A host of locally made productions and exhibitions will hit the road in country New South Wales over the coming months, coinciding with the opening of a restored art deco theatre cherished by its locals and the creation of two new cultural venues for regional communities.
More than $6m of state government funding has returned the Roxy theatre in the Riverina to its 1930s art deco splendour, once affectionately known as Big Red for its brilliant neon signs that lit up the night sky.
The heritage-listed venue has been the site of local eisteddfods, discos, high school speech nights and the musical society’s annual productions for decades, with the community campaigning for its survival since the late 1970s.
In December, stage one of the restoration – the main auditorium – was completed, and the theatre will soon serve as Leeton’s multifunctional theatre and civic space for the region’s 12,000 residents.
The theatre is one of 36 regional venues where the NSW government expects more than 76,000 local residents will see 10 travelling productions booked over the next 12 months, after the allocation of $700,000 from the regional arts touring funding program.
Also in the Riverina district, Deniliquin’s Yarkuwa Indigenous Knowledge Centre has undergone a multi-stage development and refurbishment through the state’s creative capital fund.
As well as becoming the permanent home for the archival collections of First Nations people who have lived on Wamba Wamba Perrepa Perrepa country for millennia, it will become a cultural training hub for creative and artistic industries.
More than 23,000 people visited the Mudgee arts precinct in its first 12 months of operation, after an $8.1m construction and fit-out for new permanent and temporary art exhibition spaces, a tourism office, bookshop, sculpture garden and cafe, along with conference and artist-in-residence facilities.
Among the productions funded to take advantage of these new venues and more than 30 other regional centres in NSW is the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre’s production of Joanna Murray Smith’s Bombshells – a play featuring monologues of six female characters – and Belvoir St theatre’s Lose to Win, the one-man show created and performed by a South Sudanese refugee, Mandela Mathia.
A First Nations-led tour targeting NSW communities traumatised in the Stolen Generations era will be staged in Wiradjuri, Gumbaynggirr, Awabakal, Birpai country and other regional galleries.
The Secrets of Dawn Tour is described as a truth-telling exhibition bringing to light the propaganda of a magazine published throughout the 1940s, 50s and 60s by the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board and used to push the agenda of assimilation.
Historical materials, survivor testimonies and contemporary artwork will be included in the Secrets of Dawn tour, led by the Gamilaroi/Wailwan woman Meagan Gerrard and Alex McWhirter, leaders of the Coota Girls Aboriginal Corporation, founded a decade ago by former residents of the Cootamundra domestic training home for Aboriginal girls.
“Through powerful truth-telling, Secrets of Dawn honours Coota Girls Survivors and all Stolen Generations survivors,” Gerrard and McWhirter said in a joint statement.
“Despite efforts to eradicate First Nations people and culture through assimilation, [they] have resisted and persisted through truth telling, healing and self-determination.”
The NSW arts minister, John Graham, and the state’s cultural funding body, Create NSW, have come under criticism for denying four-year funding to 11 of the state’s regional public galleries and museums, placing their futures in doubt.
In a statement on Thursday, Graham said access to arts and culture contributed to vibrant and connected towns. “It’s important that regional and remote communities have opportunities to enjoy cultural experiences,” he said.
“For audiences, impact of regional touring is immeasurable. The opportunity to see acclaimed productions and cultural programs, the chance to hear new stories – or stories that reflect your own lived experience can captivate imaginations, and inspire communities.”
The regional public galleries that missed out on four-year funding will be given the opportunity of a last-resort lifeline, when the final round of two-year grants is assessed by Create NSW over the next two months.
