Adelaide’s annual Feast Festival will Celebrate Love as it kicks off its 20th year this weekend with a vast array of performing and visual arts events, walks and talks, film screenings, community events, queer forums and more. We take a look at a few events worth checking out:
Feast Opening Night Party
Hyde Street, Adelaide: Saturday 22 October – 6.00pm
Get ready to party like its 1997! There will be no hiding on Hyde Street as we take over the strip and transform it into the queerest dance party Adelaide has ever seen! With our very special guest performer Dannii Minogue, accompanied by superstar DJ Josh and AUSLAN performer extraordinaire Lorraine Butler, all you’ll want to do is dance all night. There will be exquisite pop up bars and food stalls to keep your thirst and hunger at bay. So kick off this year’s Festival with a bang!
Behind the Scenes Photographic Exhibition
Raj House: 21 October – 6 November
How do we see ourselves and how are we seen? Robert Knapman’s Behind the Scenes is a fly-on-the-wall black and white photography project about everyday contemporary LGBTIQ Adelaide lives. You are invited into the worlds of drag queens in dressing rooms, lesbian love nests, being black and queer, trans suburban families, male fetish play scenes, the lovers and the loved, and holding hands in public. The images are often honest, thought-provoking or challenging.
SA Great 180 – The State of Wine, Roses and Rainbow
Adelaide: Sunday 23 & Friday 28 October
Ninna Marni Queer History Lovers. Come celebrate Adelaide’s 180th birthday and the traditional owners of this land, the Kaurna people. Join Queen of the Walk Dr Gertrude Glossip. Stroll, genteel and gay, through parkland, garden, street, square and terrace of the city’s south-eastern residential Eden. Gertrude really does ‘paint the lily’; she’s always got a new angle on something! Expect interaction and surprise.
Dicks & Duchesses
The David Roach Foundation House Museum: 27 October & 3 November – 4.00pm
Join Martyn Cook, Director, and Robert Reason, Senior Curator, for a glass of French champagne at The David Roche Foundation House Museum. Tour the high-style, opulent interiors created by David Roche for his home ‘Fermoy House’ and enjoy the museum wing. Australia’s newest and finest private house museum devoted to decorative and fine art from Britain, France and Russia. Described as ‘capriciously camp’ and all ‘dicks and duchesses’ by opinion columnist Peter Goers – what will you think?
Hand Grenade
Odeon Star Semaphore Cinemas: Wednesday 2 November – 7.00pm
Dale St Studios presents the Australian premiere screening of Hand Grenade. Produced in South Australia, Hand Grenade is the story of Dr. Dean Campbell and his unconventional family as they deal with the arrival of Jasmine Bailey, a young Christian girl claiming to be Dean’s daughter. Join us for a red-carpet premiere of this locally written, produced, and shot feature film followed by a Q&A session with the cast, writer, and director.
I Sing Piaf
Raj House: Friday 4 November – 7.00pm
Georgia sings perfect French, channeling the legendary Edith Piaf with passion and pizazz… so her hit show Georgia with a G should go well in France, right? Assuring wife Louise that EVERYONE loves Aussies; they pack eyelashes, glitter and guitar for their adventure. It turns out that the Australian and French cultures have hilarious differences! Come with this inspiring lesbian couple to sunny France for a music-filled comedy and cross-cultural journey that wonders what it means to be an Australian.
Livvie & Pete
Raj House: Saturday 5 November – 8.30pm
Internationally acclaimed cabaret artists Amelia Ryan and Michael Griffiths bring to life the stories and songbooks of Olivia Newton-John and Peter Allen. From their humble small-town beginnings, to world domination in sequins and jumpsuits, revisit all of their sing-a-long classics from Tenterfield to Grease, all the way to Xanadu and beyond! A joyous, fun-filled celebration of two of Australia’s greatest icons. Adelaide premiere!
Member
Raj House: Saturday 5 November – 7.00pm
Everything is going great for Corey. He loves his wife and son. He got promoted at work. Life couldn’t be better. Sometimes everything you rely on can be taken away. Deeply buried secrets bubble to the surface when no one’s looking. After a sell out Melbourne season, and based on true events, Member gives us an important gruesome Australian history lesson, written and performed by Ben Noble.
The 2016 Feast Festival runs 21 October – 6 November. For more information and complete program, visit: www.feast.org.au for details.
Image: Michael Griffiths and Amelia Ryan star in Livvie & Pete (supplied)