Embrace Festival is a brand new multi-platform disability arts festival developed by cabaret producer Diana Divine as part of their Emerging Creative Producer residency with Carclew’s Sharehouse program.
Taking place from 23-26 September across five different venues in Adelaide, Embrace is all about encouraging and promoting the works of disabled artists.
Now is your chance to join the Embrace movement at a grass-roots level and witness the overflowing amount of talent South Australian disabled artists have to offer. There are some great performances and events to experience and choose from.
Program Dates
23-26 September with each work promoted through the festival program and supported by Carclew.
Locations
Accessible venues across Adelaide include: Carclew, Sparkke at the Whitmore, Nexus Arts, Restless Dance Theatre and The Mill.
Events
Embrace GALA
The night will feature a variety of live music, independent cabaret a short film screening and a silent auction of visual art. You’ll leave feeling enlivened and with a new appreciation for what’s possible.
Where: Nexus Arts, Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000
When: 6-9pm Saturday 24 September
Cost: $50
Embrace Picnic – Cancelled
Embrace Picnic is a FREE event with performances by artists from Tutti Arts, Access2Arts and True Ability.
Enjoy a day in the sun, celebrating South Australian disabled artists featuring roving performances and workshops.
You’ll also get a chance to mingle with the artists of Embrace Festival and feel more connected to the Disablity Arts community.
Where: Carclew, Kaurna Country, 11 Jeffcott Street, North Adelaide SA 5006
When: Cancelled
Cost: FREE (gold coin donation on the gate)
Endo Days by Libby Trainor Parker
Endometriosis is no laughing matter… but we’ll give it a (gentle) nudge. Bigger, bolder and more bloated than ever, Libby Trainor Parker is coming to Embrace Festival with a fresh diagnosis of uterus-related fun. Join the award-winning singing support group as they poke fun at pain and being fully sick.
After a lifetime of misdiagnoses and pain, Libby dedicates her life to empowering, informing and entertaining endo friendos on how to be chronic and iconic. Pop on your Good Pyjamas and enjoy an evening of laughing till it hurts in all the right places.
Endo Days is rated M15+ and is not suitable for children
Date: Friday 23 September 2022
Time: 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Venue: Prompt Creative Centre. Shop 8, 205 Pirie Street, Adelaide South Australia 5000
Benched by Jamila Main
Presented by Pillow Fight in Embrace Festival
Created and performed by Jamila Main, Benched (**** Time Out Sydney) is an intimate communion as athleticism and disability take centre stage. Deeply nostalgic and served with a Tupperware of orange slices, Benched invites you share in authentic, gentle, joyful storytelling. Click, clap, laugh, gasp – this is theatre that dismantles ableism and the fourth wall.
Five guests enter the space one by one. It is up to them to choose a soccer ball, volleyball, goggles, shoe, or frisbee and take a seat on the bench. A story is told. A never to be repeated moment is shared.
Benched asks spectators to reconsider their assumptions of sick and disabled people, and to confront their own body. Jamila joyfully presents theatre for disabled and chronically ill people, an opportunity to commiserate and celebrate disability together.
The stories told are autobiographical, originally written in Jamila’s boiling hot bathtub in January 2021 and have since been told on stages in Sydney, Melbourne, and across South Australia. Jamila’s practice is informed by their dual careers as a playwright and actor, creating live performance works that explore autonomy, trust, joy, and operate within queer, disabled, and intersectional feminist dramaturgies.’
Date: Saturday 24 September
Time: 6:30pm – 8:00pm
Venue: The Mill. 154 Angas Street, Adelaide SA 5000
Embodied Connection by Jane Ellis
Jane Ellis presents “Embodied Connection” a visual art exhibition presented upstairs at Sparkke at the Whitmore.
My art practice is a place of solace, reflection and inner listening. The ink line drawings reflect upon themes of emotion, thought and communication. I seek to invite audiences into my inner world. There are many preconceptions around disability, and I wish to invite people to move beyond their assumptions toward considering the inner movement of our minds and spirits, to the see the innate worth and poetry that is the human spirit.
Dates: 23 – 25 September
Times: 1:00pm – 7:00pm
Venue: Sparkke at the Whitmore. 317 Morphett Street, Adelaide SA 5000
All ticket proceeds and funds raised will go towards the Embrace Festival artists.
Embrace disability and embrace the arts.
Banner image: Emerging Creative Producer Diana Divine in their wheelchair MCing Backyard Picnic – Photo taken by Samuel Graves