Beginners’ Call

Brisbane Festival•www.brisbanefestival.com.au

Beginners’ Call takes audiences backstage and behind-the-scenes of Brisbane Festival, Queensland’s largest and much-loved celebration of arts and culture. Meet the makers and hear from the artists; discover and critique new work; slip into the rehearsal room and stand in the wings as we give audiences unprecedented access to Queensland’s most anticipated event of the year. Beginners’ Call shares the stories of actors and musicians, reveals the inspiration that drives creators and producers and explores the breadth and diversity of the 2022 Brisbane Festival program. Quiet on set, the show’s about to start…

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Episodes

Beginners’ Call – Episode 10: Paul Taylor Brisbane Festival Giving Committee

“To me, the arts community really is the soul of a community… We love the idea of contributing to the arts community and contributing to the soul of Brisbane.” Paul Taylor is the Head of Investments at global funds manager Fidelity International and a member of Brisbane Festival’s Giving Committee. His family’s patronage and passion for the arts runs deep, and they are motivated to support local artists to produce new works and assist Brisbane Festival to deliver significant works developed else...

Sep 23, 2022•31 min•Ep. 10

Beginners’ Call – Episode 9: Neridah Waters, Co-Founder Amanda Dell and Bryony Walters, Dancers Common People Dance Eisteddfod

“There’s something really transcendent about dancing so badly that you break through that shell of having to take yourself seriously and you can just exist in your body in this really beautiful, joyful way.” Whether you’re a Rock Eisteddfod reject or a retired dancer, there is joy and exhilaration to be found in unencumbered shimmying and shaking. The all-ages, all-abilities Common People Dance Eisteddfod brings the moves, the laughs and the ‘80s and ‘90s bangers when the leotard-clad juggernaut...

Sep 08, 2022•32 min•Ep. 9

Beginners’ Call – Episode 8: Ella Ganza, Director; Joshua Taliani, Director of Choreography - House of Alexander

“(Ballroom) came off the blood, sweat and tears of trans women of colour and has survived and thrived throughout the years.” The House of Alexander is limbering up to dance, dazzle and draw on a 60-yearlegacy of queer black ballroom communities across two huge productions at Brisbane Festival. Injecting sparkle and substance into the 2022 program, Meanjin's trailblazing ballroom house celebrates self-expression, identity and family as it showcases the city’s thriving ballroom scene. “Ballroom wa...

Sep 07, 2022•35 min•Ep. 8

Beginners’ Call – Episode 7: Kyle Page, Dancenorth Australia Artistic Director Wayfinder

“The thing that brought us all together was the art. Wayfinder, true to its name, really enabled us all to find a way through.” Amid the chaos and calamity of the past few years sprung a reminder of the beautiful possibility of art to heal. Wayfinder , the world premiere work by acclaimed Australian contemporary dance company Dancenorth, delivers an antidote to the fear and anxiety permeating all corners of the globe in the wake of the global pandemic. The North Queensland company’s adventurous ...

Sep 07, 2022•33 min•Ep. 7

Beginners’ Call – Episode 6: Andrea James, Writer & Director Sunshine Super Girl

“My dad grew up on a dirt-floor shack, and why didn’t he become a number-one tennis player?” Before Ash Barty lifted the trophy at Wimbledon, there was Evonne Goolagong. As a young, self-confessed ‘tennis geek’, theatre maker Andrea James remembers being captivated by Wiradjuri tennis legend Evonne Goolagong, the greatest Aboriginal tennis player that Australia has ever produced. “I remember very strongly as a young Aboriginal girl growing up in regional Victoria the sight of this Aboriginal wom...

Aug 26, 2022•32 min•Ep. 6

Beginners’ Call – Episode 5: Anna Yen, Writer Slow Boat

“Ten years ago, I read in a book that 580 Chinese indentured labourers had been evacuated from Nauru during World War Two by the allies to Brisbane... They landed on 8 March 1942.” A compelling discovery about her father’s life sparked a decade-long search for answers for Chinese-Australian Anna Yen – theatre maker, performer and writer of Slow Boat, which receives its world premiere at Brisbane Festival 2022. Blending vaudeville, circus, Cantonese Opera and martial arts, Slow Boat is a play wit...

Aug 26, 2022•32 min•Ep. 5

Beginners’ Call – Episode 4: David Morton, Writer & Director Holding Achilles

“We had said to each other, if we don’t have anything at this date, we’ll put a pin in the company until we can find the energy and the passion to drive again.” Long before the global pandemic, award-winning theatre makers and global adventurers David Morton and Nicholas Paine of Dead Puppet Society were at a crossroads. Off the back of their most successful project ever – a world-first presentation of their acclaimed production The Wider Earth at London’s National History Museum – a new kind of...

Aug 15, 2022•27 min•Ep. 4

Beginners’ Call – Episode 3: Alethea Beetson, Writer & Director. Loki Liddle, Sound/Music Artist Queen’s City

“Mabo (the film) meets Hot Tub Time Machine.” Even Writer and Director Alethea Beetson admits Queen’s City is hard to describe. On the eve of its world premiere at Brisbane Festival 2022, the debut work from new performance collective Blak Social is best explained as part gig, part theatre work, part ‘80s extravaganza and part political commentary. A performance work years in the making, Alethea explains how the story of love and reclamation was inspired by the missing narratives and rewritten h...

Aug 15, 2022•32 min•Ep. 3

Beginners’ Call – Episode 2: Virginia Antonipillai, Mammalian Diving Reflex Creative Producer, Nightwalks with Teenagers

“It can start off very awkward, maybe a little bit uncomfortable but at the end of it you get this really beautiful experience.” Diving into uncomfortable situations sits at the heart of the performance experiences created by Canada’s Mammalian Diving Reflex. But what starts as difficult, awkward and even a little terrifying can give way to beautiful connections and surprising interactions, says Creative Producer Virginia Antonipillai. Rather than shy away from the challenge, Brisbane audiences ...

Aug 15, 2022•30 min•Ep. 2

Beginners’ Call – Episode 1: Louise Bezzina, Brisbane Festival Artistic Director

“Like anybody who puts any creative vision out into the world, there’s that moment when your heart skips a beat: Are people going to like this? Does it resonate? Does it do all of the things it needs to?” Louise Bezzina knows a thing or two about creative programming. She’s produced work that required shark mitigation, always has a rain contingency and only weeks away from unveiling her inaugural Brisbane Festival program in 2020, watched as the COVID pandemic turned everything on its head. Unde...

Aug 12, 2022•29 min•Ep. 1

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