How This Aussie Festival Ran A 10-day Event During The COVID Pandemic

Darwin and the NT more broadly is the Steven Bradbury of Australia’s COVID-19 crisis. No one could have anticipated that we have done as well as we have during “these uncertain times”. Perhaps this will change, but for 10 days our beautiful tropical paradise hosted a city-wide festival on Larrakia country in the midst of a global pandemic. 

Of course major changes were made to this year’s line-up. Many of the slated big acts were shelved and we had to turn to our local talent to be the stars of the show. Spaces were reimagined. In previous years the Lighthouse was home to all the big performances and Happy Yess, a local music venue, was commandeered by Club Awi. Instead the Lighthouse ballooned to become the Sunset Stage and Club Awi all rolled into one. It was a bold change that I hope Festival organisers keep in years to come. 

Rebranding the Festival to "Homegrown" caused festivalgoers to look inward and consider what art our local creatives were yearning to tell us. We may have missed out on seeing decorated national and global acts, but what we gained this year is art that truly felt like it was created for ‘us’. This year has been an opportunity to take time to engage with material that has been inspired by our shared geography and been created by our friends, neighbours, colleagues and community members. 

Naturally there was hits and misses, both COVID-related and not. Many events that had a lot of Indigenous participants shifted online. A responsible and necessary decision, but unfortunately something was lost in translation. One of the yearly top picks is the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair, but the range seemed a lot smaller this year and the website crashed when it first opened. The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) also shifted online as well as opening at the Museum and Art Gallery NT (MAGNT). For interested parties around the country that are unable to attend in person, this double opening is a welcome addition and perhaps will be the standard in a technology savvy world. Of course, these exceptional artworks are still best experienced in the flesh. 

I’ll Tell You In Person was an audio theatre piece commissioned by Darwin Festival and written by local Sarah Reuben and Perth-based Jeffrey Jay Fowler. Few things in life are more disappointing than losing a great friend. Few things in life are more rewarding than having a cherished friend. This piece interrogates these ideas and more by allowing us to only hear one side of the story. Tickets were sold as a double and you attended with another person where each attendee heard only one perspective on the friendship. The true genius was extending the art piece beyond when the dual recordings finished to the conversation you had afterwards. Simple ideas executed well are sometimes the best kind of art. I really hope this theatre piece goes places as it was such a refreshing artistic experience. 

I really wanted Katy Moir’s A Hypothetical Darwin to succeed, but disappointingly I found it too impenetrable. The exhibition showcased the process of Moir’s re-mapping Darwin as a part of her creative residency at the Northern Territory Archives. As general punter, I could see that there had been a lot of labour involved, but for me it amounted to little more than pretty pictures and brainstorming on butchers paper. This exhibition would have benefitted from greater curatorship to allow us to better get inside of Moir’s head.

Darwin Symphony Orchestra’s Metamorphosis II was a true delight. Masterfully adapting to social-distancing requirements, the programming was stripped down to cater for smaller ensembles. The music ranged from the tranquil to the spell-binding – perfect Sunday afternoon listening. Richard Strauss’ Metaphorphsen, Study For 23 Solo Strings was a brilliant COVID-inspired inclusion. It is as if he knew that there would one day be a time where we would come together but still have to be apart. 

Electric Fields @ Darwin Festival

Electric Fields was effervescent as ever. They have true mega-watt star power and yet they have never lost their down to earth charm. Zaachariaha Fielding truly has the voice of an angel and you really do believe that you don’t have anything to worry about after attending one of their shows. J-Milla was solid in support and the young rapper was particularly penetrating when he projected images of the late Kumanjayi Walker on screen. A ghostly reminder that our communities are still hurting and justice is yet to be served until Constable Zachary Rolfe stands trial. 

J Milla @ Darwin Festival

On the final Saturday night of the Festival, Charlie Chaplin Live Cinema featured three classic Charlie Chaplin shorts played alongside live music from local ensemble The Jigsaw Jazz Collective. Having never seen a Charlie Chaplin film in full before, it was great to see this historically significant cinema and pick up themes, like workers' rights, that are just as pertinent today. The live music added depth to the moving images in a way that a soundtrack never could, which left you swimming in an immersive present. A small interlude in the film viewing was made for a theatrical performance, but it perhaps this would have been better left off the program.

A festival highlight is always seeing the Artistic Director, Felix Preval, in amongst the people, enjoying the fruits of his labour. If you don’t see him on the Club Awi dancefloor, have you really attended Darwin Festival? The visibility of Preval is yet another manifestation of the warm community feel that pervades throughout the entire festival.

We are undoubtedly very lucky to have had a ten day arts festival as the rest of the world seemingly shuts down and braces for further waves of the deadly virus. Art brings people together and can be an antidote to the grind of the quotidian. Conversations take a different turn, dinner parties have an added sparkle and there is an undeniable buzz about the city. However, as our artists have told us, this is not a time to get complacent about the issues on the home front. We may not be facing the same devastation of the coronavirus as other places in the world are, but we still have deeply concerning social and economic issues to contend with. This was an incredible festival, but let us heed the alarms of our artists.