Making new connections in Adelaide

An experiment implies taking risks. The experiment in Adelaide has the challenge of working locally. Every night for the past month (at least) I have been trawling the internet and writing emails, finding new friends in the summer heat while I am freezing in the February chill. Performers have been found and tasks set, arrangements made with the festival and the venue. Posters are going up and with a sense of trepidation I am preparing to leave the northern hemisphere and head to the bottom of the world.

This show seeks to break down barriers and I am communicating with a range of people who don't know each other but live in the same city. Somehow the lure of an international project and excitement of linking about the world in a new way is drawing them to me. I already have some wonderful stories to tell. Isabella Modra is a young performer who is saving up to come to the UK later this year. She works in a DVD store and as a waitress to make money, she likes Adelaide because it is clean - which it is, compared to London. Karina Pike is just 15 and so keen to be involved in this project that she has convinced her school to give her time off and credits towards next years drama module. Actually, she is from Port Augusta, several hundred kilometres away, but prepared to travel with her Mum to do this.

The Giveaways are a local Adelaide Band started by drummer Josh Pullinen when he was 13. Now 19 and a painter and decorator, Josh and the band of mates are doing well. Their latest video Frown has been played on national TV music programme Rage. I found them via the wonderful world wide web, impressed that they should set their latest clip in a care home and play respectfully with the elderly inmates there. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR077rlLZhw

Imagining how this workshop show works requires enormous imagination and flexibility. I haven't met my collaborators yet although I have spoken to some of them on the phone, the heat singing along the sound waves as the broad voices greet me with curiousity and a wonderful laid back charm. How different living is there. And although we haven't met, I have enormous trust that this unlikely group can make something infinitely watchable and fun. 

Adelaide College of the Arts, Light Square - 8th,9th,10th March, 9.30pm