Facilitator’s Prize
In 2001, two new Awards were introduced – the Indigenous Individual Award, and the Indigenous Facilitator’s Prize. These were made annually over three years from 2001 to 2003.
The Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards are announced and presented early each year for the preceding year. The Awards are decided on a national basis and each nomination is considered by a Judging Committee. While past achievement is recognised, consideration is also given to the potential of an individual or group to continue their contribution to Australian society through the performing arts into the future.
For the purpose of the Awards, the performing arts are defined to include all aspects of creation and performance of all forms of drama, comedy, dance, music, opera, circus and puppetry. They do not include visual or plastic arts, crafts, film, electronic media or literature.
Previous Awards Winners
A list of previous winners of the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards is available here
Please visit the official website of the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards at www.sidneymyerperformingartsawards.org.au
Winners of the 2008 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards
Presentation of the 2008 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards took place on Friday 27th March in the Merlyn Theatre of The CUB Malthouse. Family members, winners and guests celebrated the 2008 winners, and the 25th Anniversary of the Awards.
The judging panel of highly regarded arts industry representatives (Michael Kantor, David Bates, Lindy Hume, David McAlister as well as Carrillo Gantner, representing Trustees of the Sidney Myer Fund and Kerry Gardner, representing the Arts and Humanities Committee) selected a fine group of winners from the 51 nominations received.
The winner of the 2008 Facilitator’s Prize is Paul Petran. Paul is the presenter and producer of ABC’s ‘Music Deli’. As a music producer, Paul has made over 1,500 recordings in studios and at concerts and music festivals around the country. In October of 2001, a recording engineered and produced by Paul, Mara! Live in Europe, won the ARIA award for best world/folk music release.
The winner of the 2008 Group Award is Big hART. Big hART is a group of professional artists, arts workers and producers who have been making work together since 1992 – creating theatre, film, television, painting, photography, dance, new media and radio. The group works most often in small communities with people experiencing marginalisation in regional, rural, and geographically or socially isolated communities. The organisation has previously worked on projects fighting for the preservation of Indigenous languages, working with a post-riot Cronulla community and with farming families along the Murray Darling Basin facing the destruction of their livelihood through water shortages. Big hART has previously been supported through the Arts and Humanities program for the development of an Indigenous language preservation project entitled Ngapartji Ngapartji. The work was performed in Alice Springs, at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Sydney Opera House and Perth International Arts Festival. All performances sold out and many received standing ovations.
The winner of the 2008 Individual Award is Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter. Archie and Ruby have made extraordinary contributions to Australian music. Through their music they have voiced ideas of Aboriginal identity, country, beliefs and spirit. Archie Roach was born Mooroopna in central Victoria. In 1956, the area's indigenous population were re-housed on mission stations, and Roach and his sisters were taken away from their families. As a young man, Roach left his foster home and lived on the streets in Sydney and Adelaide. During this time Roach met his lifelong partner Ruby Hunter, and in the late 1980s they formed a band, the Altogethers, and moved to Melbourne. In 1990, Roach recorded his debut solo album, Charcoal Lane. This album included the song Took the Children Away which won two ARIA awards, as well as an international Human Rights Achievement Award. Roach has recorded three further albums, toured the globe and worked on soundtracks for several films.
Ruby Hunter is also a singer and songwriter. She is a Ngarrindjeri woman. Her first album, Thoughts Within, was the first solo album released by an Aboriginal woman. She won Deadly Awards in 2000 for Female Artist of the Year, 2003 for Outstanding Contribution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music and 2004 for Excellence in Film & Theatrical Score.
Lady Southey with the 2008 winners L-R Paul Petran, Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach, and Big hART’s Scott Rankin
SDP Photo
The Mistress of Ceremonies for the awards evening was Lady Southey, and Richard Tognetti presented the awards. The event also included performance from Richard Tognetti and Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter. A multi-media presentation showed some highlights of the 25 years of the awards.
With such high quality performances, and over 160 guests, the 25th Anniversary of the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards was a successful and enjoyable evening.
Winners of the 2007 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards
It is with great pleasure that we announce the winners of the 2007 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards, presented at the National Institute of Circus Arts (www.nica.com.au), Prahran, on Friday 22nd February 2008. The Awards were presented by Sue Nattrass.
Individual Award Winner: Ros Warby (www.roswarby.com) is a dance artist who has pursued a solo career since 1990, creating and performing works which reveal the interior lives of iconic characters who seem both strange and familiar. Her performances are remarkable for their committed focus and contrasting qualities, ranging from meditative calm through whimsical humour to ferocious intensity.
Her early training was in classical ballet including studies at several prestigious international institutions resulting in a virtuosic command of that demanding art form. Her innate curiosity, however, led towards contemporary dance and further studies with Australian Eva Karczag at Holland’s European Dance Development Centre, and with American artists Lisa Nelson, Dana Reitz and Deborah Hay – all artists who employ improvisation as a performance strategy.
Warby is fearless and uncompromising in her performances, willingly relinquishing conventional expectations of beauty and grace and awakening in the viewer a recognition of emotion, sensation and experience that so often remains unacknowledged. The accumulated impact of her work is profoundly moving.
Ros Warby accepting her award from Sue Nattrass
Casamento Photography
Joint Group Award Winner: The Song Company (www.songcompany.com.au)
The Song Company is Australia’s only full-time professional vocal ensemble, and since 1990, The Song Company has demonstrated their unique ability as one of the world’s leading groups of this genre. The Song Company present musical experiences to audiences throughout Australia and internationally, ranging from early music to cabaret, a comprehensive music education program for school children, workshops and a program of specially commissioned contemporary vocal work. The Company gives approximately 130 performances each year and travels extensively. Through Musica Viva’s education program, the Company performs between 65-100 school performances each year.
Under the leadership of Artistic Director Roland Peelman, the six-voice ensemble has developed its style by successfully integrating serious scholarship, tonal clarity, vocal daring and unbridled performance dynamics. These qualities are evident across a broad-ranging repertoire, including medieval songs and chants, 16th-century polyphony, 20th-century classics.
The Song Company aims high, to be the best vocal ensemble in the world and to provide inspiration through quality, accuracy and innovation. They are utterly dedicated to their art and are focused on commissioning and creating new work and providing opportunities for artists to collaborate with the ensemble.
Roland Peelman (Artistic Director of The Song Company) accepting the award from Sue Nattrass as members of The Song Company look on
Casamento Photography
Joint Group Award Winner: Tasdance (www.tasdance.com.au)
Tasdance is rather like the little engine that could, an astonishingly productive and valiant small company based in Launceston, Tasmania that has battled against the odds to create and present contemporary dance at an exemplary level. Its location and limited options to tour to the mainland means it struggles to receive the recognition it deserves.
Founded in 1981, the company was Australia’s first official dance-in-education company, commissioned to take contemporary dance into schools, conducting workshops and performances. It operated with a small ensemble of dancer/teachers who performed and worked with school students and teachers, delivering on one of the key goals of arts funding - to create access to the arts.
Under Annie Grieg’s leadership, Tasdance continues to take dance into theatres and schools. It conducts an annual education project, establishing a student group who devise and tour an original work throughout Tasmania. Tasdance has also created many large scale, site specific works in and around Launceston, engaging the community in the process.
The company has toured nationally and internationally to Canberra, Geelong, New Zealand, Beijing, New York and, most recently, Korea where the company was invited to perform at the 4th International Asia Pacific Performing Arts Symposium.
Through its multi-faceted approach Tasdance has given wonderful service to both the profession and the community, advancing contemporary dance and fulfilling its mission to ‘create passion for and engagement with contemporary dance’.
Annie Grieg (Artistic Director) and Mark Kelleher (Chair) of Tasdance with friends from the National Institute of Circus Arts
Casamento Photography
Facilitator's Prize Winner: Ian Scobie (www.artsprojects.com.au)
Ian has had a long and extremely successful career in many areas of arts management, but he has been particularly successful as an arts facilitator of the highest calibre, contributing greatly to the diversity and quality of performing arts available to Australians, and beyond.
Established by Ian in 1997, Arts Projects Australia (APA) is an independent arts and event manager and producer with a fulltime staff of eight, producing international tours nationally and within the region.
APA was the event producer of the Performing Arts program for the Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival in Melbourne in March 2006 and is event manager for the biennial Adelaide Film Festival.
Prior to establishing APA, Ian worked for the Adelaide Festival as General Manager and held associated roles on eight Adelaide Festivals, between 1984-1998 with seven different Artistic Directors. In 1997 Ian was appointed as Consultant to the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games Arts Festival and worked as Executive Producer for the 1997 Festival of The Dreaming.
Ian was a Board member of the Sydney Dance Company from 1999 to 2004. In 2003 he was recognised by the Government of France as a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres. In 2006 he was awarded the SA Great South Australian of the Year Award for the Arts. He and his wife Frances have three sons.
Ian and Frances Scobie
Casamento Photography
