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| Joint Artistic Directors of the Adelaide Festival Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield |
Adelaide Festival 2018.
Joint Artistic Directors Neil Armfield
AO and Rachel Healy. Adelaide Festival Centre. March 2 – 18. 2018. www.adelaidefestival.com.au
Previewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Joint Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival Rachel Healy |
I had already written a preview feature on the 2018 Adelaide
Festival , searching through the Festival brochure and the detailed media
release that outlined the fabulous array of events and exhibitions that Joint
Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and
Rachel Healy had assembled for their second festival. Their first festival in
2017, with offerings such as Barrie Kosky’s Glyndebourne production of Handel’s
SAUL, and Armfiled’s production of SECRET RIVER in a quarry on the
outskirts of Adelaide, has been hailed as a phenomenal success. As the city
prepares for the opening of this year’s festival with Armfield’s Glyndebourne
production of Brett Dean’s opera, Hamlet, expectations are high and confident
that this year’s event will again affirm Adelaide’s annual festival as a
leading world festival of the arts.
I was curious however to discover
the reasoning that went into programming a festival of such stature, and
especially what planning and thought went into creating Armfield and Healy’s
second festival. How does one equal or even top such stunning success as their
first festival? “Our approach has not been to recreate the model in our second
year.” Healy tells me when I phone her prior to her trip to Europe to embark on
the rigorous planning for their third annual festival. “What I’m hoping
actually is that across the five years of our tenure you will see the evidence
in the programming of our broader strategy rather than that we’ve been jumping
trains every year.”
The broader philosophical
strategy behind the planning of this year’s festival is clearly articulated in
the festival brochure. ”We hope your world, your hearts and your minds will be
illuminated next March at the 2018 Adelaide Festival.” Behind this raison
d’etre lies a more strategic and practical understanding of what is required to
bring such a major arts festival to life.
“There are festivals everywhere
in Australia now. In the last fifteen years or so we’ve seen state governments
in NSW, Victoria and Queensland for example create Government Events
Departments which demonstrate how state governments have understood that there
is a real spike in the central economy when there are high profile events that
galvanize the community and get people excited. There’s lots of examples of how governments
see the financial value of high profile
set cultural events.
This poses real challenges for
the traditional international arts festival.
It does mean that you have to reflect on what does this festival mean
for this city. How is it different to what is happening in this city year
round? Every city has to answer that question differently. The Adelaide
Festival can look to its history and I think take many lessons from its history.
The kind of things that were being done back in the day that made Adelaide one
of the top three festivals in the Globe were I think things that are still
worth keeping in mind today. For example, if you’ve got a Sydney Opera House
that is performing international events year round what does that mean for
Sydney Festival? In our case what does it mean when you’ve got a very active
Adelaide Festival Centre with the OzAsia Festival, the Guitar Festival, the
Cabaret Festival. There are interesting central challenges about what does the
Adelaide Festival do that nobody else can do. We are interested in doing things
that just can’t happen or won’t happen in any other context without the
Adelaide Festival.”
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| Rundfunkchor's Human Requiem |
Rundfunkchor’s HUMAN REQUIEM from Berlin is an example of Healy’s intent.
Audiences will experience chamber music in a way that they have never done
before. “The entire performance is
conducted with no divide between
performer and the people there to see the performance. The entire
experience happens in and around you. You move around the space as an audience
as do the singers. They soar through the air on swings. Audiences who have seen the show talk about
it as a completely transforming experience - as a choral event like no other
they have had before. That way of thinking, not just about the performance but
about that way of thinking is something that you will see across all of our
five festivals.”
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| Akram Khan in Xenos Photo by Jean Louis Fernandez |
Another difference in this year’s
festival will be the number of new commissions that the festival is involved
in. Commissions are a risky business. One can never guarantee success when one initiates
the commission. All festivals have a proud tradition of being a part of the
creation of original new work. This year, the festival has commissioned three
new works. Legendary dancer Akram Khan’s final performance in Australia of his
work XENOS is an international
commission. Hailed as arguably the world’s greatest dancer, XENOS is an unmissable experience.
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| Alice Oswald's Memorial. Photo by Sand in Your Eye |
Brink Theatre’s MEMORIAL by Alice Oswald and with leading Australian actress Helen
Morse is a co- commission with the Queensland Festival and the Barbican in
London Oswald uses Homer’s Iliad to inspire an investigation of the deaths of
the 215 soldiers featured in the epic poem. For the first time, the festival
has commissioned local Patch Theatre
with a children’s theatre piece, CAN YOU HEAR
THE COLOUR? under the direction of Naomi Edwards. It is a work for
very small children. “Getting involved with projects and the risk that they
involve is probably something that is more prevalent this year.” Healy says.
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| Stomp's Lost and Found Orchestra Photo by Steve McNichols. |
THE LOST
AND FOUND ORCHESTRA. Is an existing work that was commissioned when Healy
was at the Sydney Opera House. “I’ve seen how extraordinary they are and I have
seen the audience response that it generates first hand.” Healy says. “Their
stuff’s electric. When you see them perform – the musicianship, the music, the
incredible energy that’s coming off the stage…
It’s both a visual spectacle and an aural joy. By the end of the
concert, you just want to punch the air.” Unlike previous productions, staged in venues
with about thirty performers, this performance will be staged on the banks of
the River Torrens in Elder Park and will involve as many as 500 community
artists and participants. “This is the
first time that it has been staged as an open air event in Australia. –
challenging experiences and perceptions of art forms.”
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| Cecile McLorin Salvant. Photo by Mark Fitton |
When I ask Healy why the
legendary sixty nine year old Grace Jones has been invited to give a single
performance at the Adelaide Festival, Healy responds with her customary
visionary reasoning. “I am cautious about including musicians for their own sake.”
This year, Healy and Armfield have included four remarkable divas in the
festival programme. Jones opens the festival after a thirty-six year absence
from Adelaide. Cecile McLoren Salvant will close the festival. The New York
Times has called her “the finest jazz singer to emerge in the last decade.”.
Healey adds “She is the person you’ll be telling your grandchildren about.” Critics
have raved about Kate Miller-Heidke fresh from her success as the co composer
of the Sydney Theatre Company stage production of Muriel’s Wedding and Anne Sofie von Otter from Sweden whose
repertoire ranges from Sibelius to Brahms to Bernstein to the heart-breaking
compositions of composers at Theresienstadt.
Finally, I apologize to Healy for asking an
impossible question. Many visitors to Adelaide may not be able to immerse
themselves in the entire programme over almost three weeks of the 2018 Adelaide
Festival. I ask Healy if she could venture to suggest her five top picks.
Always generous and articulate, Healy hesitates and then agrees to suggest experiences
that will offer diversity and excellence.
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| Nick Steur's Freeze Photo by Alastair Bett. |
Without hesitation Healy lists
Nick Steur’s rock-balancing show from the Netherlands, FREEZE. “It is utterly incredible – astonishing”
Canadian theatre auteur
extraordinaire Robert LePage’s THE FAR
SIDE OF THE MOON tells the story of
two very different brothers who become involved in the Soviet-US space race. “I
think it is his masterpiece.” Healy says. “It is utterly unmissable!”
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| Simon Stone's Thyestes. Photo by Jeff Busby |
Simon Stone’s reimagining of
Seneca’s Greek drama THYESTES is a bold and brave collaboration between
Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre and Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre.
“I’ve got to get some dance in
there. I’d have to say Akram Khan’s XENOS”
Healey hesitates as she tries to
select a final top pick. It really is an impossible request!
“It’s a toss-up between Cecile McLorin Salvant and
Toneelgroep’s KINGS OF WAR."
I thank Healey for taking part in what is an
unrealistic exercise. People will make their own choices from the vast Festival
programme. Interest and risk will determine their selection from the diversity
and quality of the programme of events, exhibitions, forums and free events.
“It’s incredibly difficult.”
Healy concludes. “It comes down to taste really. The final weekend you’ve got
incredible dance, incredible music. -
That final weekend you could do CECILE.
You could do HUMAN REQUIEM. You could
see Akram and there’s other things I’m forgetting – really good things.”
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| Brett Dean's Hamlet. Photo by Richard Hubert Smith |
The opening weekend you could do HAMLET, FAR SIDE OF THE MOON. Lucy Guerin’s dance work SPLIT and THYESTES - all in three days. And then there’s WRITER’S WEEK. What a weekend!
‘In the middle weekend there’s
WOMAD. Plus you could see the Chamber Music programme, COMPASSION: CHAMBER LANDSCAPES. And then throw in KINGS OF WAR - what an incredible
weekend. So (laughs) you’ve really got these three most amazing , very exciting
offers. It’s not something we can say
this is the most obvious weekend to be there. Each weekend is so full of riches
you can’t really go wrong.”
Whatever your taste, there is
certainly something for everyone. With the Adelaide Festival, WOMAD world music
festival and the Adelaide Writers Week, the month of March is an incredible
lure to Australia’s first and foremost festival city. This is not a random
program. Though chosen on its merits, Healy and Armfield can see patterns
emerging that reinforce the reasoning behind their selection. Many of our
artists are responding to a world of fear, rising tension, the flight of people
to safety; a world where the truth can be a slippery concept, controlled by
those with power and wealth” they state in the introduction to the festival
brochure. However, as they say, “the desire for meaning and reconciliation, for
justice and for love, beauty and joy is burning stronger than ever. That is the
light that great art creates” And that is reason enough to bring that art to
the world at the 2018 Adelaide Festival.
Adelaide Festival 2018Book at adelaidefestival.com.au or BASS 131 246
Adelaide Festival Trailer: https://wetransfer.com/downloads/bd0cdf29893fd3f76fd4998647677ede20180108042547/53044b8e1bc77122158b53aa1653544120180108042547/437b45