Puffio

Oscar-winning Australian film producer Melanie Coombs will be the special guest speaker on Sat 2 Feb for the 14th World of Women (WOW) Film Festival, to be held at the Mercury Cinema. WOW is a short film festival which promotes and awards the talents of women directors, producers, writers, editors and cinematographers in the Australian and Oceania film industries. The festival itself is held in Sydney and highlights of the program tour nationally. There are two screening sessions on the day, 5pm (documentaries) and 7.30pm (drama).

'Graduate Metal XI' is subtitled 'Emerging Ideas In Jewellery & Objects', and since the exhibition brings together the collected works of jewellery graduates from around the world, this isn't far off the mark. Open from Sat 26 Jan in the Light Square Gallery at the Adelaide Centre For The Arts, 'Graduate Metal XI' showcases selected contemporary jewellery and objects created by over 90 recent graduates from across Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as part of the 13th National Jewellery & Metalsmith Group Of Australia (JMGA) conference 'Inside Out'. The exhibition runs until Thur 14 Feb. The image below is of untitled brooches by international graduate Yeonguen Han.

Puffio suspects it might be pretty much sold out, but if you're prepared to run - don't walk - there might be a few tickets left for Slingsby's production of 'The Tragical Life Of Cheeseboy', a performance written for kids of all ages by playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer and brought to life by Andy Packer, for the first outing of new theatre organistion Slingsby. '... Cheeseboy' can be found this week only in a Magical Tent within the Space at the Adelaide Festival Centre as part of the Summer Family Fun series.

He's coming to Australia and he's coming to Adelaide, or to a venue very near Adelaide, and that's good enough for Puffio. Yep, that old Sheffield pipe cutter and lungbuster Joe Cocker headlines the 2008 'Barossa Under The Stars' concert with a special 10th Anniversary show in Tanunda on Sat 2 Feb. Previous performances have included those from Shirley Bassey, Julio Iglesias, Michael Crawford, Tony Bennett, Rod Stewart, Cliff Richard, John Farnham and The Beach Boys.

Intending applicants should write quickly, for the closing date for applications is Fri 1 Feb. 'Write in Your Face' is an initiative of the literature board supporting emerging forms of writing practice by young writers, intended as a program of support to young writers and funded under the Australian Government's Young and Emerging Artists' Initiative. They're looking to support young writers who are using language in innovative ways, such as writing for e-zines, comics, multimedia and the like. To find out more visit the typically longwinded website at http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/grants/literature/write in your face

More scribbling stuff: for the 2008 International Womens Day a 'Young Women Writers' Award' has been established for emerging writers, as an encouragement to young women to write a short story or poem in celebration of their lives. The awards winners are to be announced at the International Women's Day Committee [IWD] Luncheon to be held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on Fri 7 March Deadline for entries is Mon 18 Feb, so call Margaret Cameron at the Office for Women on 8303 0518 for details.

'Abracadabra: The Magic Of Wally Speed' is the latest exhibition on display in the foyer at the Festival Theatre until Wed 20 Feb. The exhibition features a rare collection of magic paraphernalia used by legendary magician Wally Speed during his long and illustrious career entertaining Adelaide families during the first half of the 20th Century.

'True Stories' is the latest touring work from the excellent Bangarra Dance Theatre Company, whose Adelaide season runs at Her Majesty's Theatre from Thurs 7 to Sat 9 Feb. 'True Stories' is a double bill of newly choreographed work for Bangara, comprising 'Emeret Lu' (Very Old Things) and 'X300'. The first explores some of the stories and lives of the traditional people of the Torres Strait Islands; the second examines an indigenous reaction to the 1950s series of atomic explosions conducted on Maralinga Tjarutja traditional lands in Northern South Australia (the code name of the test site was X300).

On Sat 2 Feb it's time for the annual Santos Symphony Under The Stars, held in Elder Park on the banks of the green and soupy River Torrens, which is currently being flushed through with many thousands of litres of water being sent down the Kangaroo Creek spillway last weekend in an attempt to cleanup our major recreational waterway. But, Puffio digresses, as usual. The 2008 Santos Symphony Under The Stars features soloist pianist Leigh Harrold, performing with the ASO. bring your blanket and low, low chairs. This is a public service announcement.

Described with a voice 'once heard, never forgotten', Adelaide audiences get a second chance to be captivated by Yasmin Levy's deep, spiritual and moving style of singing. She first perfomed here at last year's WOMADelaide and was one of the stars of the event. She sings in a number of idiom, among them the Ladino style, as it is popularly known, which is an archaic form of Spanish with structures and vocabulary that can be traced back to the fifteenth century in Spain. She performs one show only, on Sat 16 Feb at the Playhouse in the Festival Centre, as part of the trans:mission programme.

You may have read or heard about the new initiative being spearheaded by The Metropolitan Opera, which is seeing a resurgence in interest in opera across the US. Here in Adelaide the Palace Cinema has joined the team, presenting the 2008 Met Opera season concurrent with the performances in New York. Screenings will take place on selected weekend matinees until May of this year. The Met's experiment of merging film with live performance has created a new art form, says the 'Los Angeles Times' of the groundbreaking series of high-definition performance transmissions to cinemas around the world. This Sat 26 Jan (the Australia Day weekend) the broadcast performance is that of Verdi's Macbeth, from 1.00pm.