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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-25 Daily Xml
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ADELAIDE FESTIVAL OF ARTS

Mr RAU (Enfield) (14:14): My question is to the Premier. Given the growth of festivals around the world, is the Adelaide Festival of Arts still regarded as one of the greatest arts festivals in the world?

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (14:15): Yet another controversial question. That was the question I expected from the Leader of the Opposition. It is interesting, going back to his previous question, he clearly does not understand that the issue of an appointment to a position in the upper house is justiciable, which means that it would have to be settled perhaps in the High Court of Australia at massive expense. I would rather spend the money on employing more police.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: I would have liked a bit more notice of this question: it is a controversial one, I know. The Adelaide Festival is absolutely still regarded as one of the greatest arts festivals in the world. Basically, we are up there with Edinburgh, which is the biggest in the world. It is one of the few arts festivals—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Who doesn't like it?

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: She doesn't like our festival.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: She doesn't like the festival. She did not like DNA testing of von Einem. It is one of the few arts festivals in the world which is a truly broad-based multi-arts event; with a diverse program of opera, music, dance, theatre, visual arts, film, Adelaide Writers' Week and, of course, WOMADelaide, which I have signed up until 2019 as a yearly event, not every two years. It is at the heart of an exciting festival period soon to commence with the Adelaide Guitar Festival. A world guitar festival in Adelaide, with a fantastic finale, which will be a massive tribute to Jimi Hendrix—I can hear members opposite humming Purple Haze.

Members should remember that next year will be the 50th year that we have had an arts festival in Adelaide, and because it is every two years, ipso facto a priori, it will be the 25th festival, so it will be the silver jubilee. Today Brett Sheehy released the program for the 25th festival which promises an outstanding line-up of artists, productions, concerts and events, with over 80 events and 280 performances. It is a truly exciting program. I think it will go down as one of the great festivals ever.

The festival will start with a bang, with North Terrace Ignited!: the free festival opening night, including a dazzling fireworks display signalling the illumination of seven of our North Terrace cultural institutions. This stunning Electronic Canvas creation called Northern Lights will run each evening for the duration of the festival. To touch on a few of the many highlights, we have—I know that the Treasurer has been incredibly generous to the arts and I want to acknowledge that today. He has never been an acting arts minister and never will be, but I would like to thank him for his generosity.

First of all, I want to talk about Ainadamar. In an Australian premiere and Adelaide exclusive, this new double Grammy Award-winning opera (based on the tragic life of Garcia Lorca, Spain's revered poet)—and, of course, I know that the Deputy Premier is a great fan of Spain and its poetry—will feature an international cast directed by Graeme Murphy. There is the Book of Longing, a partnership between the Adelaide Festival and institutions such as New York's Lincoln Centre and London's Barbican Centre. This will produce the world's first collaboration between two titans of contemporary culture: Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass. Philip Glass will be coming here for the event. Book of Longing incorporates ballads, love poems, retrospectives and unexpected comic pieces in a supremely elegant music theatre event that will appear exclusively in Adelaide.

Ornette Coleman has been described by the BBC as 'the most recognisable sound on the planet', and this year Ornette Coleman won both the Pulitzer Prize for music and a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. In his first tour of Australia, Coleman comes to Adelaide. Seeing the 77 year old Ornette Coleman at the Adelaide Festival next year will be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I think for one night only. Then, of course, Sacred Monsters. At the peak of their powers, this rebel alliance of dance superstars—prima ballerina Sylvie Guillem and Kathak contemporary dancer Akram Khan—smashes conventions.

Turning on their classical roots, these legendary dances create a pas de deux—that is French; the other bit was Italian—unlike anything witnessed before on stage. We have significantly increased arts funding since we have been in government. We have done a number of things, such as set up the Adelaide Film Festival, which has won a series of national and international awards, clean-sweeping the AFI awards for the last two years. We have also made WOMAD and the Fringe annual; the OzAsia Music Festival, the International Guitar Festival—

The Hon. K.O. Foley: The Clipsal after-race concerts.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: The Clipsal after-race concerts—in fact, I saw the Deputy Premier dancing at one. Ross Adler, the chairman of the festival, and Brett Sheehy came to see me recently—and I have to say, this was one of those discretionary payments, which last night the Leader of the Opposition applauded, in response to giving $30,000 to the Dante Alighieri. I was basically given this proposition by Ross Adler and the director of the arts festival that, for $500,000 more, this could go from being a terrific Australian festival to a great world event.

So, I was pleased that the Deputy Premier was extremely generous, and that additional funding has enabled the festival to attract two epic overseas productions, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Following the outstanding success of Berlin's Schaubuhne Theatre production of Nora at the 2006 festival, the company returns for an exclusive season to Adelaide to present the Pulitzer prize-winning classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, reimagined for the 21st century.

The hit of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works Festival, Tim Supple's glorious subcontinental A Midsummer Night's Dream is vivid, exotic and spectacular, with actors, dancers, musicians and martial arts artists from across India and Sri Lanka. And, of course, dear to my heart, next year's Adelaide Writers' Week includes 64 outstanding Australian and overseas writers for the exciting 2008 program, including two Booker Prize winners, Peter Carey and Ian McEwan. Ian McEwan is making his much anticipated return to Adelaide after 22 years.

It is also pleasing to inform the chamber that, for the first time, the festival is seeking to reduce its environmental footprint by having its carbon emissions audited and then offset through the planting of trees. I want to acknowledge Ross Adler, the Chairman of the Adelaide Festival, and the brilliant Artistic Director, Brett Sheehy. They have made a remarkable contribution to the Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts, to the arts and to Adelaide. I commend the festival to honourable members. We are the festival state, and no-one should ever call across this chamber saying that they do not support this festival. It is vitally important to our icon image in the world, and we do it better than anyone.

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