Two Mount Gambier artists will have access to additional grant funding through the State Government’s commitment to increase funding for artists and arts organisations.
The government has provided an additional $200,000 per year funding boost for the regional arts sector, through Country Arts SA.
The additional funding has enabled Country Arts SA to provide eight regional South Australian artists and arts collectives with funding for new programs, performances and projects as part of the Elevate Grants Program.
Mount Gambier’s Gavin Clarke will receive $9900, while fellow Blue Lake city resident Sarah Brokensha has been allocated $45,882.
Mr Clarke’s Sounds of Industry (Industrially Integrated Music) will explore the sounds of human activity and the everyday music that occurs when machines lay down a rhythm.
To capture the soundtracks of machines, Mr Clarke will visit sites of the Limestone Coast’s biggest local industries such as timber mills, paper factories, cheese production, dairies, wineries, agriculture, construction and fisheries.
He will then compose new pieces for the many musicians and ensembles that reside in the South East to perform, including guitarists, percussionists, a French horn player, a string quartet, a metal group, bag pipes and a concert band.
Ms Brokensha’s grant will support the remount and tour of the regionally-created, professional theatre work Seven Little Wonders to 2400 children from Lower Eyre Peninsula, Iron Triangle and Riverland communities in February and March 2024.
Seven Little Wonders is a poetic, non-verbal, visual-theatre performance for 3-8-year-olds incorporating motion graphics, live video projection, a rich music score and interactive lighting.
It is intimate, immersive and interactive, with children from the audience playing complicit roles in the performance itself.
It was devised in Mount Gambier over two years from 2020-2022 by high calibre, local theatre-makers Mr Clarke, Ms Brokensha and Anya McKee alongside conceptualist and director Dave Brown.
Mr Clarke also composed the music score for the production.
