In her terrific book Rusted Off! Why Country Australia is Fed Up, Gabrielle Chan describes the annual race day in her community, the NSW town of Harden Murrumburrah: ‘The races are a microcosm…. In a funny way, we cover most of the ministerial portfolios, traversing health, education, immigration, trade, Treasury, but we do it via […]
Reflecting on Ten Days on the Island 2019 there’s so much to celebrate, starting with the popularity of our new three-weekend Festival model. Welcome, access and participation were touchstones of our approach to everything – from our website and branding to the program itself. There were almost twice as many free events this year and […]
This week the Ten Days on the Island team made its way back from Hobart to Burnie after an EPIC three weekend adventure, having brought a kaleidoscope of amazing Festival experiences to communities across Tasmania. Remembering a festival is recreating a collage of seemingly unrelated moments – moments of connection, moments of revelation, of sheer […]
From the first, spine-tingling call of ‘mapali!’ at dawn on Devonport beach, to the final raucous chorus of ‘in the future’ ending Lucky Oceans and Heath Cullen’s inspired set in a packed shed on Table Cape, this was a beautiful weekend in the North West of Tasmania. mapali – Dawn Gathering was a particular highlight […]
DAY 1 (FRIDAY 8 MARCH) 7AM – Set the alarm early because at 7am you’ll be watching a glorious sunrise over The Bluff in Devonport as mapali – Dawn Gathering unfolds. A unique community performance with hundreds of local singers, dancers and performers breathing as one in a shared moment of reflection and ritual. 9AM […]
Big week for Ten Days on the Island: just one final week of preparation before the festival opens. It’s one of my favourite moments – the artists start to arrive, rehearsals are in progress and we begin to see what the works in progress are actually going to look like! It’s not every day that […]
Showcasing our local creative community! Around dinnertime on a Tuesday night – depending on the direction of the wind – in the distance around Wynyard you can hear driving drum-beats… first ominous then gathering momentum into complex rhythms interspersed with ferocious Japanese war-cries! The drumbeats might seem incongruous with the relaxed neighbourhood I now live […]
Last Thursday was epic. Three launches in one day but we made it – the program is out there, and the website is live. So welcome to Ten Days on the Island 2019! Our epic adventure is not only through exterior landscapes, but those of the interior, of the soul, the emotions, mind and spirit. […]
January 24, Sydney: A reflection with one week to go before we launch Festival 2019… People often ask me how we go about preparing a festival, but I never have a very good answer, even for myself. If there were a recipe, I guess I wouldn’t follow it anyway. But in preparing any gathering, whether it’s […]