between them would increase engagement in them both, by 2009 we had embarked on an exploration of dance which, between then and now, has invigorated love of aesthetic movement in its many forms across our...
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Whilst we’re justifiably proud of the range and quality of work we bring to regional theatres and halls, some works are just not made for an auditorium or even for indoors. Often the wildest rides happen in the strangest of places, at the margins and on the fringes.
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For First Nations people, making art is part of telling your story – art is not separate from culture, but part of the same thing. Traditional or contemporary, its holistic nature makes it the natural instrument for Aboriginal people to pass on knowledge and wisdom, revitalise language, reconnect young people with their culture and find the pathways to build resilience.
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To a millennial, it probably doesn’t feel like it deserves its own story, but go back to the beginning 25 years ago, and the purchase of the first computers for staff was making the front page of the annual report. However, our story sits here at #22 to acknowledge the explosion of digital activity in our regions around 2012, and a seminal moment in our major theatres as digital and 3D cinema systems were installed.
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Rippling out from the Mouth-of-the-Murray town of Goolwa, where it all began in 2012 with the state’s Regional Centre for Culture, the people of the Alexandrina region were the beneficiaries of the highest concentration of arts seen anywhere in regional Australia, ever.
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The fourth wall is a theatrical convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience and they behave on stage as if they can’t see us. ‘Breaking the fourth wall’ typically describes those moments during a performance when actors speak directly to the audience.
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For the first time, we have consolidated our shared knowledge into a new Youth Theatre Framework, guided by the principle that young people across regional South Australia will lead the journey of their own arts explorations and aspirations and made manifest through the shared appointment of a new Creative Producer in 2017.
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