Rise of digital arts landscape inspires new model for festivals at Adelaide Festival Centre
Adelaide Festival Centre will enhance the audience experience and reach a wider demographic when it embraces a hybrid model for its future festivals.
The global pandemic is shifting the way people engage with the arts, and they are becoming increasingly familiar with the digital landscape as a place where they can view performances and interact with artists.
Adelaide Festival Centre has embraced these opportunities to stay connected with audiences by producing a diverse range of online events while also safely hosting live shows at limited capacities since June last year.
These two approaches will combine in exciting new ways when Adelaide Festival Centre presents DreamBIG Children’s Festival (19 – 29 May).
At DreamBIG 2021, artists from all over Australia and overseas will provide digital experiences as part of the schools and family programmes.
The festival includes two livestreamed works allowing their presenters to deliver the work without needing to travel to their audiences.
Greg Sinclair from A Piece of You
These include A Piece of You, an intimate performance for up to three people who are treated to a private concert. A video link between Scotland and Adelaide will see cellist Greg Sinclair turn audiences’ thoughts and feelings into a music score.
The other is Co-Investigators of Curiosity, an online schools event which allows students to participate in live experiments and interactive workshops by the Australian Science and Math School – all without leaving their classroom.
In a more public format, Audioplay: The Turners is an audio work adapted for live presentation at the State Library of South Australia. With their headphones on, audience members play the characters as they are guided through an action-packed journey around an immersive performance space.
Audioplay: The Turners will appear at DreamBIG Children’s Festival 2021. Photographer: David Collins
Or from the comfort of their own homes, families can enjoy indoor adventures Feather Quest, Mountain Goat Mountain and Child Nation. All three experiences invite children to create their own content within interactive forms of digital storytelling.
Another online offering is Our Stories, a pre-recorded video work featuring First Nations storytelling and accompanied by an educational resource for schools in terms one and two.
Ema Bovoro (centre) in Our Stories
These digital experiences all complement the hundreds of performances being presented at Adelaide Festival Centre venues for DreamBIG Children’s Festival 2021.
DreamBIG Creative Producer Susannah Sweeney: “We know that families and schools have been craving that traditional theatre experience, but they also really appreciate the flexibility that an online event can provide. So, it’s wonderful to be presenting a festival that is bringing fantastic arts experiences to children in a really imaginative and dynamic new format.”
In addition to the biennial DreamBIG, Adelaide Festival Centre is looking forward to the return of its annual Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
Last year, in lieu of being able to present live performances, Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2020: Bite-Sized and Home Delivered featured a curated collection of bite-sized clips on its website and social media channels. Adelaide Cabaret Festival (11 – 26 June) will reveal its full 2021 programme on 12 April.
Adelaide Festival Centre successfully presented its first livestreamed performances during its recent Students Got Talent event at Her Majesty’s Theatre, where a sold-out audience of more than 900 attended alongside more than 7,000 online. International viewers tuned in from countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, Malaysia and China.
Other online initiatives have included Adelaide Guitar Festival: The Backstage Sessions, OzAsia Talks, a virtual tour of Her Majesty’s Theatre, Something on Saturday craft workshops and OUR WORDS, a series of First Nations poetry readings. These can be viewed at The Show Must Go On, a webpage featuring all of the digital experiences created by Adelaide Festival Centre over the past year.
Adelaide Festival Centre CEO & Artistic Director Douglas Gautier AM: “We recognise the power of the arts to not only entertain but also to provide comfort and connection, which is why it has been so important to bring arts experiences directly to people’s homes. As always, artists and audiences are at the forefront of everything we do, so we’re very excited to be providing a versatile platform for these interactions to keep happening in a way that offers more accessibility than ever before.”