The river runs dry

As the Murray River - the natural border between New South Wales and Victoria - dries up, it seems that state borders are also breaking down. Well, in arts policy anyway.

Today in Crikey an interesting anonymous tip arrived;
Arts Victoria funding announcement is scheduled to be released this Friday. Several arts organisations that do really good work, highly respected, genuinely tick all the boxes for Australian content, developing young artists, building partnerships, have got the knife. This follows on from some severe bloodletting in the Australia Council funding announcements earlier this year. Some organisations that are rumoured to be defunded this year include Chambermade Opera, Astra, Ballet Lab, Elision (not able to be verified till after Arts Vic announcement).

Lots of disquiet and anger amongst the arts community which is waiting for the government injunction on Friday to lift following the announcement so that they start raising hell. Regarding the Australia Council, a strange Sydney focus and a big conservative lean. In Arts Vic, a sudden-death change in tune to organisations who were given assurances six months ago that all was well and now have had the plug pulled with no wind-down plan or valid explanation of why evaluations have changed. Several orgs are likely to fold, and others have dramatic staff, admin and programming cuts to face up to. A real kick in the guts to Australian culture and a worryingly cavalier attitude to sustainable art-making from the arts bodies.


There's three points to this argument that get lost amongst the general howling that goes on whenever there is some major funding changes.

Firstly, when is the arts industry going to learn to lobby governments as a united front? This constant justification for funding cloaked in terms of educational/community/social benefits instead of pushing the old fashioned we are here and we need to be funded line is extraordinarily divisive. This is not to mention the amount of back-stabbing that goes on behind closed doors whenever an organisation gets the ear of a Minister - 'they get lots of money, why don't we get some of that' type of tactic.

We must be the only industry in the country that lobbies the government like this and other industries representing anything from mining to banking to education wouldn't be caught dead playing those types of tactics.

Secondly, eventually there needs to be some clearing away of the deadwood so that emerging artists, practitioners and organisations get a turn at the funding pie (not that all the above companies are deadwood). But there needs to be a reality check from many organisations that maybe their time is up. Often a group will get funding for say ten years and what they were proposing back in 1998 hasn't really changed a decade later. And it's a funding pie that everyone seems to take for granted. I have seen on industry bulletin boards straight up whinging and moaning when a company does get funding that it is a) not enough b) too little too late or c) not the right type of funding.

And finally, surely it must be time to examine the rift that exists between the major performing arts companies (AMPAG) and the rest of the industry. This shouldn't just be couched in financial terms but also within the creative. Partnerships need to be established far more often that what they are and they must be across all platforms.

It really shouldn't be a surprise when the Australia Council, Arts NSW or Arts Victoria shake things up a bit. Shouldn't we be innovative enough to keep a bit ahead of the game?

Response to Lee Lewis' article as published in Platform Papers

Below is an article as first published in this quarters Platform Papers from Currency House.


Picture the scenario. Unhappy with the dominance of White performers on our stages, a local theatre director writes a Master’s dissertation about the racial make-up of actors cast in major roles in Sydney’s major theatres. The editorial board of Currency House are much taken by the paper and invite the author to rework it as a contribution to their series of quarterly essays on the performing arts, Platform Papers. They hope that it will generate some discussion and perhaps offer some solutions for the future.

Quickly it becomes one of the most hotly debated cultural issues in years. From the moment theatre critic Bryce Hallett writes the first of two extended pieces on the essay in the Sydney Morning Herald (30 June-1 July & 2 July), the discussion catapults itself onto the front pages of major newspapers; national radio stations hold talkback forums; arts websites go crazy; the author, Lee Lewis, is interviewed on television … and the new medium of the blogosphere goes into meltdown.

Such is the energy of the debate that Currency House arranges public forums in Parramatta (4 August) and Melbourne (15 August) to quench the thirst of the many people who have long been desperate to see the issue of cross-racial casting ventilated in public discussion. Both events attracted considerable attendances and I believe NIDA is hoping to host a public forum on the issue early in 2008.

Even John Golder, who edits Platform Papers and who originally commissioned the essay, seems taken aback by the strength of the public reaction. ‘We aim to be stimulating; we aim to be provocative; we aim to ruffle a few feathers; we aim to lob a few hand grenades, but I don’t think we’ve ever done it quite as successfully as with this essay’, he says, introducing Lee Lewis at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatre.

However, despite the furore surrounding the essay, for all the hand grenades that were thrown, and for all the optimism that the outcry might lead to change, the very institutions that Lewis believes are (perhaps unconsciously) complicit in creating ‘White-centric theatre’ have been silent.

Journalists attempt to get comments, opinions or reactions from the companies, but to no avail. One notable exception is Company B Artistic Director, Neil Armfield, who tells Bryce Hallett that he agrees ‘in principle’ with what Lewis has said, but refutes the suggestion that theatre directors have been ‘silently complicit in realising a future for Australia of whiteness and exclusion’. It is Company B’s policy, he said, to ‘actively embrace diversity and […] to challenge assumptions about colour and race’(Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July). Hallett himself noted that ‘it [was] often the case that the metropolitan arts festivals throw into stark relief how overwhelmingly white the Australian theatre is’.

Despite the silence of the Sydney Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare, elsewhere the debate continued to resonate, in the industry, amongst the public, and in the media. On 20 July, on his ABC-RN program, ‘Australia Talks’, Paul Barclay was joined by Julie Rigg and Lee Lewis, and the director and two of the multi-racial cast of the new Australian movie, Lucky Miles, to discuss the question ‘Are we seeing enough racial diversity on our stages and screens?’. The RN hotline was inundated with callers who agreed with Lee’s position and believed that Australia’s entertainment industry is too White. And then only nine days later Virginia Trioli interviews Lee on ABC-TV’s Sunday Arts.

What distinguishes the current debate about theatre from those in the past—in particular, the debate sparked by Richard Wherrett’s Philip Parsons Memorial Lecture, in which he urged the need for less Australian theatre and more international works and classics—is the role that the new media have played in fanning its flames. Blogging theatre-lovers in the burgeoning Web 2.0 community—on Ming-Zhu Hii’s Melbourne blog, Mink Tails, Alison Croggon’s theatre notes, Matthew Clayfield’s Esoteric Rabbit and my own Sydney Arts Journo — have taken the established theatre companies by surprise and ensured that the debate happens, with or without them.

Ming-Zhu Hii was probably the first of many to endorse the essay: ‘If you have any care for the theatre in Australia, read this paper. If you have anything to do with the theatre in Australia, read this paper. If you've ever cast a play or a film or television show, read this paper. If you've ever seen a play and wondered about racial casting choices, read this paper.’ (Minktails, 17 July)

Others were quick to lend her their support. ‘On the face of it’, wrote DPK (Sydney Arts Journo, 13 July), ‘Lewis’ argument is self-evidently true: the faces you see on the mainstage are not the faces you see in the street. And while talent rather than skin tone should always be the key determinant when it comes to casting, one would expect the stage to roughly reflect the diversity of the broader community unless you believe that whites are proportionally more blessed with the ability to act.’ And Alison Croggon (Sydney Arts Journo, 14 July) lent further support, when she asked, ‘When was the last time you saw, for example, a Middle-Eastern actor—and we have more than a few, some with enviable depths of experience—who wasn't playing an Iraqi refugee?’

Some readers, non-White actors, provided personal examples of the racial exclusions they had experienced. For example, Nicole vented her frustration on Mink Tails: ‘I CANNOT STAND being sent only “Asian” or “multi-cultural” roles, although I am seriously grateful for the work I have received, they are the only briefs I am getting. I am starting to refuse doing free work that is derogatory or requires me to put on an accent, I'm shit at them.’ (Minktails, 2 August)

Some saw the problem in broader terms. Gaz (Sydney Arts Journo, 6 July), for instance, suggested that the ‘bigger problem’ lay with the main-stage programming of the ‘big companies’: ‘Often because themes of race are actually quite common, but in the “oh-so-predictable” sense that they are often critiques of white middle-class life.’

Many others defended the major companies, Ironicsmile taking gleeful delight in reminding Lewis that her current employer, the STC—she was directing Love-Lies-Bleeding at Sydney’s Wharf 1—had on the previous evening ‘won two acting Helpmanns […] for an Indigenous actor playing a non-racially-specific role and a Greek actor playing a non-racial or gender-specific role’ (Sydney Arts Journo, 7 August).

But the essay’s defenders were quick to retort. ‘Elements of this debate’, wrote Geoffrey (Sydney Arts Journo, 13 July), ‘smack of small-town tokenism—not to mention generous lashings of condescension.’ Indeed, this condescension was responsible for some needless personal attacks on Lewis and her credentials. One anonymous voice (Sydney Arts Journo, 17 August) said ‘Perhaps she feels John Bell, Neil Armfield, Robyn Nevin and Simon Phillips are all neophytes who have much to learn from her [...] Somehow I don't think they'll be ringing for advice.’ To Chris (Sydney Arts Journo, 16 July) it seemed ‘like a form of self-annihilation to come out and say this stuff. I wonder what the company's [sic] think of this and who'll be giving her a job next year? Very brave or very dumb ...’

Ming-Zhu Hii leapt quickly to Lewis’s defence (Sydney Arts Journo, 16 July), asking Chris, ‘Are you inferring that perhaps she might have done better by the advancement of her career in staying silent, and not writing all of that pesky, controversial material?’

Perhaps what really concerned the blog population was less the issue of cross-racial casting and more the fact that someone in the theatre industry had dared express an honest and well thought through opinion that threatened such a famously protective industry.

But perhaps not everyone who had ever worked in that industry, even at the STC, would necessarily have dismissed the debate. ‘I noted in reading the programme for Love-Lies-Bleeding’, wrote another anonymous blogger (Sydney Arts Journo, 18 July) ‘that Ms Lewis is currently the recipient of a fellowship in Richard Wherrett’s name. I am sure that Richard would be smiling down on this marvellous debate.’

Review (of sorts): Entrapped Marriage of a Gambler

Entrapped Marriage of a Gambler
based on Moliere's The Misanthrope
Mag Korean Theatre Association
Tom Mann Theatre


I had the most marvelous experience a week or so ago. Walking past a conference centre which also hails as a theatre, I saw what looked like a poster-bill advertising some type of performance.

It was clear to me that the writing on the poster bill was Korean but for the life of me there was no way that I could make out what type of show it was. Underneath a big heading and an image of a poker deck was a photo of a man being rejected by a woman. In small lettering down the bottom of the poster were the words “Entrapped Marriage of a Gambler”.

As the venue was closed, I made the point of remembering to come back to the theatre the following evening to see what it was all about.

The next night I head up the stairs and pop my head in to the box office. The last time I had been to this theatre was to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch… a somewhat different show I thought.

A sweet Korean woman is at the box office wearing a bright red and white baseball hat. She is flanked by a very shy young Korean man who is utterly perplexed why this weird anglo man wants to know about their show. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing I discover that it is the Mag Korean Theatre Association are putting on their own adaptation of Moliere’s The Misanthrope.

My intrigue is growing by the second.

The lady tells me that the show is already half way through but I can return tomorrow to see it from the start at 7pm. How very exciting.

The next evening I head out on my theatre excursion. As I approach the venue I see an unusual amount of hatchback cars trying to find a park. It’s almost as if the entire Korean population in Sydney are going to this play.

I walk up the stairs again to be greeted by the box office staff anticipating my return. A voice from behind greets me. It is the director who approaches, “Hello Mr Pickard.” An amiable and professional looking man, he informs me that he has been doing shows in Sydney for the last 15 years.

As we chat, piles of audience come up the stairs, looked on by a large wharfy looking AMWU venue manager, with his union hat pulled down firmly over a big grey beard and two beady eyes. He gives me that look of familiarity, but I turn my attention back to the director.

After purchasing tickets and collecting my programme, I am led into the auditorium and made to sit in the very front row. A couple of hundred people are already in the auditorium, chatting amongst themselves as Korean pop songs blare over the speaker system.

Ten minutes later and suddenly a voice-over comes over speaking to the audience. It seems to go on forever. What on earth is he telling them? I turn to the person sitting behind me and ask: “oh, he’s just saying where the toilets are and to turn off your mobile phones.”

Lights down and all is quiet. And suddenly as a spot appears, a man jumps out of the shadows and yells at the audience and bows. He must be some type of narrator. The curtains then open to reveal a typical amateur set design the length of the stage with a big sign saying ‘CAFÉ’.

A man and woman are found sitting at a steel table chatting… about something or other. I start to look at other things. Interestingly, their make-up is very different to what I am used to. On the nose is a sharp white streak with heavily highlighted eyebrows. It accentuates the centre of the face and gives the players sharper features. It must be from some type of Korean tradition.

Gradually we move into another scene, this time with some weird computer graphics, as one of the players sits behind a blue screen and her voice is distorted into some type of cartoon character. This is getting bizarre and I still have no idea what is going on, apart from the fact that the central character of the gambler obviously wants to get married. I suspect that gambling might be proving a problem.

The next thing I know, the gambler finds himself drunk and surrounded in the back streets by a herd of good looking young Korean’s. Dressed up with the mixture of street punk, bling and fake channel they make fun of him and get him stoned.

I am anticipating a dance number. There are two many people on stage for there not to be a big dance number. Suddenly the flags suddenly come out, some spunky young dance flips across the stage, ropes appear for the robbing of the drunk and stone gambler and a Massive Attack song starts blaring.

The flags a thrown around as a choreographed number that resembles some Saturday morning video hits song. The gambler is predictably roped up and robbed. The misanthrope meets his downfall!

There are a few more chatter-box scenes, and finally the ending draws near after 90 minutes. The cast come together on stage and Jingle Bell Rock kicks in and they take their bows singing to the audience.

The audience clap and applaud their entertainers and file out but not before the cast has had time to race out from backstage to line the exit to the doors. Bows are exchanged as the cast thank the audience for coming with smiles and short phrases.

The Entrapped Marriage of a Gambler has finished for another night and they are ready for their full house the following evening. In the meantime, I needed a drink.

My Island Home

My Island Home is a snapshot of modern Australian cultural excellence - a celebration of a confident nation rejoicing and showcasing the wealth of talented performers that call the earth’s largest island “home”.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House for the APEC Australia 2007 Gala Cultural Performance. Sydney is a truly global city with two defining icons – the world heritage listed Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Tonight’s performance provides a snapshot of modern Australia and features over 200 young performers and famous artists showcasing the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts.

The Asia-Pacific is a region that has emerged as the fastest growing and most dynamic in the world, and tonight’s performance embodies this spirit. It spans a diversity of genres, including classical and indigenous music, modern dance and musical theatre, and traditional ballet and opera.

‘My Island Home’ takes us all on a journey through a diverse programme sharing Australia’s cultural heritage with our friends from around the Asia-Pacific region.

The Hon John Howard MP
Prime Minister of Australia

So, what did our international guests enjoy last night during the APEC Australia 2007 Gala Cultural Programme?

The evening got off to a bang with conductor Andrew Greene leading the Australian Opera & Ballet Orchestra in the main title theme from the film The Man From Snowy River.

Yes, that's right - The Man From Snowy River. Isn't it astonishing that we had to travel back to 1982 to find a film worthy of playing the main theme from.

To give you some perspective, the equivalent would be the US getting the New York Symphony Orchestra to play Gandhi or ET to display their cultural might in 2007. But wait - it does get better.

This was soon followed by, as promised, You're the Voice (1986) performed by soloist Robert Adam and an array of kids from Gondwana Voices and the Sydney Childrens Choir. The John Farnham retrospective was swiftly followed up by the 'Somewhere Medley'.

What, may you ask, is the 'Somewhere Medley'?

Well, let me tell you...

Picture, if you will, six singers (Sophie Carter, Amelia Cormack, Ben Lewis, Alexander Lewis, James Millar and Christina O'Neill) centre stage in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.

The lights come up on young Sophie, Amelia, Ben, Alex, James and Christina who earnestly look into the crowd. Picture if you will, the world leaders - Vladimir Putin, George Bush, Hu Jintao, Shinzo Abe, Gloria Arroyo looking back. The sextet then slowly start singing Somewhere Out There:

Somewhere out there, Beneath the pale blue night, Someone's thinking of me, And loving me tonight. Somewhere out there, Someone's saying a prayer, Then we'll find one another, In that big somewhere out there.

After polite applause they then get a little more serious and tackle that ever-faithful anthem of earnestness Over the Rainbow:

Somewhere over the rainbow, Way up high, There's a land that I heard of, Once in a lullaby.

The song trails off as the performers transport the world leaders to Oz... yes that's right Toto, to Oz!

The audience by this point must be wishing that if they click their heels they are transported somewhere... please god... anywhere!

Which makes the power of the next song so relevant and cruelly ironic - none other than Somewhere from West Side Story:

There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us, Peace and quiet and open air, Wait for us, Somewhere.

Let me take a short interval here by saying that this programme would have to be one of the most embarrasing elements of the entire APEC Forum. It could beat the Chaser team making their way past two security posts or even George W Bush calling APEC - OPEC and Australia - Austria or it could even beat the non-existent aspirational and non-binding climate change targets set by the forum...

To think that the staff and advisers from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet would serve this up can only be described as nothing short of bad taste that is utterly blind to the actual cultural activities in this country.

The programme was appalling. The Somewhere Medley for goodness sake! What on earth is a Somewhere Medley?

Let me be very clear about this. This programme of events must have been altered, changed and re-jigged until the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet had officially approved it and I don't think that any blame could possibly be passed onto the exceptional artists involved.

And the world leaders and delegates and international media are told by the Prime Minister that this event is 'showcasing the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts'. You may as well have given the politicians and world leaders a lagerphone and a gum leaf. Here you go Skip!

The arts industry should be furious at the department for allowing this type of event to even make it onto paper. If I was an original composer I would be most particularly concerned at the complete lack of original Australian composition used in the gala. The amount of American and European content in this production is stupefying. And this is the ASIA-PACIFIC Economic Forum. You could be forgiven for thinking behind those security fences that cultural diversity in Australia is something you only find in restaurants.

There should be complaints made by the arts industry and multicultural bodies to express worry into how our culture is portrayed by this government on an international level.

With the activities of the Australia International Cultural Council now provided with $20.4 million of funds over four years through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I hope to god that events like last night are not the norm in how we present the very best of contemporary Australian performing arts.

Let me concede at this point that it is oh-so-thankful that Artistic Director Stuart Maunder put in a bit of Bangarra Dance, Taikoz, Australian Ballet and Opera Australia to soften the blows - otherwise the entire affair could have gone down in history as the worst concert ever staged in the Sydney Opera House.

There's a time for us, Some day a time for us, Time together, With time to spare, Time to look, Time to care, Someday, Somewhere.

We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving, Somewhere, There's a place for us, A time and place for us.

Hold my hand, And we're halfway there, Hold my hand, And I'll take you there, Somehow, Someday, Somewhere...

By god, we better find a way. Somehow. Someday. Somewhere. Go on, readers, hold my hand.


As published on Crikey.com

Wheat, wine and a whinge

What an exciting week! Version 1.0's new show, Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue, is certainly attracting the right people. Last night, Terence Cole, the appointed commissioner of the Australian Wheat Board inquiry turned up to see the theatrical spin on his report.

It just so happens that he turned up on a student-rush night, and consequently was surrounded by over 100 local university students eager to drink in the subject matter. From all reports the artist-talk discussion after the show was a lively affair.

Opening night also saw David Marr attend, the Sydney Morning Herald journalist who has been agitating aggressively for more governmental accountability. The show should have been right up his alley.

And today, News Limited and Fairfax have grabbed onto a story condemning some artworks submitted to the Blake Prize for Religious Art - the oldest prize in Australia dedicated to spirituality, religion and cultural diversity.

It appears that the Prime Minister, John Howard has expressed disgust at some of the entries. He told the Daily Telegraph that some pieces entered into the competition were 'gratuitously offensive'.

By 3pm this afternoon Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd did another 'me too' and said "I find this painting off, off in the extreme."

And what were they offended and put off by you may well ask?

There's a piece that is a holygrophic image that morphs between the images of Jesus Christ and Osama bin Laden. As well as this, there is a sculpture of the Virgin Mary wearing a burqa.

How delicious.

Meanwhile the head of the Islamic Council said he wasn't at all offended by Mary in the Burqa saying to the Herald, that it is "no different to how our mothers and sisters are expected to be modest in their dressing."

Of course no one has really talked about who actually won the event. The Herald did put a brief line in the end of their article, but your trusted sydney arts journo will give you the full judges decision straight which is published openly on their website:

"The Judges were deeply impressed by the diverse intentions of the artists who submitted – everything from an expression of lived experience, of spiritual commitment/journey, through to work that investigated the problems of religious ideology as they are played out through politics and culture in global life.

"The winning work by Shirley Purdie is simply delicious in colour, texture and feeling. It is a marvellously realised painterly journey that recreates the stories told to the artist in childhood of the Stations of the Cross in Warmun country using a breathtakingly beautiful natural ochre pallette made from the earths eroded from the very Kimberley rocks whose mobile shapes enclose and frame the vignettes of story. A solidly honest, confident, and true painting it becomes a meditation on travelling within the artists country following a remembered and cherished biblical journey of suffering and pain towards redemption, and perhaps as well asks us to reflect on loss, pain and the journeys we all need to make towards each other."

I wonder what Mr Howard and Mr Rudd possibly have to say about the winning entry.

Mr Howard?

Mr Rudd?

Hello.... anyone???

Image: abelincoln.com

Review: Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue

Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue by version 1.0
Carriage Works & Performance Space
Friday 24 August 2007

As published in The Daily Telegraph.

Remember that little scandal at the beginning of last year involving wheat? Something about a Wheat Board monopoly, a lot of money, Saddam Hussein, a military invasion and a trucking company?

The Wheat for Weapons scandal is the latest subject of version 1.0’s production Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue.

It sounds dry, but this production is nothing short of an exhilarating and superbly didactic piece of political theatre that shines a theatrical magnifying glass on what happened during the scandal.

Version 1.0 is renowned for its use of public inquiry and politics to mastermind theatrical pieces and has previously covered the Iraq War and the Children Overboard affair.

In this production performers (Stephen Klinder, David Williams, Jane Phegan, Yana Taylor and Kym Vercoe) take on a wide range of characters, including the Prime Minister, Alexander Downer, Mark Vaile, Australian Wheat Board executives, Commissioner Cole and others involved in the inquiry.

With video projection, "live" hook-ups and moving footage (brilliantly co-ordinated by Sean Bacon), the group plays out the events leading up to and including the Cole Inquiry that investigated how the AWB filtered $290 million dollars of kickbacks to Hussein’s regime.

They whisk the audience on a theatrical journey from the wheat fields of the Outback to the commission, to Hussein’s palaces and to the press conferences held by politicians.

By effectively utilising the large theatre at Carriage Works, the group has created its finest piece of theatre yet. Not only are the facts around the affair clearly stated but the theatrical elements employed are inventive, physical and sophisticated.

It would be easy to get bogged down in the subject matter but this group has developed a deft grasp of political theatre in this country.

Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue is a very important production that holds a lucid mirror up to our democratic processes.

Image: David Williams and Kym Vercoe in Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue.

Time to lobby with insight

A little news report that I wrote about Saturday's forum, as published in Arts Hub

The first of two Currency House forums was held in Sydney on Saturday to discuss Lee Lewis’ controversial new essay on cross-cultural casting. The forum, which will have a session in Melbourne, follows on from newspaper articles and internet debates that have raised questions about the lack of multicultural faces seen on Australia’s stages.

Introduced by Platform Papers Editor John Golder and chaired by Urban Theatre Projects Artistic Director Alicia Talbot, the discussion with the essays author Lee Lewis and performance artists Lina Kastoumis, was a vibrant and passionate debate that attracted nearly 40 people to Parramatta Riverside theatres.

“We aim to be stimulating, we aim to be provocative, we aim to ruffle a few feathers, we aim to lob a few hand grenades and I think we’ve never done it more successfully than with the current essay by Lee Lewis,” Golder said of their latest publication.

Lewis went on to explain to the audience her reasons for writing the essay explaining that the edition printed is part of a larger research she completed while studying a post-graduate degree at NIDA.

Lewis also responded to many within the industry who have expressed dismay that this is an issue that has been brought up previously, agreeing that “this shouldn’t exist as an essay. We should have actually got past this point.”

In what is seen as an embarrassment for the performing arts industry, Lewis also pointed out that “we are losing a lot of people through sheer attrition. All of the acting schools have been graduating non-White actors for a long time and they are frustrated by the lack of work for those actors. If those actors aren’t being selected by directors, after ten years those actors are just going to stop and their talents are not going to be developed.”

The forum discussed that the paper and the surrounding debate was not concerned with social ethics or positive discrimination but was centrally concerned with the quality of the work seen in Australia’s core cultural spaces. “When you look at publically funded work coming out of England or the US, the work is better on a question of how they’re engaging with the identities of their cities,” Lews said.

The audience who attended the forum expressed a desire for this discussion to continue beyond the forums in Sydney and Melbourne and proposed that the industry lobby SBS’s Insight programme to host a televised debate on the issues raised.

The next forum to discuss Lee Lewis’ essay will be held at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne on Wednesday 15 August and will be chaired by Alison Croggon of Theatre Notes.

For further information visit http://www.currencyhouse.org.au/

To submit this topic to SBS's Insight programme CLICK HERE.


Image credit: inweaknessbe/flickr

Heads Up!

This little racial casting issue is gathering some lovely looking steam indeed.

At 6pm, Australia Talks will present a panel discussion on Radio National featuring the now blogospherically famous Lee Lewis, the ABC's Julie Rigg and the director of Lucky Miles Michael James Rowland who will come along with two of his cast from the film.

Check here to see what AM dial you need to tune into. (That's right - A.M!!!) Or download it from the ABC Australia Talks website when it is uploaded.

And then, there will be two forums held by Currency House in Sydney and Melbourne. Apologies to the rest of Australia - but rest assured that the blog fraternity of Alison, Ming-Zhu and I will fill that media gap and report back to you on what was said.

But for those of you intending to go, I beg and plead with you to please read the essay beforehand. There is nothing worse than a forum where you spend the entire time negotiating the terms of reference and battling against those who wander in there ill-informed. It gets so boring.

And a quick reminder about the forum on Tuesday at the Sydney Town Hall where locals get to talk with Lord Mayor Clover Moore, Adam Spencer, Fergus Linehan, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor & Neil Armfield about how wonderful our city is as the 'cultural capital of Australia'.

Here are the details of the Cross-Racial Casting forum:
Join Lee Lewis at a public forum on an issue of central importance to every member of the artistic community concerned about the future of Australia’s public arts.

Sydney
at Rafferty’s Theatre, Riverside Theatres, Church Street, Parramatta
with Alicia Talbot, Artistic Director of Urban Theatre Projects
Saturday 4 August 3pm

Melbourne
at the Malthouse Theatre, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank
with Alison Croggon, Theatre critic and bloggist
Wednesday 15 August 5.30 for 6pm to 7.30pm

Entry free

If you have any care for the theatre in Australia, read this paper. If you have anything to do with the theatre in Australia, read this paper. If you ever cast a play or a film or television show, read this paper. You must do it now.
Ming-Zhu Hii, actor.
Minktails.blogspot.com
(as quoted on press release)


Image: Hoosier Ag Today

And the debate still rages... but it's still all white on the night

For those of you new to this little blog site that concerns itself with all things artistic and cultural, let me recap on what has been happening this last week.

In short, I made a brief summary post about an essay published in an Australian performing arts publication about the lack of multi-racial casting on the stages of Sydney. It fit nicely with another event that occurred when the major Shakespearean company, Bell Shakespeare, cast an Indigenous actor for the first time in this country's history as Othello.

It was merely a summary, but it seems to have gone a little berserk and the traffic flow into the site has gone through the roof. At the same time, my esteemed colleague Mink Tails was diving into this blog, making excellent and passionate comments as well as having an excellent summary of the essay on her blog.

But, for fear of losing the central focus here and diving into an 'i love my stc/i hate my stc' argument, let's steer back to the nuts and bolts of what Lee Lewis said in her essay. (But I implore you all to read the full text, for fear that certain quotes I select below could be taken out of context, which I will desperately try not to allow.)

'This essay,' Lewis writes, 'argues that aggressive cross-racial casting of the classical repertoire is needed in order to subvert the 'inevitability' of White-centric theatre. It is a necessary step if we are to rid our mainstages of their current, implicitly colonial, practices and make them a cultural territory that is fully engaged with the socio-political complexities of representing hybridisation'.

That is the central theme of her essay, and I applaud her for making it.

Since reading her research and her ideas, it has started to put a barrier between myself and so much of what I am seeing at the moment. She is bloody well right and what is sad is that these arguments have been made before and nothing has been done about them.

A few weeks ago I had the fortune of teaching some high school students from a number of schools in the Penrith area of Sydney. These classes were made up with ethnically diverse students from a wide variety of backgrounds. We worked on devising short pieces of theatre which would culminate with a performance evening in front of their peers, friends and families.

It hasn't been until now, that I reflect on the workshops and realise how out of touch the mainstages are to the world that these students live in. Cultural diversity, ethnic diversity and racial diversity is the norm for them. How must main theatre companies look to them when they see a constructed world that does not reflect their own?

'The construction,' Lewis continues, 'of the all-White cast in Sydney as the 'natural order' is inherited from the British theatre, which functioned as the cultural face of imperial politics of domination. Our mainstages have yet to mount a serious challenge to this state of affairs. An all-White cast in a classical play on a mainstage in Sydney in 2007 is a nationalist strategy for reaffirming the dominant fantasy of Australia as an all-White nation...'

In the essay, Lewis makes fantastic arguments and provides excellent evidence that irrefutably shows that the cultural diversity of the Australian stage is at best, lacklustre. At worst, it verges on racial exclusion. When you compare the diversity that is gracing the stages of progressive institutions such as Performance Space, Sidetrack and Opera Australia, you get a sense of who is being left behind.

I would, however, give more weight to the role that programming plays in the lack of multi-racial casting. Someone mentioned in the previous post the speech that Richard Wherrett gave about anglo-centric programming and to be honest, I don't think that there is any evidence that the mainstage theatre environment has changed much since that speech was given in the mid-90's.

The conservative programming of mainstage theatre in this city is a central problem to the acceptance of a more diverse stage and until we start to develop audiences with more diverse points of views, more diverse texts, more diverse theatrical practice and scripts that don't prescribe to the US and UK stereotype, it will be very hard to move beyond the present situation.

Don't get me wrong, I like to hear what writers in the US and UK are talking about and the mainstages do those productions competently, but I would really LOVE to hear what Biljana Srbljanovic is saying, or Gao Xingjian, or Sabina Berman, or Yukio Mishima, or Andre Hieng, or Maribel Carrasco, or Jose Ramon Enriquez, or Noda Hideki, or the Presnayakov Brothers.... or maybe even someone from Sydney.

There is a tunnel vision in the diverse cultural impact of texts used by mainstage companies in Sydney. That is a hurdle they and their audiences need to get over if there is any hope for a more diverse cross section appearing on their stages.

Lewis uses Barrie Kosky as an example to be emulated. Again, I couldn't agree more. While I was studying theatre in Slovenia, I would occasionally indulge myself, catch the train a few hours north to Vienna and have a sticky-beak at what Kosky was doing at the Schauspielhaus. The production that stays in my memory more than any other was his production of Medea, starring Melita Jurisic in the title role.

At the beginning of the production, Kosky gets Jurisic to speak in Croatian, while someone in the lighting box did a voice over translation into German. Such a simple acceptance of diverse culture and language that enhanced the theatricality and impact of the play in such profound and beautiful ways. And not to mention pointing a big finger at the sore on the butt of Western Europe and what to do about those 'damn Eastern Europeans' who look so similar to us, but are so poor.

Lewis suggests the term 'Third World Looking Person' in preference to Non-English Speaking Background in the essay. She quotes Ghassan Hage who explains that 'when white people who embrace the White nation fantasy look at a migrant, what they differentiate between are not those who are NESB and those who are not, or those who are European and those who are not, but those who are Third-World looking and those who are not.'

From a theatre viewpoint, I think that the non-English speaking background influence has as much to do with the way that non-White actors look. The intolerance towards those that have an accent sits uncomfortably with our romantic notion of the days when actors spoke in Received Pronunciation - and this intolerance is stifling our theatre.

Lewis' essay is so much more comprehensive than I can give justice to in a short blog entry, but the study she gives to the situation is compelling. She is careful not to point the blame, and prefers to blame professionals for being naive. But at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter whose fault it is. What matters is how we are going to change and when.


Image: Luke Chueh, Black in White

Well... it's a forum...

Here is a little news article I wrote for ArtsHub that I reckon might be of great interest to all you theatre and arts punters out there.

I know that the last forum I recommended was totally underwhelming, but maybe, just maybe this might be worthwhile.

"What will Sydney’s creative future look like in 2030? That is the question to be asked at the first City Talk presented this year at the Sydney Town Hall on 24 July.

Presented by the City of Sydney and the Sydney Morning Herald, the talk will be compered by 702 ABC Radio Sydney Breakfast host Adam Spencer who will be in discussion with Sydney Festival Director and Chief Executive Fergus Linehan, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor and Company B Artistic Director, Neil Armfield.

'Sydney is the cultural capital of Australia,' Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP said, 'and obviously this is a position we would like to keep up to 2030 and beyond.'

This panel discussion with three of the most influential cultural figures of Sydney will look at the future of the city’s creative and cultural life as part of the City of Sydney's Sustainable Futures 2030 project. The outcomes of the public discussion will be then used by the City to further develop a vision for the future.

The Lord Mayor is encouraging public involvement saying, 'this is your opportunity to be part of the discussion about our city's future. Where do we want to be creatively in 2030?' Ms Moore said.

The City of Sydney prides itself on supporting a diverse range of major cultural events including the Sydney Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Art & About, Sydney Writers’ Festival as well as smaller community events.

It has centred much of its support around the City of Villages concept which seeks to create cultural hubs within many of the different sectors of the city. In November last year it announced the Live Lanes Program to ‘breath new life into CBD laneways with a range of creative initiatives to encourage more activity’.

The first City Talk is a free event and will be held on Tuesday 24 July at 8pm at the Sydney Town Hall from 6.30pm.

For more information, CLICK HERE."

Image: City of Sydney Media

Racey Issues

Sydney Theatre Company Director Lee Lewis appeared on page three of Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald calling for more racially diverse castings.

The article by reviewer Bryce Hallett centres around an essay by Lewis entitled "Cross-racial casting: Changing the Faces of Australian Theatre." The SMH forgot to mention that it was published by Currency House as part of their Platform Papers series, which you can find more about here.

The SMH reports that "Lewis argues that the failure of the Sydney Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare Company and Company B Belvoir to cast diversely risks marginalising ethnic groups".

Lewis goes on to say that "a multicultural stage costs money and, as theatres see their funding under constant threat and their hopes for the future dwindle, they decide to mimic the government's isolationist immigration policies and retreat to [a] conservative, risk-averse, funding-safe, white-casting agenda."

It's an extremely interesting and fraught topic that Lewis raises and I won't say too much until I read the entire essay. Of course, this is not the first time that this issue has been raised. Almost always the debate then dives into one about conservative programming by the major performing arts companies which they quickly brush off as nonsense. But the fact is that the amount of plays that constantly get programmed that are straight off the plane from New York and London is enormously aggravating and is getting oh-so-predictable.

And the Independent sector, where Lewis comes from, doesn't fair that much better.

Currency House's timing couldn't be more perfect, in the week that the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest census results showing the increased cultural diversity of the country.

Other interesting debates about race include one that was raised a couple of years ago when the BBC director-general described the corporation as 'hideously white'. Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert wrote an excellent paper in 2002 that looked at the history of our multicultural, post colonial and inter-cultural society and how theatre did and didn't reflect that change.

The Australia Council also commissioned a research paper in 1998 on 'the representation of non-English speaking background people in theatre, film and television' which you can view a summary of here.

Of course this doesn't even cover the wide range of forums and discussions that the theatre community have been holding that cry poor to the white institutional theatres. You can find various types here, here and here.


Image: cjnetworks.com