What's on in South Australia
InReview
You can take your pick of music festivals this long weekend – from Semaphore to the Yorke Peninsula. There’s also a feast of Asian cuisine and culture in Rymill Park, the Italian Film Festival, Peter Brook’s acclaimed play The Suit, and Circa’s cocktail of circus, vaudeville, cabaret and burlesque.
Semaphore Music Festival
Indigenous artist Frank Yamma is one of the headline acts at the Semaphore Music Festival, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year with three days and four nights of roots and blues, rockabilly, country and nu-folk music. There will be more than 60 SA acts performing in pubs, clubs and other venues, as well as concerts on the Semaphore foreshore. They include Kaurna Cronin, Kelly Menhennett, Courtney Robb, the Dirty Roots Band and Nancy Bates. You’ll find boutique beers and wines and food trucks on the foreshore reserve throughout the weekend, with kids’ sideshows near the carousel. More info online.
AsiaFest
The culture and cuisine of Vietnam, Japan, China, Thailand and Korea will be celebrated in this three-day festival in Rymill Park. Running from October 4-6, AsiaFest will feature street-style Asian food as well as traditional drumming, dancing, food, art, massage and martial arts. They’re even bringing in the big guns with a Japanese sumo wrestling match in a custom-built arena. The team behind the Fringe hub the Royal Croquet Club and Little Miss Mexico is hosting a festival bar called Miss Lee’s Laundry & Bar.
Peter Brook’s The Suit
Based on a novel that was banned in Apartheid-era South Africa, The Suit tells of a young worker who discovers his wife in bed with her lover. The man escapes, but leaves behind his suit; as a perverse kind of punishment, the angry husband makes his wife treat the suit as an honoured house guest. The State Theatre Company of SA has secured an exclusive season of the play, the first English-language production by acclaimed director Peter Brook to visit the state since The Mahabharata 25 years ago. It is playing at the Dunstan Playhouse until October 12. To coincide with the production, the Mercury Cinema is presenting a retrospective of Brook’s films, including The Mahabharata and The Tightrope. Click here to read InDaily’s interview with State Theatre CEO Rob Brookman about his quest to bring Brook’s work back to Adelaide.
Follow the Sun music fest
It’s the weekend for music by the beach, with this new one-day blues and roots event at Glenelg’s Wigley Reserve boasting a line-up including Paul Dempsey (of Something for Kate), Bonjah, Dallas Frasca, Moloney, Tom Richardson, Cairam Granger, and Voice of Trees. Follow the Sun organisers are promising a “backyard barbecue” vibe at the licensed event, which will run from midday until 10pm on Sunday.
Circa’s Wunderkammer
This show by Brisbane-based Circa ensemble combines elements of circus, vaudeville, cabaret and burlesque. Seven acrobats perform a range of routines incorporating tumbles, handstands, flips and pyramids in a performance that is often playful, humorous and a little bit sexy. There are impressive hula-hooping and trapeze routines, plus some cheeky use of balloons and bubble wrap. Performances continue at Her Majesty’s Theatre until October 4. Read InDaily’s review here.
Italian Film Festival
A total of 35 new feature films and documentaries will be screened during this month’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival at Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas. Films screening over the long weekend include Marina, the biopic of singer, songwriter and accordionist Rocco Granata; comedies I Can Quit Whenever I Want (read InDaily review here), Blame it on Freud and The Mafia Only Kills in Summer; and Cannes Film Festival critics’ pick Darker Than Midnight. The festival continues until October 22, and the full program can be viewed online.
Blues on the Parade
Singer-songwriter Mia Dyson (left), currently touring on the back of this year’s album Idyllwild, is headlining Blues on the Parade at the Norwood Hotel on Sunday. Dyson will be supported by local acts including Stefan Hauk, Filthy Lucre, Dusty Lee’s Wasted Wanderers and 50 in the City at the 18+ event, which runs from 2pm until 11pm.
The Big Gig
Music lovers will be converging on the Yorke Peninsula town of Kadina for The Big Gig, a concert featuring Cold Chisel’s Ian Moss, Hunters and Collectors’ Mark Seymour, Daddy Cool’s Ross Wilson and Eskimo Joe. MC will be Andrew “Cosi” Costello, who grew up in Kadina, with the concert raising funds for local organisations. It will be at the Kadina Football Oval from 3pm until 11pm on Sunday. Details and tickets here.
Hansel and Gretel – Opera at Elder Hall
Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel is the first fully staged opera performance presented at Elder Hall in its 100-plus-year history. Part of the Evenings at Elder Hall series and directed by David Lampard, it is sung in English by two casts from the Elder Vocal School, with the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra conducted by Keith Crellin. The opera is in two acts and is being presented nightly until October 5.
Miss Julie & After Miss Julie – UATG
These two versions of the same play are being presented by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild this month. August Strindberg’s 1988 Swedish tragedy Miss Julie, a play about sex and class, is set in a kitchen where Jean, Julie and Christine are preparing for the Midsummer Eve celebrations. Patrick Marber’s After Miss Julie is a re-imagining of the same story, set in July 1945, after the British Labour Party’s landslide election victory. UATG will present a double bill of both productions this Saturday and again on October 11 and 18 at the Little Theatre (The Cloisters, Adelaide University), with the individual plays being performed on various week days over the same period.
Collaborators – Stirling Players
British playwright John Hodge’s black comedy Collaborators is the latestproduction being brought to the stage by The Stirling Players. Collaborators tells of the relationship between Stalin and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov, who is forced to write a play to celebrate the Soviet dictator’s birthday. It opens this weekend at Stirling Theatre, with performances continuing until October 18.
Uraidla to Piccadilly guided walk
Put on some comfortable shoes and take a guided 5km walk on Saturday through the inspiring and beautiful Piccadilly Valley, exploring some of the local food, art and gardens at the foot of Mt Lofty in the Adelaide Hills. The excursion starts at Uraidla and takes participants to private productive and ornamental gardens, and an exhibition of the work of local artists and musicians, including a Devonshire morning tea, with an opportunity to purchase local art, produce and collectables. It finishes with a lunch of homemade soup and bread at the Piccadilly Kitchen. Tickets cost $60 and can be booked here. www.uraidla.com
The Last Continent – Unseen Theatre
“The Last Continent is under construction using all the left over bits and pieces from other continents. Basically it is being held together with spit. If this is not a big enough problem, there is also something going on with the space/time continuum. Probably something to do with those pesky wizards at the Unseen University.” Welcome to Sir Terry Pratchett’s The Last Continent, a novel adapted for the stage by Unseen Theatre Company’s Pamela Munt. Six years after it first presented the satire, Adelaide-based Unseen Theatre has brought it back to the Bakehouse Theatre with the season ending on October 4.
Canada’s Artic – Vibrant and Thriving
This exhibition at the South Australian Museum features contemporary photographs showing nature and life in the Arctic. It continues until October 12, and is accompanied by a selection of Inuit carvings from the museum’s collection, as well as a continuous screening of Kinngait: Riding Light into the World, a Canadian documentary about how the isolated Inuit community of Cape Dorset became a celebrated art capital.
Warakurna exhibition
Also currently at the South Australian Museum is this travelling exhibition of paintings by Aboriginal artists from the Western Australian community of Warakurna. The paintings are said to combine familiar Western Desert symbols and dots with a more figurative style to recount current and historical events ranging from the impact of weapons testing and mining to a visit by Midnight Oil. Warakurna: All the Stories Got into our Minds and Eyes will be at the museum until November 30.
On screen
See InDaily’s reviews of the latest films screening in Adelaide:
Gone Girl
The House of Magic
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
The Immigrant
We Are the Best
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
What We Do in the Shadows
Boyhood
Predestination
Support local arts journalism
Your support will help us continue the important work of InReview in publishing free professional journalism that celebrates, interrogates and amplifies arts and culture in South Australia.
Donate Here
Comments
Show comments Hide comments