Electric Fields performing at Darwin Festival’s outdoor venue The Lighthouse. Photo credit: Duane Preston.
Born from the destruction wrought by Cyclone Tracy, which swept through Darwin on Christmas Eve, 1974, killing 68 people and leaving another 25,000 homeless, the first Darwin Festival – then known as the Bougainvillea Festival – was held in July 1979.
It was a celebration of the city’s resilience, marking the people’s refusal to abandon Darwin and encouraging the return of many of the resident s the cyclone had displaced.
‘After the evacuation, there were only about 10,000 people left behind and they were largely men. The women and children were mostly evacuated, and many were fearful of returning. So a festival was created … and it brought the people back. It’s been incredibly successful in uniting people year after year,’ Darwin Festival CEO Emily Mann told ArtsHub in June.
This year, Darwin Festival celebrates its 40th anniversary with a rich program of dance, theatre, visual art, contemporary performance and more – a program which very much reflects the tastes and passions of Darwin and its people.
‘The community’s engagement is still absolutely at the heart of the success of Darwin Festival. Its longevity as a festival is testament to that ongoing engagement,’ said Artistic Director Felix Preval.
‘The people of Darwin have a really strong sense of ownership over the festival, which comes from its origins as a community festival and its continued engagement with its community, and I think, really, that is its strength. Certainly as an Artistic Director it is a delight to program a festival for a community that is so engaged,’ he said.
Here are some of the many highlights in the program assembled by Preval and his programming team this year.
30 YEARS OF SIXTY FIVE THOUSAND – BANGARRA DANCE THEATRE
It’s been five years since the Indigenous dance company Bangarra last performed in Darwin. Locals who remember the 2014 tour of Kinship have doubtless already booked for the company’s latest production, 30 years of sixty five thousand. A triple bill celebrating Bangarra’s 30th anniversary, 30 years of sixty five thousand features Frances Rings’ Unaipon (a portrait of David Unaipon, the Aboriginal inventor, philosopher, writer and storyteller featured on the Australian $50 note), Czech choreographer Jirí Kylián’s Stamping Ground, and to make fire, a showcase of Bangarra’s rich history and repertoire curated by Artistic Director Stephen Page. With Bangarra described as ‘one of the true wonders of Australian culture’ by TimeOut’s Ben Neutze, and this production praised as ‘joyful, beguiling and unmissable’ by ArtsHub’s Sylvie Woods, 30 years of sixty five thousand is recommended without hesitation.
Gunybi Ganambarr, Buyku, 2018 Telstra Art Award Winner, 35th Telstra NATSIAA. Photo credit: MAGNT/Fiona Morrison.
36TH TELSTRA NATIONAL ABORIGINAL & TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ART AWARDS
Sixty-eight artists from across Australia – including 24 finalists from the Northern Territory and 20 from Western Australia – have been selected as finalists for the 2019 edition of the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA), Australia’s most illustrious Indigenous art awards.
Featuring works of remarkable scope and quality across a range of media, including works on bark and paper as well as digital entries in the multimedia category, the Telstra NATSIAA is a truly unmissable showcase of contemporary Indigenous cultural expression.
In the words of Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory (MAGNT) Curator of Aboriginal Art, Luke Scholes: ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art continues to evolve, and Telstra NATSIAA continues to be the place to witness this shift in process. The Emerging Artist category continues to breathe new life into the Awards and the broader arts sector. It’s rewarding to profile these trailblazing artists and to share their skill, voice and cultures,’ he said.
The winners of the 36th Telstra NATSIAA will be announced at an awards ceremony at MAGNT’s Bullocky Point facility on Friday 9 August 2019. Visit www.magnt.net.au/natsiaa for details.
Photo credit: Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation.
DARWIN ABORIGINAL ART FAIR
Running over three days at the Darwin Convention Centre, and representing more than 2,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from across Australia, the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair showcases the work of emerging and established artists in an ethical marketplace. 100% of all sales generated at the Fair goes back to support the arts centres’ communities. Now in its 13th year, the fair is an ideal opportunity to learn about Indigenous cultural expression and traditions from across Australia. Works for sale include paintings on canvas; bark paintings; works on paper; sculpture; textiles, and cultural regalia. Artists talks, short films and two fashion shows are also featured in this year’s program, which runs from 9-11 August.
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ECLIPSE – PHARE CIRCUS
Established following the fall of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, the Phare Ponleu Selpak Circus School in Battambang, Cambodia was set up in 1994 by a group of former refugees who sought to share the power of art therapy with poor, socially deprived and troubled youth. Today more than 1200 pupils attend the public school daily. Phare, The Cambodian Circus, was established by the school in 2013. Based on traditional Cambodian folktales, the Phare production Eclipse blends circus arts and theatre with classical Cambodian dance to tell a story of ‘bullying in the face of disability, all too common in a country like Cambodia which has the highest ratio of landmine victims in the world,’ to quote Fodor’s Johanna Read. The festival circuit has championed circus arts in recent years, including visitors like Nouveau Cirque du Vietnam as well as local companies such as Gravity and Other Myths; aficionados of the artform won’t want to miss this opportunity to witness a Cambodian take on the contemporary circus tradition.
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GLITTERY CLITTERY: A CONSENSUAL PARTY – FRINGE WIVES CLUB
Sex positive feminist cabaret! Are you sold yet? How about incisive political comedy and beautiful harmonies? Still need an incentive? Try your hand at ‘Lagoon of Mystery,’ the gameshow in which audience members try to correctly name parts of the female genitalia. An endearing, hilarious and long-overdue combination of politics, physical comedy and song. Strap yourself in – it’s going to be a fiercely funny ride.
Tracks Dance Company 2018 (l-r) Madeleine Brown, Jordan Bretherton, Kelly Beneforti. Photo credit: Duane Preston
GLOBAL POSITIONING – TRACKS DANCE COMPANY
Continuing a tradition of site-specific works that speak to and embody the character of Darwin, the latest production from Tracks Dance Company transforms the city’s heart into an open air theatre. Connections with community and country, links to past and future, and thematic references to the importance of water and recycling will play out in this new work created by co-Artistic Directors Tim Newth and David McMicken and staged across five locations in and around the Smith Street Mall. Tracks Dance Company are a national treasure; this latest work is sure to be beautiful, memorable, aesthetically rich and inspiring. Read more about Global Positioning here.
Brisbane band The Goon Sax. Photo credit: Ben O’Connor
LIVE MUSIC – VARIOUS
I’m totally cheating here, but such is the range of live music at this year’s Darwin Festival that it’s incredibly hard to play favourites. From legendary acts like Yothu Yindi (performing at the Festival’s free Santos Opening Night Concert alongside Adrian Eagle and Caiti Baker) and Archie Roach, and the Darwin Symphony Orchestra (whose musicians will be performing a specially commissioned new work to mark the Orchestra’s 30th anniversary alongside compositions by Sibelius and Mahler) to some of the best acts in the country, including the indie pop punk delights of The Goon Sax, compelling performer Mojo Juju, the charismatic Dan Sultan, and the rock-tinged blues of Cash Savage and the Last Drinks, this year’s festival has got all genres covered. Are you ready to rock?
Photo credit: Victor Frankowski.
MAN WITH THE IRON NECK – LEGS ON THE WALL
Co-commissioned by Darwin Festival, this Legs on the Wall production – developed with philanthropic support from the Balnaves Foundation – is a ‘moving exploration into a contemporary problem borne out of inter-generational trauma,’ to quote Sydney reviewer Suzy Wrong. Utilising physical theatre to explore Australia’s epidemic of Aboriginal youth suicide, the result is an urgent, important and moving production written by and featuring the Helpmann Award-winning Ursula Yovich. Richly realised projections and sound design are coupled with striking performances to create a work that is ‘by turns confronting, heart-warming and devastating – but ultimately hopeful,’ according to Limelight Magazine’s Angus McPherson.
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MAN PUTS HIS DREAMS IN A SOCK – DAMIEN POWER
A range of stand-up comedians featured in this year’s festival, including the perennially popular Wil Anderson and the delightful Cal Wilson, but for my money, the pick of the bunch is Queenslander Damien Power. In Man Puts His Dreams in a Sock, Power has his cake and eats it too, blending accessibility with high concept humour in a rich, thoughtful and strongly crafted hour of comedy. Philosophical ideas collide with ‘relatable’ schtick as Power pokes fun at toxic masculinity and his unusual family, while also taking the piss out of his own pretensions. Thoughtful, memorable, and bloody funny.
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MEOW MEOW
Has there ever been a cabaret artist as sophisticated, magnificent and unpredictable as Meow Meow? Mellifluous and charismatic, prone to crowdsurfing one moment and calculated histrionics the next, she’s a force of nature who can segue from louche artifice to heartbreaking vulnerability in the blink of a sequinned eye. Darwin is in for a treat.
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NEW OWNER – THE LAST GREAT HUNT
I’ve yet to see this family-friendly production from Perth company The Last Great Hunt, but I’ve seen enough of their work to recommend New Owner without hesitation. A collective of boundary-pushing theatre-makers whose previous works include Lé Nør [The Rain], Monroe & Associates and Old Love, New Owner is the heart-warming tale of a boisterous puppy, a lonely widow, and a deepening friendship thrown into sudden crisis. Created by Arielle Gray and Tim Watts, the production made our ‘best of the year’ list in 2018. In the words of Perth reviewer Victoria Wyatt, ‘Just the other day I was describing the premise of New Owner to a colleague and she noticed my eyes starting to well up as I recounted the little dog’s struggle to get back to its new found home. The Last Great Hunt currently outshine every other arts organisation in Perth, as they deliver top notch, intelligent and beautifully crafted shows on a regular basis.’ Don’t miss it.
Darwin Festival 2019 runs from 8-25 August. Learn more at www.darwinfestival.org.au.
