Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 7th July 2008
Beijing, Berlin, Birmingham, Marseille… Brisbane? If not for the French port city, anyone out of the loop could be forgiven for suspecting that Billboard’s annual Top 5 International Music Hotspots may in fact be compiled alphabetically, and that 2007 was B’s time to shine.
Before the surprise prompts a date with Botox, however, consider this: while the east coast’s self-crowned monarchs, Sydney and Melbourne, bicker over their respective merits and vie for the compliant adoration of the remainder of the populus, their northerly sister has been quietly grooming herself as the one most likely, accumulating citizens like the other two are going out of style.
While this might not quite be the case, the city we seem more at ease affectionately patronising with the telling sobriquet of “Brisvegas” is now the third largest in the country, and is accruing the cultural Brownie points to match. It is true that recent significant and highly publicised funding cuts to some companies, along with expressions of dissatisfaction with Premier Anna Bligh’s approach to the sector, continue to cast some shadows over the Sunshine State’s arts community. What bodes well, however, is that Queensland’s artists are refusing to go back indoors to dodge the rain.
Under the direction of Lyndon Terracini for a second time, the biennial Brisbane Festival is assuming a lead role in an increasingly triumphant tale and is primed for its next appearance later this month.
Terracini was appointed to the role of Artistic Director in 2005, as the sun set on the long reign of Tony Gould, who had guided the Festival in this capacity since it morphed in 1996 from the annual Warana spring festival into the event as we know it today.
Terracini has carried on Gould’s legacy, emphasising accessibility, inclusivity and relevance to the local population, alongside a strong belief in the importance of introducing ever more uncommon Australian and international repertoire to Festival audiences.
The recipe has worked: the 2006 program was the largest in the Festival’s history, a dramatic increase in partnerships enabling its budget to billow in tandem to a very tidy $12 million: $5 million up on its previous season. This in turn allowed for reduced ticket prices and the response was felt at the box office, through which some 206,000 people passed, 116 per cent of the target revenue whooshing in their wake.
The Artistic Director regnant is aware of the potential impact on the Festival of a year in which many people are forced to make new notches on their belts as interest rates and petrol prices – to name but two disposable income crimps – shoot off into the blue blue skies of Brisbane and beyond. In addition, 2008 is a busy year on the international events calendar: World Youth Day almost immediately precedes the Brisbane Festival and the Beijing Olympics takes up the baton on 8 August. The Biennale of Sydney hums along throughout the Festival period and in Brisbane alone there are yet 3 more separate festivals running either concurrently or in very close proximity to the city’s big festival cheese.
It would seem prescient of Terracini, then, to have carried on polishing the community focus facet of the Brisbane Festival, by reviving the Across Brisbane program, a major highlight of the 2006 Festival that saw ten free events staged at suburban locations across the city, inviting the interest and participation of locals by reflecting their own community back to them and asking them to celebrate what they saw. Formerly ENERGEX Positive Energy Across Brisbane, Origin Across Brisbane will again take ten jubilant productions to the people, some revisiting communities graced with its presence in 2006, along with a handful of new locations.
Terracini is clearly passionate about this aspect of a festival which, after all, should be as much a celebration of the audiences flocking to see its imported acts as it should of the people onstage. Asked about the process of selecting suburbs and developing relevant events, he demonstrates that despite 30 years of performing on some of the world’s hallowed stages, when he exits stage door, he is still someone’s guy next door.
“It’s really [about] going out to the suburbs and talking to people – cab drivers particularly – going to pubs, getting a feel for the place. Everyone’s got an opinion on what the culture of their suburb is but when they start talking about it, they’re not [so] convinced,” he says.
“So you [take] all that knowledge on board and ultimately make a gut decision on what… would really reflect the culture of that suburb, but also be an important part of the Festival.”
Upon reflection, perhaps “guy next door” is a little strong, given that for some time he and his wife Liz inhabited a 15th-century house on a mountaintop overlooking Lake Como. One imagines that going out to mow the lawn was not on the Terracini to-do list.
A diverse career followed his debut in 1976 as Sid in The Australian Opera’s production of Albert Herring at the Sydney Opera House. Never content to yield to the constraints of a single discipline, Terracini has sung, acted, written and filmed his way over the globe, drawing inspiration from the work of others and in particular from collaborative efforts.
In fact, Across Brisbane was sparked by a 1976 performance of the Henze/Paisiello opera Don Quischotte at the Montepulciano Festival in Italy, in which he played Sancio Panza at the express invitation of Hans Werner Henze. Staged in the main piazza and engaging not only orchestral and vocal musicians of international repute but local performers armed with flagons of wine and the kind of cheer that might melt the interior of La Scala, the performance made an impact on its Panza that held out for the right moment.
That moment was some time coming, and the intervening period saw Terracini’s eventual return to Australia in 1993. Wasting no time, he quickly set about establishing Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA), now a major regional performing arts organisation, from his base in Lismore, New South Wales.
In July 2000 he was appointed Artistic Director of Queensland Music Festival, steering it through its 2001, 2003 and 2005 seasons. His 2005 appointment as CEO and Artistic Director of Brisbane Festival followed, along with the not-diminutive role of Chief Executive of Major Brisbane Festivals and Artistic Director of Riverfestival.
It is this diverse array of experiences and enthusiasms that has so comprehensively equipped Terracini for his current role.
“I was always interested in working with particular artists, so that meant crossing over into different areas$$s$$ that’s what a festival does, it crosses all sorts of lines and boundaries – artistically, politically and physically.”
This outlook, coupled with Brisbane’s exponential population growth, meant juicy programming options for someone with Terracini’s proactive approach to an arts sector whose momentum can, on occasion, begin to flag.
Around one fifth of Brisbane’s citizens were born overseas, with just over 16 per cent of these households speaking a language other than English. While these members of the community are just as strongly represented in programs like Origin Across Brisbane, Terracini saw in this broadening of backgrounds an opportunity to introduce fare which even fifteen years ago may have stuck in the throats of many festival-goers. The mirroring of on-stage cultural expansion in turn feeds back into communities that have perhaps remained more homogenous.
Two of this year’s major international acts also happen to be two on which Terracini cannot wax lyrical enough – and neither of them are in English.
The Kingdom of Desire is the rich and complex artistic vision of Wu Hsing-Kuo, Artistic Director and a founding member of Taiwan’s The Contemporary Legend Theatre, and himself a consummate performer of traditional Chinese opera, dance, modern theatre and screen roles. An adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the production involves 22 actors and 15 musicians combining elements of Chinese opera with dance and acrobatic fighting, against the backdrop of China’s Warring States Period, two millennia ago. The whole is performed in Mandarin, with surtitles, and the musical commentary of the live orchestra. With only four performances scheduled, tickets have sold like hot moon cakes.
Holding the other end of the LOTE flag this year is renowned director Declan Donnellan’s production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, performed in its mother tongue by a Russian cast whose familiarity not only with the specific text but with the nuances and possibilities of the language of Chekhov imbue the performance with depth and subtlety that is in most instances beyond the reach of a non-Russian cast. It would be fair to say that it is difficult to imagine a Russian cast capturing all the essence of Dimboola, so it gives one pause to consider that this is not a one-way dilemma.
“There are moments of this that are actually funny,” says Terracini, apparently mid-reminisce. “Whenever I’ve seen this in English it’s kind of a turgid evening, and this is anything but that.”
Citing a 2007 review in The Guardian proclaiming it to be quite possibly the best theatre production in the world, Terracini claims that the rhythm and vibrancy of the language is such that, should an audience already be familiar with the work, the surtitles are close to redundant.
“This production is phenomenal,” he states.
Much closer to home but no less of a contender in the phenomenon stakes is the opening night presentation of The Black Arm Band: murundak at River Stage, a free event to which Terracini expects crowds of around 10,000 people. Given that The Black Arm Band has just cemented its reputation as an ensemble of astonishing vigour, talent and expressiveness in a recent concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall as part of London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), his estimate seems modest.
Two more events likely to bust at the seams are the 2008 Griffith Lecture, this year delivered by author and neurologist Dr Oliver Sacks, and BF08 under the radar, a series of 130 curated theatre performances by 26 local and international companies over 16 days.
The Griffith Lecture was another Terracini innovation of 2006, when Mikhail Gorbachev and a generous handful of Nobel Peace Laureates were invited to speak as part of Earth Dialogues, Gorbachev installing an Australian chapter of his environmental advocacy organisation, Green Cross International. Tickets to hear Sacks gratis on Sunday 3 August were booked out within 48 hours, necessitating a venue change that afforded another 36 hours in which to snap them up, even if it meant sitting cheek by jowl in the choir stalls.
BF08 under the radar – the former fringe festival in new clothing – exists to provide a platform for emerging theatre artists and is the only curated festival of its kind in Australia, being wholly devoted to theatre and its various manifestations.
“I feel that there are enough fringe festivals that consist mainly of stand-up that we can leave that alone,” reasons Terracini.
That someone with Terracini’s curiosity and drive should elect to leave any option by the wayside is testament to the perspicacity that has taken him from his first youthful dalliances with Salvation Army bands, to stages upon which most of us would be happy just to gaze. Should it continue to ascend in the wake of as dynamic a force as Terracini, Brisbane’s cultural star may yet outshine its southerly siblings.
