From theatre to visual arts, literature to dance, COME OUT 2011 will present over 130 performances, workshops, events, public art and visual arts exhibitions in over 35 venues across Adelaide and regional South Australia.
Creative Director, Andy Packer said
“I am thrilled with the Schools’ Program of events we have confirmed for COME OUT Festival 2011. Growing up in Adelaide, I was first involved in a COME OUT Opening Parade in 1977 and as Creative Director, I am particularly delighted to see this much-loved event return.”
In addition to the Parade, the launch highlighted many of the remarkable international and local events, that will come together to create the COME OUT Festival, Australia’s premier festival of contemporary art, performance and creativity for children and young people.
Mr Packer explained,
“In 2011, we’re encouraging children and young people to have a doing, viewing and thinking experience at the COME OUT Festival. This might involve seeing an international performance, participating in a workshop and reflecting on what they’ve seen during the Festival, back in the classroom.”
The Festival will run from 25 March - 01 April 2011, capturing imaginations everywhere and enabling participation from across the state.
The Program
The theme for the Festival in 2011 is
‘Belonging - investigating and celebrating the people, places and rituals that give us a sense of belonging’.
State-wide activities like The Mighty Choir of Small Voices, allows students and schools to be unified by song, across the state. The song was composed using concerns and grievances written by South Australian children and young people.
The international cross-cultural collaboration between Tasmania’s Terrapin Puppet Theatre
and the Children’s Art Theatre of China Welfare Institute, When the Pictures Came will have its Australian Premiere during COME OUT. This absurd and comic story by Finegan Kruckemeyer is especially for children aged 4-8. It showcases animations with black-light puppetry and live performance, to create a remarkable piece of theatre.
Other international works include Gruppe 38, from Denmark. Mr Packer describes this company as ‘the world’s greatest theatre company for children’. With their performance of Hans Christian, You Must Be An Angel, the audience is invited to gather around the table for an extraordinary feast for the senses in this innovative mix of theatre, puppetry, film and special effects. Winner of the Best Children’s Theatre award in the 2006 Danish Theatre awards.
Stella Den Haag from The Netherlands will perform Vuil Kind [Vile Child], which tells the turbulent tale of Lieve, a girl who struggles to survive in a world that seems to rage against her. This is a heartbreaking and inspiring music theatre production about the messiness of life.
Also suitable for the middle school years and by Stella Den Haag is Thick Skinned Things, an extraordinary story of a girl who is so shy she lives underground like a mole. A deeply moving production - simply but perfectly staged, with an affecting musical background, about the feelings we have when everything seems to be going wrong.
Locally, Restless Dance Theatre celebrates their coming of age with Take Me There. Inspired by the dancers’ memories and aspirations of both real and imagined places, Take Me There uses startling video technology and a pumping original score to reveal what happens when we can really go to the places we’ve always dreamed about.
Primary students can enjoy the world premiere of Windmill Theatre and The Border Project’s collaboration, Escape from Peligro Island. An interactive, choose-your-own adventure performance that lets the audience steer the play with hand-held controllers.
Or from Patch, there’s Little Green Tractor, a rollicking rock-a-billy musical, celebrating the importance of empathy, care and perseverance in human endeavour.
All ages can enjoy the Instant Orchestra Workshops by Irish artists Nico and Martin, a fun, hands-on workshop where students will learn to master the angklung, a tuned bamboo rattle from Indonesia and then invent original compositions to perform as an orchestra. Students and teachers alike will be delighted by the skill, energy and passion of Nico and Martin from Ireland, who are outstanding musicians and inspiring educators.
Public art and visual arts are also a large part of COME OUT Festival 2011, with over 15 exhibitions and activities across the state. Play Me, I'm Yours is an artwork by British artist Luke Jerram who has been touring the project globally since 2008. The artwork involves the delivery of more than 20 pianos to the streets of Adelaide and metropolitan areas for anyone to play and engage with. Each piano is adorned with the simple invitation “Play Me, I’m Yours." The artwork is designed to create a means for strangers who regularly occupy the same space to connect with one another as well as activate and claim ownership of their urban landscape.
Students across the state can participate in Our Place, where the COME OUT Festival 2011 and ABC Local Radio invite students and classes to create a 30-second photo story celebrating their sense of belonging to people, place and ritual. Students will have the opportunity to have their photo stories screened on the ABC Local Radio website and public locations including Adelaide, Mount Gambier, Port Lincoln and Renmark.
Putting Down Roots is another statewide activity. This simple project invites schools to plant a garden of herbs and fast-growing vegetables and tend to the produce as it grows. While caring for the garden, students, classes and families are asked to claim the space by decorating it with unique hand-made art and celebrate the garden by creating a meal to share with friends, classmates and family using the produce grown.
Families and the general public will also have access to the wide variety of events during the COME OUT Festival through Big Family Outing - a ticketed and free event from 26-27 March. The program for the general public will be available in January 2011.
COME OUT Festival will be held from 25 March – 1 April 2011. For further information, visit the COME OUT Festival website.