Review: OZASIA FESTIVAL 2015: SHEDDING LIGHT Is A Sheer Delight

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Saturday 26th September 2015

On any night during the OzAsia Festival, between 5 and 9pm, you can take a ride in a private sepeda lampu, a double bicycle conveyance, sitting in the middle listening to the recorded music while two members of Tutti Arts pedal away either side of you to whisk you off to a quieter spot on the Riverbank Precinct, where you are given a three minute, one to one performance by other members of the company, before being pedalled back to your starting point. The Shedding Light performances place you, as one of the members put it, in "seat one, row A", the only seat in the house.

There are three of these vehicles, each going to one of three performances each evening, and each brightly decorated, with illuminated structures on the top. The pedal power is provided by very cheerful, jolly folk who are full of enthusiasm and, very noticeably, are having an absolute ball. Their own enjoyment of the event is highly contagious, and people who have been on one of the events quickly want to get booked in for the others. This is easily done, by adding your name to an empty time slot on one of three small blackboards. These fill quickly, so get there as early as you can before they are all booked out, as they have been doing. They are proving very popular and, believe it or not, there is no charge!

No, I am not going to tell you about the performances that I saw, two of the three that were presented on Saturday, as that would spoil the surprise for you. Those that I saw were full of charm, most intriguing, and greatly to be recommended, and my friend who saw the same two in reverse order, agreed wholeheartedly. We plan on seeing more during the coming week, if we can get our names on the lists in time.

Tutti Arts is a vital part of Adelaide's arts scene, an inclusive, multi-arts community, focussing on disabled visual and performing artists. It all began with the Tutti Choir, established by Pat Rix, who embraced the requests of members of the group to expand into other areas of performing arts and then into visual art. The members of these subgroups are now combining and branching out into multi-disciplinary projects, such as this one for the OzAsia Festival.

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