The Village is a beautiful, beguiling festival that exists to provide an intimate environment in which professional and non professional artists and audiences can meet each other in bliss. The programming esthetic is populist, accessible, quirky, and littered with the familiar and the exotic. The Village Winter Festival in Castlemaine is essentially an event built on the idea of gathering communit
y together in winter (a season which can otherwise seclude us) within an atmosphere that is immersive, inclusive, festive and theatrical. We felt that while most northern hemisphere countries have some ritualised celebration in winter, here in Australia we tend to reserve our festivals for the summer months, which leaves the winter bare and secluded. We wanted to celebrate the strange beauty of this otherwise neglected season
Instead of the formal enclosure of the traditional theatre The Village will appear on the green of Victory Park, (on Sat 22nd June) like an old-time traveling carnivale. There will be a series of decorated temporary theatre spaces( tents and caravans) , which will have at the centre a fire hearth, a cafe and bar serving hearty winter soup and mulled wine, and an "engine room" ensemble of bike powered energy, light and sound. Around this local performers will rove and along with vendors, will create an otherworldly atmosphere. The Village Winter Festival in Castlemaine aims, in the heart of winter to revive the storytelling tradition and to expand the theme of stories and telling. We see that the atmosphere should be theatrical enough that is suggests the stories of old times, of winter, of mystery and cosiness. Imagine old world vendors singing while selling hot roast chestnuts, witches over cauldrons of warm spiced apple juice sourced by a bike powered juicers, children in bonnets sewn from old blankets, spooky stories, and riotous shows inside Indian tents..…
As soon as the festival goer enters the Village, the audience should feel they have entered into an artist’s studio, a circus, a party. In this way it aims to appeal not just to traditional theatre goers or art consumers, but catches the attention and imagination of the whole community…
The village Winter festival also capitalised of the diversity of Castlemaine's talent by sourcing local performers and crew. The evenings programme has been designed to appeal to all ages, with earlier shows having a general appeal( suitable for children, families and grown ups) and as the night wears on local bands and shows should appeal to young folk, the young at heart and those who just want to rock on...
Some of the events that will happen during the winter festival are:
To open the event, a lantern parade, created by the children of the local community. A shadow play: "The wanting monster" created and performed by The Addams family. (artists from the local community)
Interactive bike powered sculptures, a collection and collaboration of works by local and interstate artists . An ongoing project traveling with The Village festival around the country, gathering and building on sustainable festival practices. The Village hearth, a central fire sculpture created by Stuart Vaskess and Sam Deal. Local story teller Andrew McKenna. Music by D. D. Dumbo, Ghouls Gambit, Caroline No, Dezebells
Caravan of the found poem by writers Lisa Donofrio and Simmone Howel
Caravan of the ages,
Castlemaine village variety hour hosted by Clare Bartholomew and Tim Radcliffe, and including many local and community performers.
