History - It Happened Here First
There are so many memorable and extraordinary things that have happened for the first time in Adelaide. Here are just some:
- For the first time in the world, electronic images, music and dance were combined in the performance Sound and Image, created by Stan Ostoja-Kotkowski at the Adelaide Festival in 1966.
- Sir Robert Helpmann created the world famous ballet Don Quixote, starring Rudolf Nureyev (later made into one of the first dance films in colour) for the 1970 Adelaide Festival. This Festival also featured the Royal Thai Ballet and the Balinese Dance Company in performances that significantly altered Australian perceptions of culture.
- The first WOMAD was produced by the Adelaide Festival in 1992 - world music has since become a strong part of Australian culture and WOMAD a hugely successful stand alone event.
- Adelaide Writers' Week, first produced in 1960, became the model for subsequent literary festivals around the world and its prestige and popularity among writers, readers and publishers has never been surpassed.
- The Telstra Adelaide Festival 2000 produced no less than 37 world premiere works, many of them international collaborations.
- Peter Brook's legendary production of The Mahabharata, performed during the course of an entire night in an Adelaide stone quarry for the 1988 Festival set the benchmark for outdoor epic productions.
- The invention and reinvention of Festival club venues is legendary - including the famous 1996 Red Square, the 1998 Squeezebox, Universal Playground in 2004 and Persian Garden in 2006.
