Village News

We are stoked to be heading to the Performing Arts Exchange (PAX) in Sydney in August. The Village will be hosting an Encounter Session, focused on our unique model of co-creating dynamic arts festivals with communities. If you're attending PAX, we'd love to have you as part of the discussion.Or if you are in a community (or know of one) that would benefit from The Village coming to visit, please register.If you can't make it PAX, but are interested in The Village working with a particular community, feel free to get in touch anytime.

What say you about creating cultural democracy? Read on from this UK case study.

Friends, we've been thinking... and appreciating the work of our independent artists. Here's an article for thought... an oldie but a goodie. What do you reckon?
https://www.google.c...peter-bazalgette

Each year, The Village Festival presents an arts village at the Falls Music & Arts Festival, one of Australia's finest, longest running, boutique music events. The Marion Bay location in Tasmania is stunning, and the arts ranges from circus to kooky installations, and from interactive theatre to superb music.Enter through the gates of The Village and discover a myriad creative expressions. You can even get involved yourself. Relax by day, party by night!

Each year, The Village Festival presents an arts village at the Falls Music & Arts Festival, one of Australia's finest, longest running, boutique music events.The Village is an oasis, described by The Age as "a haven of weird and wonderful creativity".The Village will feature hundreds of performers: live theatre, comedy, music and all the strange things that could only really happen at The Village. Relax by day, party by night!

The Village is working with Benalla Rural City Council to re-invent one of the icons of the Benalla Festival: join us on the foreshore by the lake to experience a multi-faceted and fun community festival. The creative folk of Benalla will be on display with some special guests.Don't miss The Famous Village Dog Show, So You Think You Can Interpretive Dance and The World Kitchen. Finishes with a fireworks spectacular on the lake.

The imaginary love child of Nigella and the Swedish chef, The Village Festival's World Kitchen is a food performance venue that hosts food demonstrations from the serious to the spurious, featuring chefs from local restaurants, home cooks and special performances. It's a unique way to share food, culture and performance.On this weekend, you can see St. Kilda's finest chefs, alongside home cooks, and cooking demonstrations from the serious to the spurious.

The World Kitchen is a live food performance stage. Described as the imaginary love child of Nigella Lawson and The Swedish Chef, The World Kitchen is a unique way to bring food and performance together.Friday 24 November: 4pm - 10pm
Saturday 25 November: 1pm - 10pmThe World Kitchen will feature some of Canberra's most prominent restaurateurs alongside home cooks. Each will share their food story in a fun way.The audience is encouraged to get involved.Presented with Smiths Alternative, and with thanks to Events ACT and supported by the Grants in the City program financed by In The City Canberra representing commercial property owners in the district of City and Braddon

The Village Festival is part carnival, part village fair and part arts festival. Enter through the impressive façade and discover an alternative utopian world chock-full of of music, theatre, visual art, installations, puppetry, story-telling, cooking, workshops and a whole lot more. This year The Village has a special focus on works by young, emerging and experimental artists. Village Artistic Director Suzanne Kalk is leading Stories of Diversity, a theatrical collaboration between students from Fitzroy High School and the Alice Miller School in Macedon. The festival will also feature a premiere preview performance of The Garden of Sorrows: Snuff Puppets’ giant puppet adaptation of the illustrated book of fables by John Hughes and Marco Luccio in which iconic Australian animals take on human qualities.The Main Stage music program will feature the best of Melbourne’s emerging and established musos including Masco Sound System,
The Number Nineteens, Copperhead Brass Band, Hello Tut Tut,
Low Down Big Band, All Day Fritz and Chaos Magnet.The World Kitchen is the imaginary love-child of Nigella and the Swedish chef. This fun, performative food stage invites chefs and home cooks from around the world (and around the corner) to share their stories about food, all whilst cooking scrumptious dishes to taste.As always, The Village encourages active participation. There will be myriad opportunities to get creative, including crafty workshops and stalwarts like So You Think You Can Interpretive Dance and 10 Minute Dance Parties.Friday 27 October: 6pm-12midnight
Saturday 28 October: 12midday-12midnight
Sunday 29 October: 12midday-8pmNo advance bookings. Entry by donation.

Hello Village Winter Festival friends,
Hereby letting you all know that we won't be doing a Castlemaine Winter Festival this year. We are taking a break but we will be back refreshed and with excitement next year winter 2018.
This year we won't be sitting still though we are conducting a creative development with some visual artists here in Castlemaine working towards a spectacular event we will perform at next years Winter Festival. The Village is also very busy this year travelling to many other communities in Australia. We will travel to NT, Tennant Creek in July, Canberra in Sept, St Kilda in October (The Village world Kitchen) and to the Edinburgh Gardens in N Fitzroy dates for the EG festival are Oct 27th till 29th. After this we will travel to Benalla for a Village Festival on the 11th of Nov. And towards the end of this busy year we will travel to Lorne and Marion Bay Tasmania to perform once again at The Falls Festivals.We'll keep you posted on this site about our special creative development this year with pictures and video's.
We hope to see you all back next year Winter solstice for The Village Winter Festival 2018. Greetings, The Village team

Village Festival update 2017:Our team at The Village Festival is preparing for a very exciting and busy year.
At the moment we are designing and building our new mobile World kitchen to get ready for our travels. The world Kitchen will be traveling to Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, Canberra, St Kilda, N Fitzroy, Benalla and maybe to Marion Bay Tasmania. How adventurous.We are also preparing for a surprise Winter event in the bushland of Castlemaine on sat the 10th of June. This is a one night event we are cooking up a visual feast with some of the local artists in Castlemaine. More info on this coming very soon.After this Winter gig we are off to the warmth of Tennant Creek and will spend a few weeks working with the local artists and local community we will be working on story telling and dreamings . We will keep you updated on this as well.After visiting Tennant Creek we are hoping to visit Alice Springs where we will set up a mini Village in the middle of town. In September our World kitchen will travel to Canberra so if you are visiting the capital around that time keep an eye out and taste some delicious local food created by eccentric Canberrans in the World Kitchen in the CBD.Our annual Edinburgh Gardens Festival will take place from the 27th till the 29th of Oct. Lots of fantastic projects already brewing with a focus on young people and probably some big puppets...From there The Village will travel to Benalla The Village will help to create a fantastic final festival weekend with the community (Nov the 11th). We are very excited to get to know the local people and to collaborate on creating a spectacular event for their town.In December The Village will be preparing to once again bring our small and intimate arts festival to our big sister The Falls Festival. This will be the12th year that we are spending New Years at The Falls either in Lorne or Marion Bay. We love being there, we love our Falls friends who work every year very hard to make this massive festival a brilliant success .

Hey everyone, we're waiting for you at the Gasworks Arts Park doing our Midsumma Festival hub.You don't wanna miss it!!Take selfies with the giant inflatable #rainbow, wander around the park and enjoy the bar-and-lounge, Cuddle Puddle and a rnage of shows in the #pink #pavillion. Village Festival faves include "So You Think You Can Interpretive Dance", 10 Minute Dance Party Caravan, Penny Candy Sideshow and more. #midsumma #gasworksartspark #villagefestival #midsummafestival #pride #lgbtqiFree to enter and hang out. Tickets to shows from $10.
https://www.facebook...567942966738756/

Hey everyone, we're waiting for you at the Gasworks Arts Park doing our Midsumma Festival hub.You don't wanna miss it!!Take selfies with the giant inflatable #rainbow, wander around the park and enjoy the bar-and-lounge, Cuddle Puddle and a rnage of shows in the #pink #pavillion. Village Festival faves include "So You Think You Can Interpretive Dance", 10 Minute Dance Party Caravan, Penny Candy Sideshow and more. #midsumma #gasworksartspark #villagefestival #midsummafestival #pride #lgbtqiFree to enter and hang out. Tickets to shows from $10.
https://www.facebook...567942966738756/

Hey everyone, we're waiting for you at the Gasworks Arts Park doing our Midsumma Festival hub.You don't wanna miss it!!Take selfies with the giant inflatable #rainbow, wander around the park and enjoy the bar-and-lounge, Cuddle Puddle and a rnage of shows in the #pink #pavillion. Village Festival faves include "So You Think You Can Interpretive Dance", 10 Minute Dance Party Caravan, Penny Candy Sideshow and more. #midsumma #gasworksartspark #villagefestival #midsummafestival #pride #lgbtqiFree to enter and hang out. Tickets to shows from $10.
https://www.facebook...567942966738756/

Inspired by Todd Solondz’s Palindromes and Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation, Auto Bio Queen blurs the lines between autobiography and art, and brings to life the age old question from Mama Ru “If you can’t love yourself how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”Opening Night on 1 February will be Auslan interpreted. Please make your way to the front row where seats are reserved with a clear sightline.Natasha Jynel’s work as a creative director, writer and performer (under Beni Lola) can be seen in publications such as Archer Mag and SBS, music videos for Le1f and on stage in productions such as Threadbare which debuted at Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016.Gasworks Arts Park in partnership with The Village Festival will transform the park into a magical Midsumma Festival hub so linger longer to enjoy all the festivities. Take selfies with the giant inflatable rainbow, and wander around the park to enjoy the bar and lounge, Cuddle Puddle, 10 Minute Dance Party Caravan, Penny Candy Sideshow and more.Contains adult themes. Over 18s Only.Full ticket price $24 | Concession $20 | Groups (6+) $20https://www.facebook...379205515423043/

Just like the hit TV show, except anarchy and absolute hilarity. The host invites members of the audience to register, and as each contestant is called up onto stage, they are given a song: anything from Enya’s Sail Away to Kylie’s Locomotion. So You Think You Can Interpretive Dance channels extroverts for the amusement of everyone. Three judges go to town with witty commentary.Gasworks Arts Park in partnership with The Village Festival will transform the park into a magical Midsumma Festival hub, so you can linger longer to enjoy all the festivities.Take selfies with the giant inflatable #rainbow, and wander around the park to enjoy the bar-and-lounge, Cuddle Puddle, 10 Minute Dance Party Caravan, Penny Candy Sideshow and more. #midsumma #gasworksartspark #villagefestival #midsummafestival #pride #lgbtqiFree to enter and hang out. Tickets to shows from $10.https://www.facebook...694732140841610/