Adelaide Fringe has launched its 2024 program with more than 1300 shows in 500-plus venues, ranging from an ‘art gallery under the stars’ in the Botanic Garden, to an immersive and cinematic Pink Floyd Experience, special DJ sets of Beatles and Fleetwood Mac remixes, cabaret treats, and the return of circus hit Limbo.
Music
The latest blockbuster production of Miss Saigon opens in Adelaide this January and one of its stars, former Adelaide performer Kerrie Anne Greenland, says the musical’s messages around war, loss and love remain as powerful and relevant as ever.
Books & Poetry
Hot on the heels of her debut novel The Family String, South Australian author Denise Picton brings us a new and hilariously uplifting tale – The Knighton Women’s Compendium.
Artists provoke and offend, but they also liberate us and help us understand who we are and where we’re going. Writer Stephen Orr makes a case for significant new investment in South Australian artists and cultural institutions.
This week’s Poet’s Corner features a contribution from our poetry editor, John Miles.
As Adelaide’s Hugo Michell Gallery has grown so, too, have the artists it represents. Now it is presenting an eclectic and fun collection of work taking visitors on a journey over the past 15 years.
The slang term came out on top of a shortlist which included Swiftie, prompt and situationship.
The Art Gallery of South Australia has unveiled a major new acquisition and launched its exhibition line-up for 2024 – including a Radical Textiles display featuring items ranging from William Morris tapestries to Kylie Minogue’s gold hotpants.
Singer-songwriter Meg Washington enchanted UKARIA as she and musician Paul Hankinson reimagined her back-catalogue in an intimate duo concert.
Coming up to the SALIFE Absolute Best Awards, presented in partnership with Brand SA, we dive into dress codes. Because between black tie and cocktail, there’s a divide wider than a Met Gala dress train.
Furniture and art space SODA Objects has opened a gallery, with the first surf-inspired exhibition by artist Henry Jock Walker on show from this Friday onwards.
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra helps Birds of Tokyo soar, but is given too few chances to shine in the Adelaide leg of the Birdsongs tour.
The 2024 Adelaide Festival will feature returning favourites such as Barrie Kosky, Laurie Anderson, Angélique Kidjo, Stephen Page and Akram Khan, as well as introducing a new generation of rising stars from Australia and around the world.
SA Arts & Culture news in brief: American glass artist’s Botanic Garden exhibition hailed as a coup for Adelaide, 2023 Guildhouse Fellow and inaugural SA Literary Fellows announced, and the Adelaide Film Festival invites film submissions for 2024.
We’ve rounded up Adelaide’s best new music for November, including Jon Ann, Oscar The Wild, Plastiq, The Mark Of Cain, The Tullamarines, West Thebarton and more.
WOMADelaide has revealed another 38 acts for 2024 – including a new show by the company behind feather-filled aerial spectacle Place des Anges – with significant changes also planned to the site after concerns this year about overcrowding.
The sounds of nature inspire a further Poet’s Corner contribution this week from Dinali Virasinghe.
Film & TV
We may be none the wiser about Napoleon the man, but Ridley Scott’s mastery in mounting battlefield extravaganzas is unsurpassed.
Arts at Home
Lookups for the word “authentic” are routinely heavy on Merriam-Webster’s website but were boosted to new heights throughout the year, while our Macquarie Dictionary goes with “cozzie livs”.
A ‘wicked good’ comedy about a man who drops dead in a café leaving a lot of loose ends and the stranger who ends up on a bizarre odyssey to pull them together is being brought to the Adelaide stage in an immersive new show.
Kristian Winther offered one of the more challenging programs a violinist could ever take on, but his artistry seemingly knew no limit in a remarkable UKARIA concert with pianist Aura Go.
The assassination of John F Kennedy sparked an outpouring of grief all over the world – including in Adelaide. A special local event marking the 60th anniversary of the tragedy will feature heartfelt letters and music sent by mourners to his widow.
SA arts & culture news in brief: Australian String Quartet reveals its 2024 season – including a weekend of music in the Barossa, prospective members sought for state Artists at Work Taskforce looking into work insecurity and income inequality, and an Adelaide gallery to close its doors.
Arts & Culture
We check in with the final group of artists from Adelaide Contemporary Experimental’s annual studio program.
Music
Grammy-winning American rock musician and LGBTIQA+ icon Melissa Etheridge is coming to Adelaide next May as part of her I’m Not Broken tour.
Dinali Virasinghe ponders the mystery embodied and evoked by both clouds and art in two contributions for this week’s Poet’s Corner.
Carrick Hill’s contemporary new pavilion is opening its doors to views of the city, sea and Springfield manor house.
Now the year’s almost up, we check in with some of the artists from Adelaide Contemporary Experimental’s annual studio program.
This heartfelt, small-budget Adelaide film with an edge follows the odd-couple road trip of an Iraqi refugee taxi driver and an elderly woman who can’t quite remember where she needs to go.
Dance
Australian Dance Theatre is celebrating the work of emerging artists with a bold triptych of new pieces exploring themes including the brain’s response to trauma, and language as a tool of colonial oppression.
Arts & Culture
PHOTO GALLERY: Photographic artist Alex Frayne is well known for his images capturing Adelaide noir and the myriad moods of South Australian landscapes, but his latest adventure has seen him embracing the ‘crazy energy’ of Los Angeles.
Our books columnist delves into an eclectic selection this month: two excellent new literary novels by Charlotte Wood and Lucy Treloar set in isolated rural Australia, the moving life story of ‘The Fonz’, and Kaz Cooke’s companion to menopause.
Brendan Goh’s first attempt at stand-up left him despairing that he wasn’t ‘Kathy Griffin funny’, but after finding the courage to try again and tell his own story, the Malaysian-born gay comedian has found his groove.
These ‘local lesbians’, as they call themselves, use humour, sensitivity and an iconic songbook to tell true stories of queer love from around the globe.
A literary whodunnit about who wrote what that inserts a handsome newcomer into the family of a famous writer whose inspiration has dried up since the death of his son.
A fresh and comprehensive new narrative reveals how the Adelaide art scene post-World War II was an incubator of progressive ideas and talent, despite often being dismissed or disparaged in the wider mainstream history of Australian art.
Thought-provoking and emotionally charged, ‘night, Mother explores the complexity of a mother/daughter relationship and the emotional ravages of suppressing family truth.
The short story is being celebrated this week in an Adelaide-based festival featuring Australian and international authors including Laura Jean McKay, Hannah Kent, and Cate Kennedy.
‘On the one hand, it looks like a very little story – a woman gives birth,’ Anna Goldsworthy says of her candid memoir Welcome to Your New Life, which is about to be brought to life on stage. ‘On the other hand, this is the biggest story of them all.’
Presented by Country Arts SA in partnership with Tarnanthi, the exhibition profiles contemporary Aboriginal artists from regional South Australia.
Books & Poetry
South Australia’s most prestigious literary awards have undergone a major revamp, with the winners to be announced at a stand-alone event rather than during Writers’ Week and ‘Adelaide Festival’ dropped from the prize title.
Music
To hear Anthony Marwood play Korngold’s Violin Concerto genuinely as a concerto and not as film music was revelatory, and so was Chloé van Soeterstède’s conducting in two much-loved works by Debussy and Rachmaninov.
CityMag sat down with multidisciplinary Ngarrindjeri artist Damien Shen to talk about his upbringing and what it means to be an Aboriginal and Chinese person.
SA arts & culture news in brief: Award-winning theatre-maker announced as new artistic director of Brink Productions, ACE farewells its AD, Clare Watson unveils her first season for Windmill Theatre, and postcard-sized artworks for sale in unique fundraising exhibition.
The irreplaceable beauty of live theatre is highlighted in this refreshing new take on British playwright Sarah Kane’s heart-wrenching exploration of mental illness and the yearning for human connection.
Attending her first Picnic in the Park at Feast Festival was like a homecoming for Tish Naughton. Now, 16 years later, she is spearheading a push to breathe new life into South Australia’s annual queer arts and culture celebration.
