The Antipodes Festival has been a fixture of Victoria’s cultural calendar since it’s inception in the late 80s. The festival loved or hated brings out thousands into Melbourne’s Lonsdale Street.
Critics decry a “lack of cutting edge art”, or see it as a ‘souvlakifest’.
Yet, everyone has an idea of what the festival is and what it can be. Neos Kosmos sought opinions from some Greek Australian arts leaders of their perception of the festival.
Esther Anatolitis the General Manager of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, (Victoria’s largest independent arts festivals), feels that “in Melbourne, Australia’s largest Greek city, we’re sitting on gold mine in terms of the richness of independent Greek Australian arts and cultural practices”
She wants to see “a festival representing the richness of Melbourne Greek Australian cultural community that we’re not seeing reflected in the Antipodes Festival”
“The location of the festival also needs to be rethought, maybe it should be in Coburg one year, Oakleigh the next, that way it can revitalise the communities living in each area.”
Anatolitis, underscores the need for Antipodes to appoint “an artistic advisory board as distinct from board of management.”
Nicholas Tsoutas the ex director of Sydney’s Arts Space and former creative director of Casula Powerhouse takes a broadside against all Greek festivals in Australia.
“Greek festivals fear the cutting edge of new ideas, they reinforce and contain themselves in the expected norms of Greek culture in Australia.”
“Greek culture in Greece is internationally connected” Tsoutas says.
He adds, “Greek festivals in Australia need to represent the shifting nature of Greek culture here and globally.”
Tsoutas wants the festivals’ to become a “celebration of Greek Diaspora, the Greek contribution to Australian culture and the Greekness, of Greeks, and what we have given to the world.”
He also seeks to engage Australian Greeks such as contemporary artists Stelarc or Micheal Zavros “who are at the cutting edge of contemporary culture” and comedians like Jordan Raskopoulos to make these festivals “get into step with the future.”
Tsoutas would give the “older generation what they desire” but says, “we deny the younger generations at the peril of losing the next generation of Greeks in Australia”.
He ends the discussion by highlighting his current work with Athenian contemporary artist Dannae Stratou “on a project which is going to eight cities around the world and look at the global movement of people” .
Jorge Menidis the director of the Sydney Comedy Festival and former director of Antipodes is aware of various criticisms but points to the reality that, “the desire for tradition in the community” comes mainly from young people.
“The young people have an agenda about holding onto traditional customs such as Greek folk dancing.”
“It’s not the first generation that are saying ‘we want the tradition’, but it is young people that want tradition,” Menidis adds emphatically.
“The trouble we get into is defining what is culture, tradition, and art, for example we’ve always had controversial work in the festival such as this year’s short play readings, or Tsiolkas doing Electra AD, but the Glendi is also about cross generational celebration” says Menidis. He reminds critics “the Antipodes Festival has tries to find a balance, we may have a DJ from Mykonos, a folk group from Rhodos, or a cutting edge exhibition, but at the end of the day the festival is about celebrating Greekness.”
He does say that after this year’s festival the new board, will be “re-evaluating the festival, to see what needs to be done, what scale it should have and what cultural and arts foci it needs.”
Nadia Tass one of Australia’s most respected filmmakers expresses little angst about the role of Antipodes, ” I think it is a great public event, and serves a purpose of attracting the wider Greek community.”
She points to the obvious highlighting that limited funding hamstrings the capacity of the festival to “attract better artists”.
She also highlights a desire to see ” more theatre across a broad range from contemporary, to populist theatre and more active street theatre.”
At the end of the day, Antipodes like all festivals will have its critics and its followers. This weekend though thousands will again celebrate all things Greek in Melbourne.