Puffio

Congratulations to young SA pianist Stephen van der Hoek, who recently won the National MBS Young Performers Award. A $10,000 prize purse is attached to the honour of becoming the Young Performer of the Year, which should make it a very merry Christmas for Stephen indeed. Onya!!!

Can't imagine why they picked such a name: Magic Dirt are running their own free 3 day festival known as 'Freakscene' at The Lakes Entrance in Victoria from Fri 19 to Sun 21 Dec. Why tell you this? Well, as part of the festival they're having a Short Film Fest, and apparently not having complete success in sourcing the sort of films they want to screen. They have therefore put out the call for short film makers to get in touch through their website www.magicdirt.com this week... and they're offering an incentive: a prizewinner (what? They're only selecting one??) will be offered the chance to co-write & direct an upcoming Magic Dirt film clip.

You heard there was a drought happening, right? Should you not have an appreciation of just how dire the situation of the Coorong and Lower Lakes is, it's brought to life in a new exhibition at New Land Gallery, Port Adelaide. 'Touching Earth' is an exhibition by artist Gaynor Hartvigsen which pins it's heart unashamedly to its sleeve, encompassing the environment, the human and geographical face and a political response to a problem which looms as a far greater threat than seems generally realised. Her works explore the issues of degradation and restoration of the natural environment, she says. The 'Touching Earth' exhibition features works that comprise of mixed media paintings, drawing and sculptural assemblage using discarded materials, and is on show throughout the holiday period until Wed 21 Jan 2009.

The art exhibition 'Instantaneous Presents: Comic Cover Exhibition' is what it says, an art exhibition of comic covers on display at the Grace Emily on Tues 16 Dec. The exhibition will be opened at 6.00pm, and there follows a charity auction at 8.00pm, raising money for the Vincentian Centre and the Magdalene centre soup kitchens. So far in 2008 the organisers have raised over $10,000 from previous Instantaneouses [sic]. Onya!

The Contemporary Art Centre notes it is extremely happy to be hosting a visit - through December, of Shanghai based curator Biljana Ciric, one of the leading contemporary art curators in China, During her 10 day visit she will meet artists in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane-in conjunction with Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne-researching for a major exhibition of Australian contemporary visual art to be presented at one of Shanghai's new contemporary art museums, the Ke Centre for Contemporary Arts, in 2009.

In that bizarre way of naming their exhibitions following a vaguely undergraduate humour and theme, 'Survey Thirteen' is the 2008 Adelaide Central School of Art Bachelor of Visual Arts Graduate Exhibition featuring the combined works of no less than - you guessed it - thirteen graduate students. The exhibition opens on Sat 13 Dec and doesn't conclude until Sat 17 Jan 2009, which should give you heaps of time to check out all the works at the Adelaide Central Gallery on Osmond Terrace at Norwood. Of course, 'tis the season for graduate exhibitions, so luckily dB Magazine's visual arts reviewer Lauren Sutter is up for the task, surveying the field in her pungent and witty style in this very edition.

When it comes to wacky exhibition names, none roll off the tongue so readily as those devised by the Seedling Arts Space in the hills at Blackwood, who have named their final showing for the year 2008 'Oxymorons for a better life (scope)'. When Puffio works out what that means, the information will be duly conveyed... in any event, Julie Henderson's 'Oxymorons...' is now open for viewing, and will be so until Sun 21 Dec.

Speaking of hills viewings, it crossed the feeble mind that the annual Christmas lights display is now on at Lobethal, which should result in long queues of traffic on Gorge Road and snarls and jams in the main street of Lobethal itself. You have been warned.

Which is to say it won't be as bad as the prospect of more than 5000 cyclists sweating their way up Gorge Road past the Kangaroo Creek Dam on the Tour Downunder ride on Fri 23 Jan, on a narrow road which will not be closed to regular traffic. You have been doubly warned.

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra was getting all excited about their announcement that "Australia's Eliza Dolittle' to perform with Jose Carreras" when they had to pull a quick reversing act, and escape the scene of the crime. For reasons not yet fully explained, Australia's own Taryn Fiebig will not be performing alongside the great Jose Carreras with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in February. In fact she will be nowhere near the great man's stage, nor shadow, on that night nor any other night. Surely he was not distressed at the prospect of being upstaged?

'The Beginner's Guide To Pirates' will be the swashbuckling and rib-tickling entry into children's holiday drama from the Splash Theatre Company, at the Forge Theatre through January. The musical is set on board the good ship Ragamuffin where Pirate Jemma, Desp'rate Dan and Black Jack Bones face disaster at every turn. They overcome storms, seasickness and betrayal in a desperate bid for survival and treasure. You'll find it at the Forge Theatre, Marryatville High School, from Tues 13 to Sat 17 Jan. 'Aaaaaaaaaaghhhh, to be a pirate,' Puffio says.

An exhibition of colour and black and white photography by award winning Adelaide photographer Wendy Broekx is currently on display at the Jackalope Studio Gallery (Calton Street Port Adelaide). Entitled 'Life. It's What You Create It To Be', the exhibition features more than thirty of Wendy's photographs of nature, landscapes, wildlife and people from Australia, Thailand, Borneo, New Zealand, Africa, Canada and the USA.