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Ilbijerri wins Myer Award by Ben Starick Multi talented artist Rachael Maza’s inspirational and spirited leadership has gained a trophy for Ilbijerri Theatre Company. Ilbijerri Theatre Company won the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Group Award trophy and a cheque for $80,000 at the 50th anniversary of Sidney Myer’s death. Ilbijerri has been creating challenging and inspiring theatre by Indigenous artists for twenty-two years. The company produces original works (such as 2010’s Jack Charles v The Crown, nominated for two Helpmann Awards), offers training and professional development to upcoming Indigenous artists and theatre makers, tours extensively throughout Australia (over 25,000 kilometres each year, reaching 28,000 people) and collaborates with many of Australia’s premier theatre companies. Musician, composer and collaborator extraordinaire, Iain Grandage has taken out the Individual Award ($50,000) while leading Indigenous theatre company, Ilbijerri, whose work is capturing national attention, has been recognised with the Group Award ($80,000). Philip Rolfe, producer, festival director, bureaucrat and cultural industry shapeshifter has been awarded the Facilitator’s Prize ($20,000). The Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards were created in 1984 by the Trustees of the Sidney Myer Fund at the time of the 50th anniversary of Sidney Myer’s death to commemorate his life and his love for the arts. The Awards pay tribute to outstanding
Rachael Maza accepted the Group Award on behalf of ILBIJERRI Theatre Company. Image: Sean Davey
excellence in drama, comedy, dance, music, opera, circus and puppetry throughout Australia. In announcing the winners, Carrillo Gantner AO, Chairman of the Sidney Myer Fund Trustees remarked: “The 2012 winners are all outstanding in their field and have inspired us not just through their individual and collective achievements, but through their constant imaginative striving to challenge what is possible. Their dedication and creative genius has been a gift to us all.” “Sidney Myer was a great philanthropist, patron of the arts and supporter of community life. These Awards support his belief that the arts are inseparable from everyday life and a rich society is one that expresses great creative spirit”. • Iain Grandage – Individual Winner Iain is a thrillingly original artist and genius collaborator. The theatre, dance and cabaret stages of
Neil Armfield, Michael Kantor, Meow Meow, Splinters Group and The Black Arm Band, to name just a few, have achieved extraordinary dimensions in dramatic narrative through his original music and arrangements, and no less some of the great classical music ensembles of our time including the Brodsky Quartet. He is a singular and much loved artist whose contribution is close to the heart of our performance culture. • Ilbijerri Theatre Company – Group Award In twenty-two years of courageous and political Indigenous story-telling, Ilbijerri have performed thirty new works to audiences of more than 150,000. In the last five years under Rachael Maza’s inspired and spirited leadership, the company has been questioning what contemporary Indigenous theatre is to astonishingly powerful purpose. Ilbijerri are not just being invited
to perform on the most sought after stages in the country because their art is urgent, they are challenging all theatre makers to take note of how theatre must evolve to speak truthfully to each generation. • Philip Rolfe – Facilitator’s Prize Philip Rolfe makes things happen: he initiates, he drives change be it in organisational culture, policy, attitudes or in our relationships with the rest of the world. He’s been entrepreneurial in the best sense of that term: ambitious – not for himself but for art, artists, and organisations - whether establishing the Australian Performing Arts Market, the Producing Unit at Sydney Opera House (Message Sticks Indigenous Film Program, Luminous and Kids at the House), or more recently the Parramasala Festival in Parramatta. Philip’s conceptions are not just bravely of the moment, they are fundamentally gamechanging.
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