Telling Regional Stories
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 cross-artform process.
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Drill was one of the first works created through the Performance Development program, Local Stages, which fostered regional artists towards professional status. Australian Dance Theatre Associate Director Elizabeth Old directed 42 local dancers, musicians, writers, projection artist and composer plus an artistic team from Adelaide worked with Port Augusta based composer Matthew Timmins and Desert Voices. DRILL coincided with the official opening of Yarta Purtli the new Cultural Precinct established in Port Augusta as part of the 2008 Regional Centre of Culture Program. photo Italo Vardaro -
The multi car sound installation for 12 cars and their stereos Matthew Timmis’ “Car Cophany” 2009 – 2013 Tour to Port Festival, Launceston Junction Festival, Castlemaine Festival and Sydney Festival), a work originally supported by the Performance Development program. -
I Met Goolwa from the Australia Bureau of Worthiness gently took aspects of a week-long residency prior to the RAA National Conference, Kumuwuki in Goolwa and created a live performance that was touching, joyous, intricate in its simplicity and life affirming. Theatre makers Tessa Leong and Emma Beech with visual artist James Dodd asked the people of Goolwa 'What makes your day worth it?’ -
Many of the Performance Development outcomes from 2011-12 were witnessed during Kumuwuki/Big Wave. The Performance Development program led the way in theatre making with The Coriolis Effect, a 14 month investigation and experimentation by live arts organisation Punctum and Country Arts SA bringing together 10 artists from across Australia to explore live arts and civic engagement in regional settings resulting in an extensive program developed in Goolwa for Kumuwuki/Big Wave 2012. -
Eyes by Sandpit. Co-produced by Sandpit and Country Arts SA, this brand new work was developed and presented in Mount Gambier and Whyalla as part of the 2017 and 2018 Adelaide Fringe Festivals. Image: Chris Herzfeld -
Presented by Country Arts SA and Intimate Spectacle as part of the 2017 Fringe in Mount Gambier, We Are The World collected stories and information through face to face interviews, to create a new analog internet live on stage. -
A documentary film by Marty McNicol shows what an intensive period of arts activity can achieve in a small community, through this successful Regional Centre of Culture/Cultural Places model. Members of community tell their own stories of how Just Add Water has impacted on them and their community. The film is available online https://thedirtsa.com.au/project/just-add-water/ and compliments Dr Christine Putland's research findings (also online here).
In 2007 the tectonic plates began to shift irrevocably and in a way that would define the foreseeable future.
The legacy of the original 1993 merger had been, broadly-speaking, a bipartite model which brought excellence to regional communities on the one hand and fostered democratic arts expression within them on the other. For a long time, the two functions remained largely autonomous and whilst the Arts Council had embraced the notion of the two being complementary as far back as the 1980s, the dual constraints of touring logistics and funding limitations meant synthesis was rarely realised.
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 cross-artform process. Artists were now at the epicentre, creating their works on the ground in the places they would be performed, and an egalitarian approach to involvement was encouraged. It became possible for those previously denied access to all but the final product, to immerse themselves anywhere in the artmaking continuum from idea through to public presentation.
The Performance Development program completely turned our modus operandi on its head. Not only were we creating new works outside the city, but, more often than not, they were new investigations into the art forms of performance and installation by artists who could uniquely communicate within our regional communities. We were discovering a more layered process where live art and digital platforms meet, and encouraging collaborations between regional and urban based artists through short and long term residencies that demanded an exchange with the community in which the work was emerging.
The organisational shape-shifting that subsequently emerged, to better reflect the interconnectedness of arts experiences, led to Key Producer status through the Australia Council for the Arts in 2014, the only South Australian recipient, and the whole of organisation program funding we now receive.
