RightAct10 Day Four

fter four days of panels, the conference ended up giving the audience an insight into what had happened during the days at Format, as participants in the workshops had been working on creating their own political theatre piece, working with a writer, actor and directors to shape their work.

Three pieces were presented and then discussed in terms of conception and execution. It was an interesting insight, seeing what politics and performance styles came out of such an intensive weekend, and seeing derived work so early into the process.

Again, the discussion built off the presentations and on to the floor afterwards, a great conclusion to a very interesting and thought-provoking weekend. I certainly feel that my knowledge about and connection to the Adelaide theatre scene was strengthened insurmountably over the four days. I was also terribly flattered by some comments about this blog by people I respect very much.

Huge thank you to everyone involved in the weekend. I’ll see you next year!

RightAct10 Day Three

ithout a performance as a launching pad and without the focus on theatre, it was a smaller and quieter crowd at the third night of RightAct, as the topic took a turn to creative campaigning and youth-led projects. Once again, the thing I got most out of it was listening to the journey the people on the panel have taken to get to their positions, and the conversation that spilled on after the panel.

Much of the conversation concentrated on the position of social media and the internet in campaigning and arts projects, and how that is constantly changing and causing people to re-address. Of interesting not to me was the Federal Government accepts internet signed petitions, yet the State Government does not.

Another point of interest was the discussion of how in many ways the internet can not replace groups of people getting together in a room or on a street and tackling issues there. In my experience, it hasn’t. As I sit here, typing away my monologue, things that appear on my blog or other places I write are often picked up by friends or acquaintances and I have conversations about what is here, the same way I have conversations off the screen about many other topics. The battle may be being waged, the conversation may be being started on-line, but I don’t think – and the panel didn’t think – that that is where it stays.

RightAct10 Day Two: Theatre and Social Change

tarting off with forum theatre piece Expect Respect, night two of RightAct10 followed up a panel focusing on Theatre and Social Change, with Christie Antony of AC Arts, PJ Rose of No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability, Geordie Brookman of the State Theatre Company, and Georgie Davil of Carclew Youth Arts. This night had a very different feel across it than Friday night: more collaborative, certainly, and I think more hopeful for what theatre is and can be.

Expect Respect is a forum theatre piece on rape and sexual assault, designed for high school students by ActNow Theatre for Social Change in association with the Legal Services Commission. In two halves, it discusses where “the line” is, legally and morally, and how people can actively change their behavior to enact change in others, as audience members are asked to call in and change the behavior of characters.

RightAct10 Day One: Women and Theatre

ightAct10 kicked off last night at Format, and continues tonight at 7pm.  Last night opened with a moved reading of Seven Jewish Children, followed by a panel on women in theatre.

I found it a hard piece to watch, primarily because I don’t know a lot of the details about the Israel/Palestine debate, and so I was simultaneously trying to watch and take in the piece while sorting through my mind, trying to anchor the sections of the script to the moments of history they are referring to.

I’m not going to get into a discussion on the themes of the play on my blog, because, love it as I do, writing on the internet is not a safe place to explore my very confused and not fully formed issues on the conflict (to read me being political, scroll down and read about my feminist opinions).  I appreciate Churchill’s script for giving me something to think about, but personally I got more out of My Name Is Rachel Corrie at the Adelaide Fringe this year.  I hope I will be able to sort though my thoughts and write some more about it in the coming days.

The Woman and Theatre debate, in my eyes, really came to the forefront of debate amongst the Australian Theatre Community at the announcement of Company B’s 2010 season, where there was just one woman in a creative leadership (writer/director) role.   Since then there have been talks in Melbourne and Sydney, online and on the radio, and last night RightAct10 brought the debate to Adelaide.

Anne Thompson from The Eleventh Hour and Flinders Drama Centre, Catherine Fitzgerald, recently announced as the STCSA’s new Associate Director for 2011, and Jennifer Greer Holmes, executive producer from Vitalstatistix, made up the panel, and some great issues and opinions were raised and discussed (both among the panel and off the floor), but unfortunately in my eyes, at moments, the debate steered away from the roles and positions of women in theatre, and onto what type of feminism we should subscribe to.