Friday March 22nd – Castlemaine State Festival 2013

Open Studios and Exhibitions

ggadmin — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 23:41:42 +0000

Over 80 artist studios and galleries will be open to the public during the Castlemaine State Festival.

Download the full list of Open Studios and Exhibitions here:

Open Studios and Exhibitions Full 5.1 Mb PDF

Open Studios and Exhibitions Small Booklet 1.6 Mb PDF

Trace

admin — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:59:15 +0000

Video Architecture re-imagines the built and natural environments of our public spaces. It is spontaneous, collaborative and interactive; exploring the relationships of multidisciplinary arts practice, and integrating elements of drawing, painting, movement and sound with the ethereal, dream-like element of light. Stripped of any reliance on electro gimmickry, this technique is a constant investigation of the elemental nature of physical media within art.

The pivotal feature of Video Architecture is that it is live, immediate and organic; thus it responds directly to place and community. The Trace project has responded specifically to young people in the region through a summer creative development program at PRIME ART, Castlemaine’s new Youth Arts Hub.

Video Architecture is a collaboration between Jim Coad, Gabrielle Brauer, Mandy Field and local young artists.

Schools Program

admin — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 23:22:08 +0000

The Festival once again welcomes all 1500 primary school students from across Mount Alexander Shire for four days of jam-packed art experiences with outstanding local, national and international artists.

The Man Who Planted Trees
Puppet State Theatre, Scotland

This beautiful theatrical adaptation of Jean Giono’s environmental classic tells the inspiring story of a shepherd who plants a forest acorn by acorn, thereby transforming a barren wasteland. As much a touching tale as a hilarious puppet show, The Man Who Planted Trees shows us the difference that one man (and his dog!) can make to the world.

The Children’s Choir
James Rigby and Jane Thompson

Harnessing voices en masse through song is a powerful, joyful collaborative experience. The sense of being part of ‘one voice’ will stay with participating children for a long time. During the first term of 2013, children will explore their own voices and their collective voice, learning and rehearsing a specially written song for the final day of the Festival. James Rigby and Jane Thompson, local and highly respected song-makers and choir leaders, will be engaging their infectious enthusiastic style, and teaching songs to share as part of the Festival Finale in Victory Park on Sunday 24 March.

Concrete Poetry
Paul Allen

Concrete Poetry is a playful and powerful communication tool for expressing ideas. Combining words, images, shapes and typography, concrete poems are often humorous and always unexpected — a pleasure for the mind, heart and eye.

Children will be taken on an adventurous journey into the world of concrete poetry, to learn about this lesser-known artform, and make poems with respected local artist and teacher Paul Allen, and fellow artists. Workshops will involve creating concrete poems that respond to the festival theme ‘Elemental’ by exploring the four elements: earth, water, wind and fire. A preparation guide will be provided to teachers at the beginning of first term so that students can familiarise themselves with this imaginative artform and language.

Text Alley

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 01:37:36 +0000

Monkeys in gutters, the sky raining letters, foxes in suits, bold script and even bolder statements, Text Alley is Frederick Street gone Festival. With paste-up and visual poetry, it’s a cheeky and contentious topography of words.

Curated by Clayton Tremlett and created with Castlemaine Secondary College students it also features work by Anatol Knotek – Vienna based visual poet and Pat Thompson.

Long Overdue

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 01:27:45 +0000

Long Overdue is Castlemaine Library’s homage to the extraordinary collection from the local photographic studio of A. Verey & Co. (1883–1954). Contemporary works by local photographers will be paired with Verey originals in the form of ‘transparencies’ on the library’s windows, echoing the old glass-plate format. Long Overdue will be visible both inside and outside the library, by day and by night. Running concurrently with the exhibition will be a digital slideshow of Verey images, and photography and writing workshops for all ages.

SNAP SHOTS
Workshops for primary schools at Castlemaine Library, with Lisa D’Onofrio
10.30am & 2pm, Thursday 7 March
Participants will use images from the Verey collection of historical local photographs as inspiration to write their own poetry potraits. These pieces, generated by a number of poem-making techniques, will be displayed as ‘transparencies’ on the Castlemaine Library windows during the CSF alongside the the photos that inspired them.

Enquiries: Castlemaine Library, ph. 5472 1458 or castlemaine@ncgrl.vic.gov.au

Bite

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 01:20:31 +0000

Curated by Stephen Turpie, Lecturer in Visual Art, La Trobe University.

Bite is an exhibition of new work by higher Degree and Honours students from the Bendigo and Mildura Campuses.

These five selected artists have responded to the Festival theme exploring public space, memory, text, excess, living materials, the animal human nexus and notions of uncertainty.

Geoffrey Brown
Michelle Day
Philipp Pahin
Catherine Shields
Candy Stevens

Lost in Tranzit

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:59:01 +0000

Lost in Tranzit is a multi media installation created by 3 groups of young people from Castlemaine, Hobsons Bay, and St Albans in 2011. Working with professional artists they used stills, video, animation, and sound to express the theme “lost in transit”. The pieces are comic, dark, often moving, occasionally wistful, sometimes downright subversive – just like the people who created them! Above all the works give testament to the makers’ vivid imaginations and the talent that realised them.

Lost in Tranzit was first exhibited in a specially designed “transit lounge”, constructed in three different spaces at the Substation, Newport.

This Is Me – Now

admin — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:56:17 +0000

“What if the whole world was made from trampolines?” . . . “I am a huntress and I am immortal” . . .

“I just don’t like being told what to do” . . . “I see myself in the future dreaming” . . . “It’s a place that I can’t fully explain. Its simple’’

Five young people from the Castlemaine district throw open the doors of their imagination to create video self-portraits which take us through the wild to the wonderful, from the intimate to the downright still and quiet.. Each participant has written their own text and chosen the location and visual framework for these short films about who they are and how they experience their worlds.

‘This is Me – Now’ is a collaboration between Ranters Theatre, Adriano Cortese, Paul Lum, Max Sharam, Andrew Sully, and Ruby Benedict, Bonnie Cook-Hain, Eamon Coulthard, Holly Mcnamara and Ruby Scott.

The Necks

nathan — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:34:31 +0000

The Necks are a trio from Sydney comprising Chris Abrahams on piano, Tony Buck on drums and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass. As The Necks, they conjure a chemistry together that defies description in orthodox terms.

Typically a live performance will begin very quietly with one of the musicians playing a simple figure. One at a time, the other two will join with their own contributions, all three players independent yet intertwined. As the ‘piece’ builds through subtle micro-changes, the interaction of the instruments creates layers of harmonics and prismatic washes of sound that lead some to the appellation ‘trance jazz’. Instant by instant, their music seems driven not so much by the convention of cause and effect, but by the ‘insistent demand of the moment’.

Featuring lengthy pieces that slowly unravel in the most mesmerising fashion, frequently underpinned by an insistent deep groove, the 16 albums by The Necks stand up to re-listening time and time again. The deceptive simplicity of their music throws forth new charms on each hearing. Not entirely avant-garde, nor minimalist, nor ambient, nor jazz, the music of The Necks is unique in the world today.

‘Absolutely riveting … how three musicians can sound like eighteen is a mystery … extraordinary magical sounds emerged from the ensemble … the way The Necks do this with acoustic instruments is nothing short of miraculous’
FINANCIAL TIMES (UK)

‘One of the greatest bands in the world’
NEW YORK TIMES

London Klezmer Quartet

nathan — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:26:10 +0000

Expect exuberant and accomplished performances from Europe’s top klezmer players as they take you on a musical odyssey through the Yiddish villages of eastern Europe and beyond, playing the music that keeps wedding parties on their feet for days.

Fast and furious one moment, soulful and reflective the next, London Klezmer Quartet’s traditional and self-penned melodies will stir your emotions and feed your soul with authentic ‘sounds of the shtetl’. Their deep understanding and expressive performances of this Jewish Eastern European tradition music are winning plaudits, with Doug Spencer of ABC Radio National describing them as ‘the real deal, to these ears’.

Individual band members are in demand across the musical spectrum, having recorded and toured with the likes of Jackson Brown, Bonnie Raitt, the Indigo Girls, Sinead O’Connor, Natacha Atlas, She’Koyokh and Vardos.

‘Dynamic and authentic’
TIME OUT, London

‘Four of Europe’s most talented klezmer musicians. They bring a wealth of knowledge, experience and excitement to their performances.’
Frank London, The Klezmatics

The Clubrooms

nathan — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 04:22:41 +0000

Need a warm up and wind down pre and post festival events?

Come to THE CLUBROOMS where you can warm up for an evening of Festival performances or wind down when the performances are done and dusted. Kick off, kick back and have a ball backstage at the Castlemaine Town Hall.

Sporting a rub-a-dub bar and grub, The Clubrooms have a trophy winning atmosphere and A-grade performances backstage, on stage, and beyond – warm ups, coaching, coaxing, crazy dance, cool tunes and hip moves, The Clubrooms combine live art with Allstar attitude, cabaret with locker room cheek, deep heat and Dencorub.

Featuring the Allstars, The Black Diamonds, Tuba, Flap! and guest players from the festival “bench”.

Come celebrate with the team ‘til the stars go home.

Twig

nathan — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 04:05:45 +0000

Continuing a long-held fascination with everyday materials and pattern, artist Tim Craker assembles an enormous and varied installation from the most basic of building blocks — gum tree twigs and branches. Collected as fallen bush debris from the local area and assembled into myriad units, the eucalypt twigs form a massive construction within the interior of the Castlemaine Market Building, site of the Festival’s Literature Program Collective DNA.

Twig explores and develops the geometry of the pentagon in two and three-dimensional structures, where mathematical perfection and the imperatives of tessellation balance against natural variation and bush-litter chaos. We begin with some basic materials and some rules of combination, but where do we end up? Twig alludes to both the biological and cellular, and to the social and societal, to the connections that exist between our molecules and cells, and to those we have with each other, in networks of family and friends.

Do you twig?

Twig has been created as an integrated artwork within the Festival’s Literature Program and will be fully experienced during these special events (see Collective DNA: We Are Made of Stories, Poetry and Song for details).

Elements of the artwork can be viewed at other times during the Festival, prior to performances, during the Castlemaine Market Building opening hours 10am to 5pm.

‘…the everyday transformed into something magical and enigmatic…’
Gina Fairley, Asian Art News Nov/Dec 2008

‘This is not art… I’ve got a 7-year old daughter and she could have done this for free and done a better job…’
Oscar Yildiz, Mayor of Moreland City Council, June 2011

The Black Diamonds

admin — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 03:52:53 +0000

Forged under a million years of pressure, The Black Diamonds are the demons of the art of late nightclub music that your dancing feet have been waiting for. Launching the 2013 Castlemaine State Festival and offering much late night revelry, be prepared for two special nights of musical gems and special guest performances. The Diamonds will meld a musical cocktail that spans the length and breadth of the globe. Expect dynamite.

Leading the ensemble are some familiar truants — Justin Marshall (Heraldo and the Flaming Flamingo Orchestra), Dan Witton (Cosmo Cosmolino) and Eamon McNelis (Flap) are joined by some of the finest artists to be bribed with riches including Ms Terry (Flying Scribble) and Lilkoi Kaos (Caravan Burlesque)

From Swing, to Balkan Beats, Cumbia to Calypso, Afro Beat to Zombie Boogaloo, this special Festival band is ready to put on a show like no other.

Musical Direction: Justin Marshall
Performance: Lilikoi Kaos, Zoe Robbins and Skye Gellman
Musicians: Ms Louise Terry, Dan Witton, Eamon Mc Nellis, Michael Timcke, Don Stuart, Gideon Brazil, Myles White, Rory Mc Dougall, Dolan Jones.

The Black Diamonds are also performing at the Opening Night Party.

Visual Arts Biennial – Periscope

nathan — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 03:49:44 +0000

PERISCOPE: CASTLEMAINE STATE FESTIVAL VISUAL ARTS BIENNIAL

Fourteen local and national artists!

Twelve premiere Festival works!

Exhibited across a range of extraordinary sites, including an abandoned car salesroom, a former police lock-up and an original miner’s cottage, Periscope explores: ruin, kitsch, abundance, alchemy, peepshows, history, projection and place.

Curated by Deborah Ratliff, the exhibition offers immersive engagement with some of the most creative individuals from the central goldfields region. Sugar from one, salt from another, mounds of spice, the artist’s mother, distilled concoctions, water, platinum, sound recordings, double adaptors, Chinese Hong Bao, plants, stoneware, discarded homewares, a reconfigured 1972 Holden Kingswood…

Compelling, complex and sometimes strange, the third Castlemaine Festival Visual Arts Biennial presents artists’ individual and collective responses to the Festival theme, Elemental.

Hunt & Lobb Building

Daniel Armstrong
Julie Collins and Derek John
Rhett D’Costa
Pia Johnson
Ben Laycock
Jessica Ledwich
Tanya Schultz
Dean Smith
Leslie Thornton
Frank Veldze
Jason Waterhouse

Tutes Cottage
Tara Gilbee

Old Police Lock-up
Clayton Tremlett

Periscope will include a Floor Talk Series and the following free participatory events:

Floor Talk Series
Enjoy a series of 30-minute artists’ talks on the Sunday of the opening weekend:
11am — Jessica Ledwich
12pm — Daniel Armstrong
1pm – Bindi Cole
2pm — Pia Johnson
3pm — Rhett D’Costa
Venue: Hunt & Lobb Building
Date: Sunday 17 March
Cost: Free

Eat! My Son
On the Saturday of the opening weekend, Rhett D’Costa and his octogenarian mum will prepare and serve a staple Anglo-Indian meal, extending the sensory and interactive experience of Rhett’s installation titled, Trade.
Venue: Hunt & Lobb Building
Date: Saturday 16 March
Time: 12.30pm to 1.30pm

The Elaboratory and the elixir of life: An apothecary’s wonderment.
Join artist Tara Gilbee at Tutes Cottage to examine the esoteric aspects of alchemy in her metaphorical laboratory.
Venue: Tutes Cottage, Greenhill Avenue, Castlemaine
Date: Saturday 16 March
Time: 2:30pm to 3:30pm

Hong Bao
Festival goers will actively contribute to Pia Johnson’s installation, Hong Bao. By adding Chinese red packets, audiences will be engaged in the traditional Chinese custom of gift giving and ancestor worship.
Venue: Hunt & Lobb Building
During hours of opening

Luke … I Am Your Father

admin — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 02:54:25 +0000

Who saw that coming? George Lucas, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi … all of us actually … join us for a night of stories of less ‘expected’ family revelations and/or wished-for additions to the family tree as told by a stellar line-up of disappointed children (now esteemed writers) and their imaginary parental units, siblings and friends.

Romy Ash
Alice Pung
Matt Blackwood
Ginger Briggs
Karen McMullan

The Republic of Trees: a Tale Between Earth and Sky

nathan — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 02:05:13 +0000

‘Do you remember, sitting up there as a child, looking down on the world below…? And didn’t all those grown-ups and all their grown-up cares look so petty and small? You could squash them with your fingers. If only people could see things from up here, even if just for a day, how different our lives would be..!’

It is a pleasure to present the 2012 George Fairfax New Theatre Award winning play The Republic of Trees: a Tale Between Earth and Sky, a multi-artform promenade theatre adaptation of Italo Calvino’s Il Barone Rampante (Baron in the Trees).

Presented amidst the tree-scape of the historic Vaughan Springs Reserve, an intriguing story unfolds: one fine evening, Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, the son of a wealthy Baron, climbs a tree in his backyard and swears never to come down.

Not ever.

And the funny thing is, he doesn’t…

Ranging from the swashbuckling to the intellectual and the amorous, The Republic of Trees is unique arboreal theatre — perhaps ‘the ultimate tree change’. A promenade twilight performance will take the audience on a travelling theatre experience through the dramatically beautiful Vaughan Springs Reserve. The action takes place as much in the trees above the audience as on the ground.

This exceptional work — 9 years in the making — is unmissable theatre.

Adapted from the original Calvino by multi-award-winning Australian author Wayne Macauley, and featuring a stellar cast of some of Australia’s circus and physical theatre glitterati, The Republic of Trees will resonate well beyond the performance itself.

Produced by Quarteracreblock
Written by Wayne Macauley
Directed and Designed by Dan Mitchell
Assistant Director – Susie Dee
Design collaborators – Rod Primrose, Matt Wilson, Geoff Dunstan, Francesca Bussey
Lighting – Gina Gascoigne
Rigging – Geoff Dunstan and Nicholas Dansin
Production Manager – Monique Harvey
Costume – Val Victor Gordon
Live music composed and performed by Chris Lewis and Jenny Thomas.
Performed by Matthew Wilson, Kareena Hodgson, Ian Scott, Nicci Wilks, David Joseph, Tony Morton, Geoff Dunstan, Kate Sherman, Freda Paten, Carl Kurrajong
Special Guests – Thompson’s Foundry Brass Band

‘How fitting that the world of wonder created by Italo Calvino, told with such charm and poignancy, should become the first recipient of this New Theatre Award. Republic of Trees, in making us look up at what floats above us, turns Calvino’s mysterious allegorical story into a living, breathing thing.’
Cate Kennedy, Author and Judge: George Fairfax New Theatre Award

Quarteracreblock acknowledges the indigenous traditional owners in all areas of Australia in which we work. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waterways and community. We pay our respect to them and their culture, and to their Elders past, present and future.

Chants des Catacombes

admin — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 00:03:52 +0000

three murdered women
three untold stories
wandering the underground for the rest of time

The Old Castlemaine Gaol could not be a more perfect venue for Chants des Catacombes, a gripping story about three forgotten murder victims — a showgirl, a courtesan and a surgeon. In this macabre musical theatre performance, the innocence of each woman has been stripped away, leaving them as entombed creatures from a strange time. History has turned the page yet these women continue to restlessly walk up and down the dark corridors of the catacombs, intermittently remembering and forgetting.

Poignant and eerie, Chants des Catacombes is an immersive and multi-sensory, promenade theatre experience. The audience is led through the gaol by an unfolding narrative. Lyrics are like bent fairytales, whispered, commanded, serenaded, shouted. Contemporary songs by artists such as Portishead, Nirvana and Laura Marling are adapted and given enchanting or horrific twists, transformed into the unique and the timeless.

Brought to us by Present Tense Collective, the historic Old Castlemaine Gaol will once again breathe and heave to a strangely familiar theme.

Chants des Catacombescomes to Castlemaine in 2013 after winning the 2010 Short+Sweet Cabaret Festival and sell-out seasons in Melbourne, and at the 2012 Adelaide Fringe.

Directed by Bryce Ives and Nathan Gilkes
Performed by Anna Boulic, Laura Burzacott and Zoe McDonald
Music performed by Nate Gilkes, with collaborating artists Xani Kolac of The Twoks and Mark Leahy
Choreography by David Harford
Design team led by lighting and space designer Nicola Andrews

‘…a powerful emotional catharsis. This highly original and dramatic production is not for the faint-hearted, but it promises a truly memorable theatrical experience’
ADELAIDE ADVERTISER, 5 stars

The Man Who Planted Trees

admin — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 22:46:30 +0000

This beautiful theatrical adaptation of Jean Giono’s environmental classic tells the inspiring story of a shepherd who plants a forest acorn by acorn, thereby transforming a barren wasteland. As much a touching tale as a hilarious puppet show, The Man Who Planted Trees shows us the difference that one man (and his dog!) can make to the world.

In 1957 the author Jean Giono said: ‘I wrote this story to make people love trees, or more precisely to make people love planting trees. Of all my stories it is one of the ones of which I am most proud. It has never earned me a penny and for that reason it has accomplished the very purpose for which it was written.’

Much more than a story about planting trees, The Man Who Planted Trees is a wonderful parable of life, the tale of a human being who saw a need and decided not to ignore it, but to ‘put things right’. The story is also known as The Man Who Planted Hope and Reaped Happiness and it holds a vital message for our time. Perhaps we all have a supply of special seeds hidden away for a better future …

This exceptional performance is brought to us by Scotland’s renowned Puppet State Theatre Company and is destined to be a sell-out highlight of the 2013 Castlemaine State Festival.

Adapted from Jean Giono’s story by Ailie Cohen, Richard Medrington and Rick Conte
Directed by Ailie Cohen
Performed by Richard Medrington (Jean) and Rick Conte (Jean’s colleague)
Set and Puppet Design by Ailie Cohen
Lighting Design by Elspeth Murray
Sound Design by Barney Strachan

Music
Canarios by Johannes Kapsberger, performed by Orphénica Lyra, directed by José Miguel Moreno
From Música en el Quijote on the Glossa label
Terre by Charles Trénet
From A Portrait of Charles Trénet
Music Collection International

Best Children’s Show 2009 Brighton Fringe Festival (UK)
Victor Award Winner at the 2009 IPAY Showcase, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
Highest rated and reviewed show of the 2012 Edinburgh Festivals at Tickit.me (UK)
Winner of the 2012 CSPA Sustainable Production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (UK)

‘It is very, very rare to find something that appeals as effortlessly to children and adults as this magical show…’
THE SCOTSMAN, 5 stars