Country Arts SA pays respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and recognises their continuing connection and spiritual relationship to these lands, waters and skies. We are committed to listening and helping care for Country, and to safeguard, share and celebrate First Nations’ living cultures.
D’Faces Youth Arts: Area 53 – Case Study
Artform— Cross Art Form
Project Cost— $22,990
Amount Funded— $10,700
Primary Beneficiary—Children (0-14 years)
Professional theatre practitioners Claire Glenn and Antony Kelly, together with a local sound and animation expert, worked with members of D’faces Youth Arts to develop an interactive immersive theatre experience that created an exciting other worldly experience for the local Whyalla community using the art forms of theatre, puppetry, animation, photography and soundscape.
Area 53 has been incredibly successful in achieving the original aims of the project. Overall, the most important objectives of the project have been the most successful. That is that the young people involved had a great positive experience that has boosted their confidence and made them better artists by creating an original and innovative work that is theirs and that they are proud of. Many members of D’faces over the years have translated their experiences as a young person in regional Australia working with professional artists into long term careers in the arts.
The community benefits by having the opportunity to experience unusual and innovative theatre, by young people from the region. The young tutors and D’faces as an organisation gain a great deal from working with professional artists gain ideas and experience and confidence in our ability to create, it contributes to the vibrancy of the community and maybe contribute to ‘saving Whyalla’. Deb Hughes, the Country Arts SA Arts and Cultural Facilitator of Whyalla said:
“This regional community seldom has opportunity to engage with such innovative art forms as an audience, even more exciting that it was generated by our regional youth. It was a project that allowed access at multiple points for both participants and audience with it’s multiple layers of making and exhibition.”
The outcome of this project resulted in four performances of Area 53 in October 2017and a re-mount of the production through further RAF funding for the uneARTh Festival in April 2018.