Artistic Director's Program Notes
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Introduction
The following notes are intended to provide further insight into the Festival program and the individual shows. Over the next three weeks I will provide further background into the relationship between different shows, the theme, the Festival Image and explore ideas about how you as a Congress Delegate, teacher and or general audience member could engage with the program.
ASSITEJ 2008 Performing Arts Festival for Young People
The Performing Arts are an integral component of our society and of being human. The performing arts are an ancient and critical aspect of the world’s diverse cultures. Despite our differences humans have, through out the ages and across the world created and participated in the performing arts. The desire for humans to gather together in the same place at the same time to share these stories via song, dance and storytelling is also an ancient pastime, which can be dated back to early human history. Over thousands of years the performing arts have played a significant part in diverse festivals from ritual celebrations and religious events to dominating Arts Festivals in its own right. For more than 40000 years the performing arts in Aboriginal Australia via storytelling, dance and song have carried their people’s history, memories, dreaming and warnings of the future to their children and young people. Subsequent societies throughout human history have understood the unique relationship between the performing arts and young people. The need for humans to share our personal and shared stories and aspirations with young people is old knowledge.
I was appointed in June 2006 as the Artistic Director of ASSITEJ 2008 Festival and the Come Out 2009
The following framework acted as my guide toward developing and determining the program.
The theme Old Knowledge, New Word was created in the bid process with a focus on:
- shows from the Asia Pacific
- shows by Indigenous artists.
- diverse practice in form and content including dance, music theatre, spoken word, puppetry, large scale and smaller works.
- shows for all age groups from 1 to 18 years old
- works which demonstrated collaborations between companies and artists from different countries or cultures.
And LIKE all Artistic Directors I am motivated by my personal response to the theatre; both intellectual and emotional and my desire to present theatre to young people.
The Festival consists of twenty eight shows for children and young people from across Australia and the world:
Shows by Indigenous artists from Australia, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and the United States of America
International collaborations between English & Korean companies, Palestinian and Israeli artists, Australian and South African companies and collaborations between non-indigenous Australian companies and Indigenous Australian artists and companies.
And shows from Europe and Asia including Malaysia, Thailand, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Sweden.
For now this is where I will stop. It is early morning here in Adelaide, Australia and almost time for my children and partner to wake up for breakfast.
Warm regards
Artistic Director