Spirit Festival underway for 2015

South Australia’s Spirit Festival opened last night at Tandanya and continues until Sunday with an exciting and interactive program including workshops for writing, language lessons, arts, comedy and more. The five day festival, now in its eighth year, will once again continue to showcase the best in visual arts, dance, theatre and music from local and regional Indigenous communities. The free public event is an interactive ‘hands on’ experience with activities designed to immerse participants in the celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. On Friday morning, join Dr Frances Wyld (Witlu Yarlu, University of Adelaide) and Tandanya art curator, Troy-Anthony Baylis in conversation between viewing artwork from Archie Moore’s exhibition, 14 Queensland Nations. The exhibition explores the intricacies of symbolic uses of flags and focusing on themes of power, identification, piracy and nationalism and independence experienced by the artist. In the afternoon, Tandanya Theatre will host the Deadly Funny Workshop for emerging comedians with the state final taking place from 7pm. Archie Moore’s ‘Kamilaroi Flag’ Saturday caters for the creative writing buffs. An afternoon at the Tandanya Art Cafe will host an ATSI writer’s workshop as well and talks with acclaimed writers. The cafe then sets the scene for PoeTRIBE – an amalgamation of music, stage performance and poetry by Marrawuy Kabi and Yilinhi. The event will feature spoken word gospels by Shauntai Batzke and live vocals by Ursula Yovich. Indigenous cabaret performers will join the event toward the end of the evening for a special performance. There will also be a film screening of The Sapphires – starring Jessica Mauboy – over at Mullawirraburka – the Rymill Park extension. Sunday’s main event puts the spotlight on the vibrant Indigenous arts and music with an all-day music festival featuring local dance groups Kuma Kaaru, musicians from the University of Adelaide’s Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) and performances from the Kurruru Youh Performing Arts Company. Triple J Unearthed alumni and previous winner of NIMA and DEADLY awards, Thelma Plum is set to be the closing act at Spirit Festival. Spirit Festival will be held at Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute (NACI) on 253 Grenfell Street, Adelaide and Rymill Park and runs from Wednesday, March 11 to Sunday, March 15. For the full program visit thespiritfestival.com Image: “Uncle” – Kinship by Jindamarra Cadd