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Adelaide Festival Of The Arts.
 Over the past three weeks Festival Director Brett Sheehy has lost no opportunity in getting the message across when it comes to his vision - and in cementing his resolve - for next years Festival of The Arts, which kicks off on Friday 3 March.
Essentially, and he seems to be ramming home this message with a vengeance, Sheehy believes in "restablishing the Adelaide Festival Of The Arts as Australia's premiere Arts Festival", mostly by presenting the very best performances he can find from around the world, and booking as many of them as he can on the proviso that they are "exclusive to our event".
Hooray! On the opening night things are set to kick off with free entertainment on the banks of the River Torrens with the Italian Companie di Valerio Festi's 'Il Cielo che Danza' (The Dancing Sky'), an open air theatrical spectacular featuring hand painted helium-filled balloons hovering above the crowd. This, I feel confident in saying, is going to be a monumentally spectacular ceremony, coming as it does after the symbolic ringing of the cities bells (St Peters Catherdal, St Francis Xavier Cathedral and Adelaide Town Hall) to gather the masses. Clearly Sheehy recognises the power in a simple plan well executed - the idea of the 'City Of Bells' is just one such.
At the official launch of the programme on a wet and windy Monday evening down at the new Adelaide Airport terminal, Sheehy unveiled the key aspects of his programme for the forthcoming celebrations. And what a launch it was - even though the 'secrets' had been leaking for the previous week almost a thousand of Adelaide's finest citizens turned up to hear the good news from Chairman of the Festival Board Ross Adler, Premier Mike Rann and Sheehy. It was a lot of talking... but the details are breathtaking.
There's an awful lot of dance and theatre involved in this Festival, and this refelects Sheehy's strengths as a programmer, for he's been able to attract the class end of the field: Glyndebourne Opera's 'Flight', a first time visitor with a new contemporary opera; The Forsythe Company with 'Three Atmostpheric Studies'; David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's collaboration on the musical theatre event 'Here Lies Love', based on the life of Imelda Marcos; Stephen Dillane doing his one man show 'Macbeth'; and of course the Australian Dance Theatre foloow up last Festival's superb 'Held' with a melding of robotics and dance with 'Devolution'.
I've heard allegations of elitism aimed with the Festival programme and firmly believe there should be no negative connotations associated with the word. 'Elitism' means performing at the highest level, and Sheehy appears to have scoured the globe looking for the very best in terms of dance, theatre, film and performance art to bring to Adelaide in March. This is not a big programme in terms of numbers of performances, but it appears on first reading to be packed with exceptional quality. In film there's a hip hop component (for keepin' it real) and Rolf de Heer's Arnhem Land epic 'Ten Canoes' is set to make its debut. There's quite a large music component, from the Pat Metheny Trio to UK DJ Talvin Singh's drum 'n bass fueled Indian odyssey, and the Rascher Saxophone Quartet.
There's an awful lot to look forward to for March 2006; this looks like being one of the best Festivals for many many years. Bravo.
Alex Wheaton
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