Adelaide Fringe has launched its 2024 program with more than 1300 shows in 500-plus venues, ranging from an ‘art gallery under the stars’ in the Botanic Garden, to an immersive and cinematic Pink Floyd Experience, special DJ sets of Beatles and Fleetwood Mac remixes, cabaret treats, and the return of circus hit Limbo.
Festivals
WOMADelaide has revealed another 38 acts for 2024 – including a new show by the company behind feather-filled aerial spectacle Place des Anges – with significant changes also planned to the site after concerns this year about overcrowding.
Festivals
Brendan Goh’s first attempt at stand-up left him despairing that he wasn’t ‘Kathy Griffin funny’, but after finding the courage to try again and tell his own story, the Malaysian-born gay comedian has found his groove.
The 2024 Adelaide Festival will feature returning favourites such as Barrie Kosky, Laurie Anderson, Angélique Kidjo, Stephen Page and Akram Khan, as well as introducing a new generation of rising stars from Australia and around the world.
The 2023 Adelaide Film Festival has officially closed with a 13 per cent increase in box office sales over last year, as shooting begins in SA on a new movie starring Marta Dusseldorp that will have its Australian premiere at the 2024 festival.
Nostalgia ruled at the second iteration of Harvest Rock as the rain stayed away and the family-friendly, accessible festival delivered two days of world-class live music with top-notch drops and bites. The only disappointment was the lack of local acts.
In this contemporary dance piece on freedom in the modern age, the performers aren’t the only ones facing the scrutinising glare of the spotlight.
The power of the musical brain is explored in this new Scott Hicks film bringing together musicians David Helfgott, Ben Folds, Daniel Johns and Simon Tedeschi.
Artist Chris Yee, whose digital animation Perspective Pathways was chosen to illustrate the cover of the 2023 OzAsia Festival program, says he is motivated to tell stories around Australian-Asian identity through his colourful and dynamic creations.
Performer Njo Kong Kie honours the haunting poetry of late Chinese worker-poet Xiu Lizhi through a song cycle that causes audiences to question the human costs of modern global capitalism.
A moving story about on the life of Vietnamese-Australian musician Dung Nguyen, with himself at the centre of the performance, 1988 leaves an indelible impression.
This controversial documentary tells the story of a bleak yet important chapter in Indonesia’s history.
South Australian screen projects being presented in this year’s Adelaide Film Festival include a murder documentary, a low-budget horror feature and a feminist revenge fable about domestic violence.
Visual Art
Colonialism, pop culture and family legacy are all part of the story shared through the first major survey exhibition of work by Vincent Namatjira, an artist who enjoys placing powerful people outside their comfort zone.
Festivals
Life, death, religion and Harvey Norman – this one-man show combines comedy and chaos with moments of reflection on the nature of existence.
This delightfully mad Frankenstein tale combines Victorian melodrama with comic flair, visual magnificence and deep philosophical thinking.
The 2023 Adelaide Film Festival has opened with a gem of a story which unfolds in an atmosphere filled with dread that falls just shy of horror.
Tarnanthi artistic director Nici Cumpston highlights some of the diverse contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art on show at the Art Gallery of SA during the 2023 festival – from delightful animations and unique sculptural works, to paintings inspired by a love of rock music.
Jamaican musician Ziggy Marley – the son of reggae legend Bob Marley – headlines a line-up of 28 artists from 25 countries in WOMADelaide’s first major announcement for the 2024 festival in Botanic Park.
Film & TV
Adelaide Film Festival opening night movie The Royal Hotel turns a #MeToo lens on two backpackers working behind a bar in an outback town, with director Kitty Green saying she wanted to explore a kind of behaviour that can spiral out of control.
Music
A friendly spirit of rivalry turned into a show of inspiring unity as five of Australia’s top chamber choirs joined in the finale performance of the inaugural Adelaide Chamber Choir Festival.
Musician Dung Nguyen revisits his tale of family, connection and music during his emigration to Australia in 1988 through a multimedia experience of story, traditional Vietnamese instruments and archival photographs for this year’s OzAsia Festival.
Decorative? Nostalgic? Blatantly commercial? All of the above, says former Adelaide artist David Bromley who shrugs off his critics in an Adelaide Film Festival documentary exploring his life and art.
SA arts and culture news in brief: An epic anthology on progressive art in Adelaide is set to be launched, State Theatre’s adaptation of a local author’s bestselling novel sells out, line-ups for Good Music Month and Feast Festival are released, and bookings open for the Adelaide Festival Centre’s school holiday program.
Premiering at Adelaide Film Festival, Isla’s Way interrogates the remarkable and unintentionally radical life of carriage-driving, sheep-shearing queer octogenarian Isla Roberts.
Jennifer Wong, curator of OzAsia Festival’s writing and ideas program, talks with InReview about this year’s stellar line-up and why owning your narrative matters.
Film & TV
The Adelaide Film Festival has unveiled a strong slate of more than 130 films from 43 countries in its 2023 line-up, despite the disruption caused by the US writers’ strike.
Festivals
More than 1500 First Nations artists from across Australia will feature in this year’s Tarnanthi Festival, which includes a major exhibition of work by the multi-award-winning Vincent Namatjira and will see the annual Tarnanthi Art Fair return as an in-person event at Adelaide Entertainment Centre.
Artists from 13 countries will converge in Adelaide for this year’s OzAsia, which has unveiled a line-up ranging from provocative theatre and immersive dance shows to an exhibition by the punk artist dubbed ‘Malaysia’s Banksy’ and free music performances at the Lucky Dumpling Market.
Honesty and trust is crucial to the relationship between mother-and-daughter artists Anna Gore and Mary-Jean Richardson, whose 2023 SALA exhibition is testimony to the power of creative collaboration and the enduring art of painting.
Celebrated photographer Trent Parke’s new retrospective exhibition is like a time capsule, offering a unique and fascinating look at everyday life through his lens.
Specially commissioned for Illuminate Adelaide, Restless Dance Theatre’s immersive production invites audiences to step into a liminal space where spinning reflections and plays of light open up a multitude of surprising new perspectives.
Festivals
When his social media accounts were hacked in 2022, light painting photographer Denis Smith reassessed his online life. The creative results feature in his SALA show Duality, which also offers visitors a chance to try the technique themselves.
Festivals
French and Korean duo Antoine Boyer and Yeore Kim charmed their Adelaide audience with a virtuosic performance of classical-inspired gypsy jazz in a show that also featured Australian musician Kathleen Halloran.
Oud master and engaging raconteur Joseph Tawadros traversed a category-defying mix of influences and musical styles in this Adelaide Guitar Festival show, which also featured rising star of the classical guitar Connor Whyte.
Whatever you want to call it – Americana, Old Timey Music, Indie Folk – The Milk Carton Kids do it. And they do it very well. Their showcase concert for the Adelaide Guitar Festival is the full bottle.
Yothu Yindi wove their sonic magic to create a poignant reaffirmation of truth, treaty and tribal voice for a revering Adelaide audience at this NAIDOC Week performance.
Poh Ling Yeow says being immersed in her Illuminate Adelaide exhibition has been cathartic on many levels, including helping her deal with the grief of losing her mother.
