2015 Ruby Awards celebrate the best of SA art

InReview

Ngarrindjeri artist Yvonne Koolmatrie and State Opera’s Philip Glass Trilogy were among the big winners at last night’s Ruby Awards.

Saturday December 12, 2015 Comments

Comments Print article

Best Work: The Philip Glass Trilogy. Photo: Barnard Hull

The awards, presented at the Samstag Museum of Art, recognise outstanding achievement in South Australia’s arts and culture sector.

Koolmatrie, whose elegant woven artwork is currently on display in the Riverland retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia, won the Premier’s Award for Lifetime Achievement.

“Yvonne Koolmatrie has worked tirelessly to promote her Ngarrindjeri cultural practice to audiences across Australia and overseas since the early 1980s,” said Arts Minister Jack Snelling, who presented the award.

“Riverland tells the story of how Ms Koolmatrie learned to weave at a one-day workshop in the early 1980s and went on to represent Australia at the 1997 Venice Biennale.”

Yvonne Koolmatrie at the opening of 'Riverland'. Photo: Ben Searcy

Yvonne Koolmatrie. Photo: Ben Searcy

State Opera SA’s $1.7 million production The Philip Glass Trilogy won the Ruby Award for Best Work.

Comprising contemporary American composer Glass’s works Akhnaten, Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, it was presented with a cast of 140 performers over three cycles. It also featured the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Art Orchestra, the State Opera Chorus, and dancers from Leigh Warren Dance and the Adelaide College of the Arts.

The trilogy, which was nominated for four Helpmann Awards this year, was performed at Her Majesty’s Theatre in August 2014, with the 2015 Ruby Awards open to productions from the last financial year.

The South Australia Living Artists Festival (SALA) was named Best Event, while Adelaide Writers’ Week took out the award for Community or Regional Impact Over $100,000.

The award for Community or Regional Impact Under $100,000 was won by Nexus Arts’ Barngarla Stories of Resilience, a project that involved the Barngarla people from Port Augusta and used narrative therapy and art as a means of healing.

Sustained Contribution by an Organisation: Australian Dance Theatre. Photo: Chris Herzfeld

Executive director of Arts SA Peter Louca said the Ruby Awards were one of the most tangible ways in which the achievements of the sector were recognised.

They are judged by a panel including representatives from a broad cross-section of SA arts and culture organisations.

Other Ruby Award winners were:

Innovation Award: Music Strings and iThings by Zephyr Quarter

Sustained Contribution by an Organisation: Australian Dance Theatre

Sustained Contribution by an Individual: Photographer Grant Hancock

Geoff Crowhurst Memorial Award for an individual contribution to community cultural development: ActNow Theatre director Edwin Kemp Attrill

Arts Enterprise: Fifth Quarter, arts business enterprise, Carclew

Make a comment View comment guidelines

Jump to next article

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

Will my comment be published? Read the guidelines.

. You are free to republish the text and graphics contained in this article online and in print, on the condition that you follow our republishing guidelines.

You must attribute the author and note prominently that the article was originally published by InReview. You must also inlude a link to InReview. Please note that images are not generally included in this creative commons licence as in most cases we are not the copyright owner. However, if the image has an InReview photographer credit or is marked as “supplied”, you are free to republish it with the appropriate credits.

We recommend you set the canonical link of this content to https://inreview.com.au/inreview/2015/12/12/2015-ruby-awards-celebrate-the-best-of-sa-art/ to insure that your SEO is not penalised.

<h1>2015 Ruby Awards celebrate the best of SA art</h1>

Ngarrindjeri artist Yvonne Koolmatrie and State Opera’s Philip Glass Trilogy were among the big winners at last night’s Ruby Awards.

																		<address><a href="https://inreview.com.au/contributors/suzie-keen/" class="author">Suzie Keen</a></address>
											
							The awards, presented at the Samstag Museum of Art, recognise outstanding achievement in South Australia’s arts and culture sector.
Koolmatrie, whose elegant woven artwork is currently on display in the Riverland retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia, won the Premier’s Award for Lifetime Achievement.
“Yvonne  Koolmatrie has worked tirelessly to promote her Ngarrindjeri cultural practice to audiences across Australia and overseas since the early 1980s,” said Arts Minister Jack Snelling, who presented the award.
“Riverland tells the story of how Ms Koolmatrie learned to weave at a one-day workshop in the early 1980s and went on to represent Australia at the 1997 Venice Biennale.”
<div id="attachment_222439" style="width: 410px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://indaily.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Yvonne-Koolmatrie-at-the-opening-of-the-Riverland-Yvonne-Koolatrie-exhibition-2015.-Photo-by-Ben-Searcy.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-222439" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-222439 size-medium" src="https://indaily.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Yvonne-Koolmatrie-at-the-opening-of-the-Riverland-Yvonne-Koolatrie-exhibition-2015.-Photo-by-Ben-Searcy-400x480.jpg" alt="Yvonne Koolmatrie at the opening of 'Riverland'. Photo: Ben Searcy" width="400" height="480" /></a>
Yvonne Koolmatrie. Photo: Ben Searcy
</div>
State Opera SA’s $1.7 million production The Philip Glass Trilogy won the Ruby Award for Best Work.
Comprising contemporary American composer Glass’s works Akhnaten, Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, it was presented with a cast of 140 performers over three cycles. It also featured the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Art Orchestra, the State Opera Chorus, and dancers from Leigh Warren Dance and the Adelaide College of the Arts.
The trilogy, which was nominated for four Helpmann Awards this year, was performed at Her Majesty’s Theatre in August 2014, with the 2015 Ruby Awards open to productions from the last financial year.
The South Australia Living Artists Festival (SALA) was named Best Event, while Adelaide Writers’ Week took out the award for Community or Regional Impact Over $100,000.
The award for Community or Regional Impact Under $100,000 was won by Nexus Arts’ Barngarla Stories of Resilience, a project that involved the Barngarla people from Port Augusta and used narrative therapy and art as a means of healing.
<div id="attachment_222440" style="width: 1110px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://indaily.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Australian-Dance-Theatre-Photo-by-Chris-Herzfeld.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-222440" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-222440 size-large" src="https://indaily.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Australian-Dance-Theatre-Photo-by-Chris-Herzfeld-1100x660.jpg" alt="Sustained Contribution by an Organisation: Australian Dance Theatre. Photo: Chris Herzfeld" width="1100" height="660" /></a>
Sustained Contribution by an Organisation: Australian Dance Theatre. Photo: Chris Herzfeld
</div>
Executive director of Arts SA Peter Louca said the Ruby Awards were one of the most tangible ways in which the achievements of the sector were recognised.
They are judged by a panel including representatives from a broad cross-section of SA arts and culture organisations.
<h3><a href="#other-ruby-award-winners-were" aria-hidden="true" class="aal_anchor" id="other-ruby-award-winners-were"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="aal_svg" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Other Ruby Award winners were:</h3>
Innovation Award: Music Strings and iThings by Zephyr Quarter
Sustained Contribution by an Organisation: Australian Dance Theatre
Sustained Contribution by an Individual: Photographer Grant Hancock
Geoff Crowhurst Memorial Award for an individual contribution to community cultural development: ActNow Theatre director Edwin Kemp Attrill
Arts Enterprise: Fifth Quarter, arts business enterprise, Carclew
 
							This article is republished from <a href="https://inreview.com.au" target=_blank rel="canonical">InReview</a> under a Creative Commons licence. Read the <a href="https://inreview.com.au/inreview/2015/12/12/2015-ruby-awards-celebrate-the-best-of-sa-art/" target=_blank rel="canonical">original article</a>.
							<link href="https://inreview.com.au/inreview/2015/12/12/2015-ruby-awards-celebrate-the-best-of-sa-art/" rel="canonical">

<a href="https://inreview.com.au" target="_blank" rel="noopener">InReview</a> is an open access, non-profit arts and culture journalism project. Readers can <a href="https://artists.australianculturalfund.org.au/s/project/a2E9q0000008PVN/inreview-sa-20222023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">support our work with a donation</a>. Subscribe to InReview’s free weekly newsletter <a href="https://inreview.com.au/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.
							<img src="https://inreview.com.au/pixel2.png?cc_article=2015-ruby-awards-celebrate-the-best-of-sa-art" width="1" height="1">

Copied to Clipboard