Adelaide Festival’s Riverbank Palais

Interactive art in House of Mirrors, US singer-songwriter Kurt Vile, US chillwave artist Toro Y Moi and Aussie soul band The Bamboos are all set to rock the 2017 Adelaide Festival’s newest venue, the Riverbank Palais and surrounding Parc Palais, as part of its first program.

Featuring more than 60 free and ticketed acts involving more than 130 artists and special guests across 18 days and nights of the Adelaide Festival, the Riverbank Palais will light up the Torrens with a full dance card of live bands, DJs, theatre shows, lunchtime forums and special events from breakfast until late night, complemented by food, wine and roving entertainment in the surrounding Parc Palais in Elder Park, curated by Gill Minervini (Dark MOFO Winter Feast, City of Sydney Events) and overseen by Adelaide chef Duncan Welgemoed (Africola, Lola’s Pergola).

Officially opening to the public on Thursday, March 2, the Riverbank Palais will commemorate its first night by harking back to the historic Adelaide venue that inspired it – the legendary Floating Palais de Danse of the 1920s – with a swinging concert of 1920s music by Andrew Nolte and his Orchestra.

Opening night festivities will spread onto the Adelaide Riverbank in Parc Palais, with live music from a range of local bands and DJs in the rotunda and the mirror-maze House of Mirrors. 

Previously part of the 2017 Sydney Festival and Hobart’s 2016 Dark Mofo, House of Mirrors is an interactive art installation for all ages. Created by Melbourne artists Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney from 40 tonnes of steel and 15 tonnes of mirrored glass, the walk-in maze features oblique corridors of full-length mirrors, arranged at varying angles to produce multiple reflections and kaleidoscopic-like chambers in a labyrinth of intrigue.

Parc Palais will also offer food cooked by one of Adelaide’s favourite chefs, Brad Sappenbergh of Comida at Adelaide’s Central Market. Enjoy a snack, dinner before a show, supper or just hang out and enjoy the daily specials proudly showing off South Australia’s best produce, with beer and wine by SA beverage partners including Coopers and Penfolds. There’ll be Comida’s Paella, a flaming fire pit with ethically sourced free range pigs and lamb on giant spits, and delicious locally sourced ingredients from whiting and chips, oysters and prawn cocktails to vegetarian offerings cooked over the flames before your eyes.

A packed concert program at the Palais kicks off with the Festival’s free opening weekend concert by music legend Neil Finn on Sunday, March 5.

You can then rock your nights away on board the Riverbank Palais seven nights a week with concerts by Hot 8 Brass Band from New Orleans, with their mix of marching band jazz, funk, RnB and hip-hop, forerunner of the “chillwave” movement US artist Toro Y Moi, and Mexican musical gunslingers Mexrrissey.

Also on the music program are Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes and Melbourne soul groovers The Bamboos, Colombian nine-piece salsa band La Mambanegra (The Black Mamba), Sydney Argentinian tango outfit Tángalo and indie folksters All Our Exes Live in Texas, local electronica band Electric Fields and Urtekk, and a late night program of local and international DJs including Total Eclipse, Nickodemus, Frank Booker and Adelaide’s Late Nite Tuff Guy.

Theatre will also take centre stage on The Riverbank Palais program with two shows - The Duke, a funny, poignant and playful show from writer/performer Shôn Dale-Jones, with half proceeds going to Save the Children’s Child Refugee Crisis, and Who Am I?, former Castanet Club member and Sale of the Century champion Russell Cheek’s account of his attempt to scale the summit of Australian quiz shows.

Join journalist and commentator Annabel Crabb in The F Word, a series of early evening conversations with prominent women from across the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week. Guests include award-winning author Kate Grenville, acclaimed filmmaker Lynette Wallworth, Australian chef Christine Manfield and columnist and self-confessed “loud woman” Lindy West for tête-à-têtes about those other F words – female, feminist, fun, food and festival.

And with a range of day time events and activities, the fun isn’t jrestricted to when the sun goes down.

Begin your day on board the Riverbank Palais with Breakfast with Papers (7am to 9.30am daily excluding March 2, 5 and 6), where you can enjoy coffee and light breakfast from CIBO Espresso and copies of The Advertiser, along with discussions on current affairs and Festival news with Festival artists and some of South Australia’s top journalists.

Each Breakfast with Papers event will feature a curated discussion of the news of the day and the issues that matter with a rotating line-up of journalists and columnists from The Advertiser, Sunday Mail and Messenger newspapers alongside Festival artists and special guests, and chaired by Sydney Writers’ Festival events host Tom Wright for “news with a view”.

Weekday lunchtimes will see a series of free Festival Forums, hosted by David Marr. The author and journalist will chat with a range of Festival artists, performers, directors and influencers for a peek behind the curtain of the 2017 Adelaide Festival line-up.

There will also be six weekend Riverbank Palais Long Lunches, each helmed by a different Australian chef: Cheong Liew (Neddy’s, The Grange) and Christine Manfield (Paramount, East@West, Universal), Cath Kerry (Petaluma, Art Gallery Restaurant at the Art Gallery of SA), Mark Best (Marque, Pei Modern), Michael Ryan (Range, Provenance) and Karl Firla (est. Restaurant, Oscillate Wildly). 

The Riverbank Palais and Parc Palais are made possible through the support of the Adelaide Riverbank Authority, corporate partners including SA Power Networks and Lucesco Lighting, and generous donations by Palais Grandees Neil Balnaves AO, Geoffrey Rush AC, and Pamela and Peter McKee, as well as $300,000 of State Government funding.

Minister for the Arts, Jack Snelling said: "I'm pleased that through the State Government's support of the Palais' construction we have not only been able to help create over 40 additional jobs involved in construction and development of the venue, but we have also supported the Festival in programming over 50 local artists who will perform at the Adelaide Riverbank over the duration of this year's event.”

Adelaide Festival Artistic Directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy are thrilled to unveil the debut program for their new venue, set to be the jewel in the Festival’s crown for the next three years.

“We have such pleasure in delivering to you the heart and hub of our festival, our stately pleasure dome, the floating Riverbank Palais,” Mr Armfield said.

“We are delighted our vision has received such generous support from the SA Government and all our partners and benefactors,” Ms Healy said.

“Whether you're hungry or thirsty, in need of a thrill or a thought or a moment's respite, on the Palais or in the grounds of the Parc Palais that surrounds it, there's a place for you from dawn through dusk, to the small bewitching hours of the night. Come and join us. And come again. And again!”

Adelaide Festival Chair Judy Potter said: “With continued support from the SA Government we are four weeks out from opening the first of three festivals by Co-Artistic Directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy. With over 40 per cent of our audiences for Saul alone coming from interstate the return to our state from its investment will be enormous. The Adelaide Festival is the pre eminent arts festival in Australia and we can't wait to showcase this incredible creation - produced right here in SA.”

The Riverbank Palais and Parc Palais are open from March 2 to 19, 2017. Entry to Parc Palais is free. Entry to the Riverbank Palais is both free and ticketed according to programming; check the guide for details. Tickets to all Adelaide Festival shows, including the Riverbank Palais program, are on sale now through BASS on 131 246 or via www.adelaidefestival.com.au. 

*Tom Wright appears at Breakfast with Papers courtesy of Belvoir St Theatre.

Images (from top): House of Mirrors, Kurt Vile and The F Word with Annabel Crabb.