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Are-able Foundation Supports Port Fairy Winter Weekends Festival

The Port Fairy Winter Weekends Festival is underway with ‘four weekends of warm-rushing, deep-inhaling, smile-inducing events.’ 

 The festival was a successfully awarded a 2021 Are-able Foundation Community Grant with funding going towards supporting the ‘Winter Weekends Trilogy’; Alex Rees Art Exhibition, a performance by Tuba Sue and Cellular Forms by the Find Your Voice Collective.  

These events all provide a voice and platform for artists and creatives who experience disability.  

 “The funding of the ‘Winter Weekends Trilogy’ provides the necessary support for the Winter Weekends Festival to showcase emerging and established, local and city-based disability artists within our program. The festival is committed to embrace diversity through its program delivery,” said Amy Armstrong, Port Fairy Winter Weekends Festival Coordinator.  

 

On Saturday June 26th Tuba Sue will be performing “Won’t She Get Lonely? An Audible History of the Tuba.” This will be a remarkable performanceby Susan Bradley who with only one lung ‘bravely confronts the loneliness of a solo tuba player in an exploration of music for unaccompanied tuba, including Bach, Barton Cummings, Malcolm Arnold, Lachlan Davidson, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Lennon-McCartney, Don Stratton, Arthur Sullivan, and even Richard the Lionheart.’ 

Local Warrnambool artist Alex Rees will be hosting his Exhibition Opening at the Belfast in Port Fairy on Friday 25th June. This exhibition will showcase the accomplished artist’s works which have been especially created for this winter collection. Alex has Down Syndrome and is part of the Factory Arts Collective in Warrnambool. This event is free to attend, and the community are invited to come along and enjoy his paintings which are ‘uplifting and full of joy, representative of his love of mixing colour’. 

The Find Your Voice Collective’s (FYVC) new show ‘Cellular Forms’ will be performed on Sunday 25th July and is free to attend. This show is ‘an emotive, thought-provoking physical theatre experience, exploring COVID and the impacts of the pandemic on the individual and collective. Written and arranged by FYVC individuals who identify with a lived experience of disability.’ 

Are-able CEO Tom Scarborough was pleased the are-able Foundation was able to support the Port Fairy Winter Weekends Festival.  

“It is great to see the festival supporting a diverse range of artists and providing a platform for them to showcase their work. Are-able encourages activities that promote inclusiveness within the community, and we are proud to help support such a great initiative like the Port Fairy Winter Festival” he said.  

The 2021 Are-able Foundation Community Grants has supported 17 organisations to run events, programs, or purchase equipment to assist those living with a disability.  

If you’d like to purchase or book tickets to any of the shows or to learn more about the festival please visit www.portfairywinterweekends.com.au .