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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-09-28 Daily Xml
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OZASIA FESTIVAL

Mr SIBBONS (Mitchell) (14:06): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier inform the house about this year's—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Schubert, behave! Member for Mitchell, you will be heard in silence.

Mr SIBBONS: I will start again. My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier inform the house about this year's OzAsia Festival?

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) (14:07): I know of the honourable member's strong interest in the arts, and I appreciate the question. The popularity of this year's OzAsia Festival shows that it has really started to come into its own as a festival of national as well as regional significance. This has been in no small part due to the Adelaide Festival Centre's Douglas Gautier and the Artistic Director of the OzAsia Festival, Jacinta Thompson, as well as to the support of its major sponsor, Santos, and other sponsors, and also to the terrific support and mentoring of its patron, our Lieutenant Governor and Chairman of South Australia's Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission, Hieu Van Le.

The OzAsia Festival was introduced in 2007 as one of several annual initiatives developed by the Adelaide Festival Centre and the government. The festival concept was developed to celebrate the changing dynamics of the cultural and social importance to Australia of our growing relationship with our Asian Pacific neighbours.

It is a platform to promote cultural understanding and tolerance through collaboration. It recognises the long and important contributions of Asia, and to the people of Asia to Australia, and showcases outstanding cultural and artistic works, both traditional and contemporary in nature. It also aims, through the expression of cultures, to promote cooperation and shared understanding and shared prosperity.

This year, about 20,000 people came down to Elder Park on a cold Monday night to take part in the spectacular Moon Lantern Festival, and that was up from about 18,000 last year. I was particularly impressed by the number of schools and schoolchildren who took part in making the fantastic and, in many cases, quite elaborate lanterns and participated in the parade that wound its way through the crowds in Elder Park—and right on cue the clouds parted and a full moon rose to shine down on the festivities.

Notably, this year's festival saw new partnerships forged with the Samstag Museum of Art, the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, and the Art Gallery of South Australia for visual arts exhibitions. The Festival Centre's Artspace also mounted an exquisite embroidery exhibition. Together these exhibitions attracted nearly 25,000 people, bringing the grand total of people who engaged with the 2011 OzAsia Festival to more than 60,000. This means audience engagement with the festival has effectively doubled since last year.

This year the festival program featured 446 artists from Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Tibet, Thailand and Vietnam, plus the best from Australia. There were six world premieres, nine Australian premieres, seven South Australian premieres and 14 Adelaide exclusives. Six performances and three films were sold out.

Highlights included the Shaolin Warriors featuring 22 kung fu masters—it is a bit like seeing the 16 Liberal and deputy leaders chopping themselves, tasering each other on the other side—gifted songwriter and instrumentalist Shugo Tokumaru; the Edinburgh Fringe smash hit Continent; Rhinoceros in Love, a masterpiece of Chinese experimental theatre; and a guided tour in Mandarin and English of the White Rabbit contemporary Chinese art collection at the Samstag Museum—

The Hon. J.D. Hill: Brilliant.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —which the Minister for Health describes as brilliant. The state government provides additional recurrent funding of $250,000 a year to the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust, specifically to support OzAsia. Foreign governments, their trade offices and arts bodies, including film councils, have also provided support for their major arts and cultural companies, or individual artists, to attend and participate in the festival.

I am delighted that Santos was this year's major festival sponsor. The festival enjoys strong support from community groups, as well as the education and corporate sectors. There has been success in involving Adelaide's overseas Asian students in this festival, as volunteers and as patrons. For many of them, it is their first point of contact with the Adelaide Festival Centre.

The event won a national Helpmann Award in 2008, the South Australian Ruby Award in 2009 for Best Work or Event and an AbaF Award in 2011 for its partnership with Santos. It has also won various Asian regional awards. The 2012 OzAsia Festival, next year, which will run from 14 to 30 September—

Ms Chapman: Next year Jay will be in town and he'll probably axe it.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: The only axing I know of is what you're planning for the Leader of the Opposition, Vicki. We all know what you have been saying about her. You're about to move back up, you and Marty. They're on their way back!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: So, the 2012—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Come on! The member for Bragg: she's gone from deputy, she's gone down this row, and then she's gone down at the back. She's back alongside the next true leader. He's still got—he's a lieutenant colonel but with a field marshal's baton—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —in his knapsack.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: And we look forward to his return.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! We will now go back to listening to what the Premier is saying.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Do you want any more interjections? In 2012, OzAsia Festival which will run from 14 to 30 September, will put the spotlight on the great cultural diversity of India. I know there are great arts lovers like the deputy leader. He is still looking forward to meeting James Thurber, even though he's been dead for decades, but never mind.

I know that the artistic director, Jacinta Thompson, is already working on bringing some of the very best Indian cultural events into Adelaide for that festival, which I'm sure we are all looking forward to. So, congratulations to the Adelaide Festival Centre, and to all those involved in an outstanding festival that is every year getting bigger and better, and now achieving international acclaim.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! We will have some order and listen to the leader in silence.

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