The Asian Boom in Australian Performing Arts

In an article for theApro, Choi Bo-mi looks at the boom in Asian performing arts in Australia's arts scene. Choi was an intern on a Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS) Connection programme at the Adelaide Festival Centre and Melbourne Arts Centre for 9 months in 2013/14.

The article focuses on performing arts festivals and markets in and around Adelaide and Melbourne.

It is a nation that is seasonally opposite to us, but time-zonally close; culturally and linguistically Western and foreign, but geographically and economically Asian and familiar. This simultaneously distant and near country—the most recent addition to Korea’s list of Free Trade Agreement partners—is Australia. While it has only become a significant economic and political partner in the last few years, on the arts and culture front, Australia has long since established as close a relationship with Korea as it has with any of its Asian neighbors.

The 2012–2013 Korea-Australia Connection Initiative: Performing Arts Internship, organized by KAMS and the Australia Council for the Arts, is a program that illustrates the depth of the two countries’ relationship. The Adelaide Festival Centre and the Melbourne Arts Centre, where the internship program has been taking place for a total of nine months, are excellent examples of the leadership and resourcefulness in Australia’s exchange of culture and the arts with Asian countries.

[... article continues] Read full article on theApro

Choi Bo-mi has studied Culture & Creative Industries at King’s College London, and has since worked as a Promotions Manager at the Hi Seoul Festival, and at the Korean Cultural & Arts Centers Association as the Manager for the Jeju Haevichi Arts Festival. Until February, she had been interning at the Adelaide Festival Centre and Melbourne Arts Centre for a period of nine months.