THE SLOW WAY

ERSKINEVILLE BECOMES THE FOCUS OF THE ARTS SCENE LATE FEBRUARY/EARLY MARCH WITH TINY STADIUMS, WHICH TAKES A SLOWER APPROACH TO FESTIVALS. ORGANISER ASHLEY DYER EXPLAINS WHAT THIS MEANS TO LAUREN DILLON.

“Compared to normal festivals where there’s sort of this huge celebration and in your face entertainment, this has more of a gentle pace,” says Ashley Dyer, one of the many passionate arts workers behind Tiny Stadiums. “The works sort of come out of the space and are unobtrusive – some people won’t even notice some of them happening – but if you do notice it it’s like a nice surprise and it sort of woos people subtly.”
If the Tiny Stadiums festival is quaint and laid-back, Dyer is anything but. His enthusiasm and belief in the festival is eye-bulgingly tangible and once you’ve pushed your retinas back into place it’s easy to see why.
In its second outing as a sizable event the Tiny Stadiums festival in Erskineville offers up a plethora of Live Art by a mix of Sydney and Melbourne based artists. A concept that came into vogue in the UK around ten years ago, Live Art is basically an umbrella heading that’s used by performance artists who may not want to be associated with extreme body art or other possibly vulgar self-expressions.
“Last year a lot of people didn’t know it was going on and they sort of stumbled across one work and before they knew it they were participating in six or seven works over about three hours, and that was pure coincidence and I like that gentleness about it” says Dyer. “And Live Art is participatory as well. It has this nice notion of intimacy and exchange and is unpretentious, it sort of sits between high art and normal life.”
As part of the City of Sydney’s campaign to highlight interesting ‘villages’ within the city they threw money at PACT theatre to help the facilitation of the Tiny Stadiums festival and Dyer (who is part of Quarterbred artist run initiative) couldn’t agree more that Erskineville is the perfect home for this event. “Erskineville is really amazing because it has wide footpaths and a real community vibe and it’s in between Newtown, which is a bit flashy, and Alexandria and Mascot, which are sort of cultural wastelands. Erskineville’s an in-between place with a family feel and there’s a level of warmth to it.
“The most exciting thing about working on the festival is that the work is sort of one unit even though they’re individual pieces, so it’s like sharing a theatre performance where you’ve got a series of things happening in the one place and figuring out how would an audience navigate this space? If we put them here will it do the work justice but also be good for audiences?” muses the logistics whizz. “It’s really that geography of like where do you put a new painting in your house? Sometimes it’s good to hang it on the toilet door because everyone will look at it there. So there are little nooks that might have some surprises that benefit the other work.”
The feedback from last year’s festival is a huge inspiration for Dyer and cements his belief that this is a niche event with real potential.
“I think inclusive is a good word for what the festival was last year and what we hope it will be this year,” states Dyer. “I do think that it enriches people’s lives, in the way that the Big Day Out is a useful experience as well. But sometimes a slower pace means you can appreciate things more and it means that you’re forced to slow down with it. If someone comes to Tiny Stadiums and they’re in a hurry they probably won’t get much out of it, so the type of person who stumbles upon it and lets themselves be absorbed in it benefit because they’ll be forced to slow down – which I think is a good thing in Sydney.”
WHAT: Tiny Stadiums
WHERE & WHEN: Various Erskineville locales Monday 22 February to Sunday 7 March. Head to pact.net.au for more details