Circolombia
This post is not about writing, or about books or even about reading, but it’s something I’d love to share with my readers.
Yesterday my wife and I had the delight to see one of the shows in the Adelaide Fringe Festival, an exciting part of the world-renowned Adelaide Festival of Arts. The show was called Circolombia, a vibrant, energetic and compellingly hypnotic acrobatics display mixed with rap music and dance.
The stars of this rhythm-fest are all young people from the streets of Cali, Colombia. They have escaped the dangers of those streets and have taken their skills onto the world stage for all to see. My family has close ties with the city of Cali – both of my grandchildren were born there and lived for the first few months of their lives in a local orphanage. I can now see where they get their love of music from – as well as their amazing sense of rhythm.
One of my concerns about this afternoon’s performance was the Clipsal 500 car race, the track being about 150 metres from the tent where we sat watching the show. The main race coincided with the performance. I need not have worried. The booming reggaeton soundtrack showed that the high-octane performance inside the circus tent was more than a match for the average-octane cars on the street circuit car race nearby.
How does this happen? Confessions of a book lover.
The biennial Adelaide Festival of Arts starts today. This feast of cultural events is now a well established event in South Australia, celebrating 50 years of festivals this year. It has maintained a world class standard for festivals since its inception. This week there have been political promises to make it an annual event – we have a state election here in 3 weeks’ time.
Writers’ Week
A very prominent and popular part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts is Writers’ Week, starting tomorrow. Several dozen leading Australian and International writers descend on Adelaide for this festival. Several large marquees are set up in the beautiful parklands and the writers are given centre stage for a whole week. Most sessions are free events for the reading and writing public, a rare thing these days. Book launches are also a prominent feature of the week, along with the announcement of a raft of awards.
Programme Guide
I plan to attend a number of sessions next week so during the week I wandered into a leading bookshop in Adelaide to buy the programme guide. The price was $7 and I thought that wouldn’t break the bank or drain the wallet too much.
How come then I come out of the bookshop with six books in a bag?
Those wonderful novels – some in hardback – were sitting there on the bargain tables quietly whispering my name and begging to be taken to a good home. I couldn’t resist.
As part of this confession, and to atone for my misdeeds, I’ll read those books over coming weeks and then review them here on this blog. It’s the least I can do.
Good reading.
Good writing.
To read more about my impressions of the Adelaide Writers’ Week click here.