Source : the age
Darwin, it’s different. Some people arrive and think “it’s not for me.” Others roll in with their backpacks, planning to stay for two weeks, and will tell you that was 10 years ago – they just couldn’t leave. It’s as much a frontier town as it is the Top End’s cultural centre, and that cultural depth is expressed each August in the Darwin Festival.
“I always say we’re a ‘small but mighty’ festival. We’re not the festival with the big budget to throw around, but what we do is we really look after the artists and give them a great time. They really want to come here,” says Kate Fell, artistic director for the Darwin Festival.
The hub is Festival Park, on the edge of Darwin’s city centre and where it all comes together. “You’ll see the artists there and the audiences, and you get this really lovely sense of connection. Darwin is that sort of place. Some of those barriers are broken down, you know? It’s easy to meet people, and it’s easy to connect. That Festival Hub makes it really easy to do that.”
The artists, like the interstate and overseas visitors, also get to escape the southern winter, and by August, that can be an appealing prospect.
Venues for the Festival include the ironically located Darwin Ski Club. You’ll find it alongside Darwin Harbour and while it’s the perfect place to watch the sunset, you’d be crocodile bait if you did your water-skiing on that Harbour; they do most of theirs on inland dams.
The Ski Club, like the Festival Park and other major venues, features a lineup of local food outlets, reflecting the extraordinary diversity in Darwin. You can lap up the laksa the city is famous for, but also find everything from Indian to Indonesian, from Vietnamese to Mexican, from Greek to Italian.
“Darwin is a world away, in the best possible sense,” says Kate Fell. “Darwin Festival captures its magic, vibrancy and cultural connections. Where else could you watch a cult band like TISM? Eat a Sri Lankan hopper by a MasterChef alumni? Join in a surreal marathon aerobics session, head off to a Teddy Bear’s Picnic, become part of a roller-skating show, and engage with Indigenous art and culture in a single event?”
August also marks the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. Presented by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) in partnership with Telstra, giving Indigenous artists a national and international stage to showcase their work.
The work of the 42 awards finalists – who are in the mix for a total prize pool of $190,000, including $100,000 for the Telstra Art Award – is on display at MAGNT from late June until next January. The awards ceremony is on Friday, August 7.
The very next day the National Indigenous Music Awards are announced, honouring excellence in First Nations music with a four-hour Saturday night show at the Darwin Amphitheatre.
As well as the music and art awards, at the Festival, performances by Indigenous artists include The Great First Nations Songbook, and Gapu Ŋupan (Chasing the Rainbow), featuring seasoned performers from Taiwan, Bangarra Dance Theatre and Yothu Yindi.
