PIAF 2013 & the Writer's Festival

    The highlight of the annual Perth arts calendar has just passed.  The Perth International Arts Festival, with the Perth Writer's Festival tucked inside the event seems to get better each year.  There is always a few way-out ther offerings (and how they exasperate Kev) and a few way cool things.  This year more Western Australian arts and works were incorporated into the program.
     Kev and I took in a delightfully frothy piece called "Clouds", a performance based on the artwork of Rene Magritte.  Just outside the theater, on Subiaco's trendy but short shopping strip of Rokeby Road was a bit of street theater.  An Argentine show called "La Marea" (The Tide) tapped into our inner voyeur and curiosity.  Who can walk down a residential street (or hotel corridor) without turning one's head to glance into the bay window or door and wonder what is happening on the other side?  Using converted shop windows for homes and sidewalks for street scenes, the connected but not related nine vignettes, are repeated every ten minutes.  Some of the scenes: a family eating supper, a man bored at a party, a courting young couple and even a motorcycle accident. Dialog is projected on the building (or street) near the action so spectators at any depth from the action could follow along.  A really cool performance concept that works on the right bit of street.
    The Perth Writer's Festival. It's not fair to complain that it is getting too popular.  The PWF expanded the number of offerings to meet the greater demand. Yeah. The PWF also spread out the expanded list over more days, now utilizing Thursday and Friday as well as the weekend.  Drats.  Who can attend weekday seminars and workshops save for senior citizens and those underemployed? (Notice I avoid using the term "professional writers" here- a gentle irony.)   Besides the great mix of free (yes, almost half of the sessions are absolutely free) and cheap (usually $13.50) events, this year included a free wine & mini-talk tent. Free booze?! In Australia?! I'm surprised that the tent wasn't overrun with people, unless they thought it was too good to be true. Naturally, I managed to sample one or two...or three... wines myself.
    This year I was particularly interested in play writing.  I've been rolling a short one-act play in my head for over a year and needed inspiration to get on paper.   Unusually, the session with playwrights - who refer to themselves as "theater makers" - seemed unaware of how different formats are consumed and processed by their audience.  Who were these people?  I would have thought playwrights, particularly those who adapt other works into stage plays (as this session was partially about),  would be the most aware of the flow and meter of different types of writing.  One panelist, a former ballet dancer, really made my teeth grind when he dismissively described audiobooks as "those cassette tapes your friend's 90 year-old blind grandmother used to listen to."  Kind of 'off pointe' aren't we, Nureyev?  When these blowhards  managed to stop passing so much gas, I did actually glean something positive from this session.  As I do for all of the sessions I can squeeze in during the day.
    This year I remembered to send the program to the writers I know who live elsewhere. Having been to other writer's conferences, I know what they are - and aren't - getting. Not to make them jealous, but maybe they can inspire their local writers associations to follow the PWF model.  Or, in the case of my eldest brother, just plan any future possible trip to Perth during the Writer's Festival.
    This year's Cool Art : "Tangle" Kids wrap huge colorful elastic bands around many May poles and then get happily lost and bounced around inside them. I'd tell you what it was like but they wouldn't let me in.  Hummmmpphh.