The Australian Government has announced more than $2.3 million to support tours of exhibitions and performances that will entertain regional audiences with a selection ranging from the classic Snugglepot and Cuddlepie to contemporary video art.
Committed to advancing Australian arts and culture on a local level so that all Australians in regional areas have access to arts experiences in their own communities, the tours will be supported by the Australia Council through the Playing Australia and Visions of Australia grants programs.
Through the arts our national and local stories are shared and celebrated, and our communities strengthened and nurtured. Some of the projects supported through the latest rounds of Visions of Australia and Playing Australia funding include:
National Gallery of Australia to tour Light moves: contemporary Australian video art to 11 venues in the Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia. The exhibition highlights recent additions to the video art collection of the National Gallery of Australia as well as drawing on the gallery’s extensive video holdings collected over the past 40 years.
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery to present Country & Western: Landscape Re-imagined to six venues in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. It will enable audiences to engage with significant works of art that have contributed to Australia’s perception of the national landscape and its people. The exhibition was conceived and curated in Townsville.
CDP Theatre Producers Pty Lt to tour a new adaption of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie to 38 venues nationally. May Gibb’s quintessentially Australian classic, it will be brought alive on stage to fascinate and delight a new generation of Australian children and families, by introducing them to wonder and magic of the Australian bush.
Force Majeure will present Never Did Me Any Harm to 10 locations in VIC, WA, TAS and NSW. Drawing inspiration from Christos Tsiolkas’ best-selling novel The Slap, seven actors and dancers draw on this verbatim text to create a myriad of familiar characters.
For more information on regional touring, visit: www.australiacouncil.gov.au for details.
Image: Snugglepot and Cuddlepie – photo courtesy of CDP Theatre Producers / Monkey Baa Theatre