If you enjoy the visual, literary and performing arts, the period from February 24 to March 18 should be an ideal time to visit Adelaide, capital of South Australia.
This is the time when the Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Festival and WOMADelaide take place on dates that often overlap to provide Adelaide visitors a greater variety of choice.
The Adelaide Fringe takes place from February 24 to March 18, Adelaide Festival from March 2 to 18 and WOMADelaide from March 9 to 12.
The Adelaide Fringe
Fringe festivals all over the world tend to concentrate on the performing arts which include theatre, dance, puppetry, spectacle and the spoken word, sections of which are often innovative and experimental.
It all started in Scotland with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1947 as an alternative festival that played concurrently with the Edinburgh International Festival.
The 2012 Adelaide Fringe, starting a week ahead of the Adelaide Festival, brings together some 900 events, including 100 by international artists, at more than 300 venues.
It is a characteristic of Fringe theatre events that ticket prices are generally low, stage sets are minimal if not non-existent, and performances can often be short or of about an hour's duration.
This year's performances include Soap - The Show, a blend of cabaret and circus performed in a series of bathtubs; The Terrible Infants from the United Kingdom; Uta Uber Kool Ja with Aussie actress Georgina Symes; and Amsterdam's Theatergroep Wak in LevelLess.
Large-scale free events include the Fringe Parade on opening night (February 24), Fringe in the Mall (which actually started a week before on February 17 and continues until March 18), Spirit Festival (February 24-26), Allegoria Sacra from February 24 at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and the Fringe Street Theatre Festival (March 9-12).
Check out the Adelaide Fringe website for program and event details.
Adelaide Festival
Starting a week after the Adelaide Fringe, the Adelaide Festival takes in two weeks of activities bookended by two weekends.
This year, the Adelaide Festival crams 68 events in 386 performances from 970 international and Australian artists.
Some of this year's highlights include Harold Pinter's masterwork The Caretaker with British actor Jonathan Pryce, a reworking of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire by Polish director Kryzysztof Warlikowski starring French actress Isabelle Huppert in the version titled A Streetcar, and Italian film composer Ennio Morricone leading the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, six Italian soloists and a massed choir.
In dance, Asia's contemporary dance company Cloud Gate Dance Theatre presents Water Stains on the Wall and Kate Champion and Andrew Upton present Never Did Me Any Harm inspired by the Christos Tsiolkas novel The Slap.
At the Adelaide Zoo, The Border Project premieres I Am Not an Animal, a promenade theatre production.
Adelaide Festival program details are to be found at the Adelaide Festival website.
WOMADelaide
WOMADelaide is the Adelaide festival of the World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) which had its beginnings in the United Kingdom in 1980 and had its first WOMAD Festival in 1982. WOMADelaide had its first Adelaide festival in 1992 as part of the WOMAD series of music festivals.
WOMADelaide is held every two years at Adelaide's Botanic Park northeast of central Adelaide, between the Adelaide Zoo and Adelaide Botanic Garden.
It is held this year from March 9 to 12.
A focus of WOMADelaide — and of WOMAD generally — is music from various countries and cultures, but it is also a feast of dance, food, wine and workshops.
Among the highlights this year are Staff Benda Bilili from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Master Drummers of Burundi, Dobet Gnahore from the Ivory Coast, Shivkumar Sharma from India, Sharon Shannon and her Big Band from Ireland, Pascals from Japan, and yes, there's also the Ukuele Orchestra of Great Britain.
For the full WOMADelaide program and event details, see the WOMADelaide website.
