The 2008 Adelaide Festival of the Arts presented some of the world's most innovative art forms, as well as the more traditional ones, in the fortnight it was held.
Running from February 29 to March 16, the Adelaide Festival included 80 events and more than 280 performances.
Visual arts
With a renewed emphasis on the visual arts and outdoor activities, the festival included 27 events that were free to the public.
Two thirds of festival events came from overseas or were international/Australian collaborations.
More than 855 artists and performers participated in the 2008 festival, including 277 from overseas and 232 from interstate. Events were staged across some 32 indoor and outdoor venues.
Theatre and dance
Among the festival highlights this year were:
- Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a Dash Arts production directed by Tim Supple and presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company's "The Complete Works Festival" — at Her Majesty's Theatre from February 29 to March 6.
- The world premiere of Lovers & Haters which celebrated the Duncan Decade, during which South Australia was transformed from a conservative backwater into a beacon of social reform under the leadership of then South Australian Premier Don Dunstan — at Norwood Concert Hall from March 6 to 15.
- The Australian premiere of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz (Berlin) production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof performed in German with English surtitles — at Her Majesty's Theatre March 11 to 16.
- The Australian premiere of three dance/musical works by the Israel/France Emanuel Gat Dance Company — at Dunstan Playhouse from February 29 to March 3.
Music
Musical performances included Book of Longing by Philip Glass; DBR & The Mission with composer, concert and club performer, violinist and band leader Daniel Bernard Roumain; Dharma at Big Sur by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams; and various other musical performers, groups and choirs.
Opera
Opera productions included Ainadamar (Fountain of Tears), an opera in three images sung in Spanish with surtitles; and Ingkata, a glimpse behind the scenes at the development of a powerful new Australian opera.
Film
Among the films screened at the festival were 4, an Australian production on the four seasons in four different parts of the globe through the music of four violinists; Cantata Journey, which followed the Ntaria Ladies' Choir from Hermannsburg, central Australia, to the Sydney Opera House where they performed with the Sydney Symphony; and DV8: The Cost of Living by Australian Lloyd Newson focusing on two street performers.
Writers' and Artists' Weeks
Sessions of Writers' Week were again held at Adelaide's Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens, with slighly more emphasis on writers from the United States and Scotland, from March 2 to 7. The sessions were open and free to the public.
Events of the festival's Artists' Week comprised talks, discussions and exhibitions at various Adelaide art galleries from February 28 to March 6.
Online information
Details of festival events were available on the Internet, with tickets able to be booked online.
