OzAsia recognised in national awards
The Adelaide Festival Centre’s efforts to lead Australian-Chinese cultural relations have been recognised at a national awards presentation timed to coincide with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit this week.
Its annual OzAsia Festival was announced as a finalist in the arts category of the inaugural Australia-China Achievement Awards in what centre CEO Douglas Gautier described as an extraordinary achievement.
“I think it is national and international recognition of the effort that Adelaide Festival Centre and its partners in State Government have put in to cultivate this relationship in every facet,” he told InDaily from Sydney, where he is attending the first China Australia Leaders Forum today.
The Australia-China Achievement Awards, announced by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, seek to “celebrate the entrepreneurship and creativity of Australian organisations and people in advancing Australia-China”. The arts category winner was the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
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OzAsia – which this year featured 33 events including live performance, visual arts, film and forums – was the only South Australian finalist across all categories.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed with Shandong in 2013 which saw the 2014 festival shine a spotlight on the Chinese province through a range of performances and activities. The agreement was re-signed at the end of the festival to foster an ongoing cultural relationship that will see include a return artistic visit from South Australia to Shandong next year and a pop-up version of the Adelaide International Guitar Festival alongside an Indigenous arts exhibition and “iconic” South Australian films.
Gautier, the current chair of the Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres (AAPPAC), said that for the past four years the Festival Centre had put considerable effort into cultivating its relationship with Asia. He said China was particularly important from a business, political and arts perspective, and a “very important cultural player internationally”.
“From every turn that relationship is very important for our country long term and I think it is acknowledged that South Australia, the Festival Centre and the State Government have taken a lead on that comprehensively.”
