on 30/9/01 10:08 PM, Candice Ward at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Australia's Arts Unfettered
> By PETER SELLARS
> The extraordinary Next Wave Down Under survey of Australian
> performance is unfurling across the month of October at the
> Brooklyn Academy of Music.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/30/arts/30SELL.html?ex=1002851114&ei=1&en=354
> cd8ddcf58b0b9
Hmm, interesting article. If you think it's odd that Sellars is burbling on
at length about Australia's wine industry (significant in some respects but
hardly huge) he is currently the artistic director of next year's biennial
Adelaide Arts Festival - Adelaide is the centre of some of Australia's major
wine producing areas. Methinks he's sampled quite a bit of it.
His summary of 'Australia for Americans' obviously misses a lot. I think you
have to do a bit more than "imagine if the United States had been founded as
a penal colony and had no Abraham Lincoln, no Henry David Thoreau, no Martin
Luther King Jr."
And calling Robyn Archer, that singer, writer, cabaret performer, ace
yodeller, festival director of I don't know how many events and out-there
leftie lesbian, "something of a beloved figure second only to the Queen Mum"
is totally hilarious but just a touch wide of the mark.
But for the benefit of any New Yorkers who can get to the festival, the
shows, films etc should be good. I haven't seem all of them but Cloudstreet
is terrific if just for the fact that people who normally would never go to
the theatre will happily watch a production that goes for over five hours.
Lantana is a good film and anything by William Yang is always worth seeing.
The boss of my organisation (the Australia Council) has gone over there and
there's been much toing and froing and on again-off again stuff about the
festival ever since Sept 11. The official word here was that the BAM people
wanted it to happen as they felt a need for the show to go on as a lot of
other performances and tours were being cancelled (including Nick Cave's).
Don't know if that was just hype or not, but the show did go on with some
small adjustments, including increased security.
Cheers,
Jill
_________________________________
Jill Jones
50 Ruby Street
Marrickville NSW 2204
AUSTRALIA
[log in to unmask]
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~jpjones
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