When he was artistic director of Adelaide Festival, David Sefton’s programming significantly reduced that audience’s average age. His new venture – a kid-centric Fringe venue called Grounded – goes even further.
When talking to David Sefton, it’s easy to be seduced by the sense of cool that he projects. He’s rubbed shoulders with some of the most recognisable names in popular (and not so popular) music and casually talks about introducing Laurie Anderson to Antony Hegarty (now Anohni), or cajoling a reluctant Aphex Twin onstage at Sonic Youth’s All Tomorrow’s Parties event.
Grounded runs from 16-25 February in Victoria Square/ Tarntanyangga.
But his new project is far removed from that world, and it’s inspired in part by his life in Adelaide. “One of the things I’ve found since moving here and programming here is how strong the local artistic community working for kids is,” he explains. During his tenure, the Festival featured a number of innovative performances aimed at a younger audience, and with Grounded he’s set to explore that theme further.
After taking his young son to a show at one of the Fringe hubs last year, he realised that there was no dedicated venue for families. “There are some great shows, but you are aware that those sites are not made to be family-friendly. That’s not what they’re for; they’re party sites that run off those vast alcohol sales and it can end up being a little over-educational at times. It’s not necessarily what you want with a nine-year-old child.”
Grounded, on the other hand, has been designed specifically with a family audience in mind. Affordable ticket prices and free interactive experiences designed for children are part of this, as is ensuring that there’s plenty of shade on the site in Victoria Square/ Tarntanyangga. And while there will be a bar – Sefton acknowledges that “parents need a drink just as much as anybody else… sometimes more” – it will be “quite contained, a very small part of the full offering,” rather than the focal point.
As for the programming, Sefton was adamant that the shows had to appeal to parents as well as to a younger audience. “As someone who has seen a lot of children’s shows, I asked myself why they have to be dumbed down. There’s no reason they can’t be entertaining and challenging for an adult audience as well.”
Saltbush – an immersive performance.
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The result is a compact program that so far includes The Secret Life Of Suitcases, which uses puppets to tell the story of an office worker dragged out of his mundane life by the arrival of a mysterious suitcase, and Saltbush. This immersive performance explores the Australian landscape and Indigenous identity using theatre, dance, song, and digital projections that react to the performers and audience.
Saltbush premiered in Adelaide in 2009 as part of the Come Out Festival (now DreamBIG), and is symbolic of how Grounded differs from Sefton’s work with the Adelaide Festival and Unsound, which have an imperative to secure premieres and exclusives. It’s a change in direction that he welcomes.
“It’s quite nice that we’re not struggling to hold on to exclusivity. A show like Saltbush has been around a lot but it’s never had a return visit to Adelaide in all those years. And so it’s really nice to be able to do that because the kids who will see it this time wouldn’t have been born when it was last here.”