How much burlesque is too much? MEGAN HAGGAN reveals that taxpayers are sponsoring the astonishing situation of two shows running bum-to-bum during the upcoming National Multicultural Festival.

THE Street Theatre’s inattention to upcoming competitor local shows and performances appears to be the cause of Canberra’s two biggest burlesque events for 2009 running against each other in February, during the National Multicultural Festival.
“A Stacked Deck”, advertised in local media as a “burlesque extravaganza” will be hosted by The Fringe Festival from Thursday, February 12 to Saturday, February 14.
The three-day event is to include performances in Civic Square, workshops, presentations and a burlesque night market.
Meanwhile, The Street Theatre’s “The Burlesque Hour”, will take place from February 10 to 14.
Street Theatre publicist Amanda Graydon, when asked about the planning of its program for the Multicultural Festival, seemed unaware that “A Stacked Deck” included burlesque performances.
“It’s just a workshop, isn’t it?” she said of the Fringe event, which has been billed as including a series of performances since it was announced in February this year.
She said that the decision to host a burlesque event was an attempt to offer something “different” to Canberrans.
“We wanted to mix up the genres in the program, offer different things which are chalk and cheese, have events which are as wide apart from each other as we can,” she said.
“We’re putting on a show that we’ve researched: We looked at the responses to this particular burlesque group overseas and in Sydney, and we’re staging it in Canberra.”
Nic Manikis, director of the Office of Multicultural, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, which administers the Multicultural Festival, said that when readying the 2009 Festival Program, he had chosen not to highlight the Street Theatre’s event.
“The Street Theatre has contributed to the Festival program, and they put up a selection of goodies,” he told “CityNews”.
“I had to say to them, ‘look, we already have the Fringe doing burlesque, could you please rethink’.”
He said the decision not to feature “The Burlesque Hour” within the program was “common sense” and “a case of pointing out to [The Street Theatre] that there was already a similar event in the program.”
Fringe Festival director Jorian Gardner expressed disappointment at the Street Theatre’s timing.
“The three-day ‘A Stacked Deck’ program was announced as a major program item at last year’s Fringe,” he said. “The whole arts community has known it was coming.”
The Fringe Festival, an ACT Government event, is funded mainly through the National Multicultural Festival. The Street Theatre is an ACT Government facility and also receives funding from the Territory’s Government.
When asked whether funding two similar events, run simultaneously by separate entities funded by the Government, was a judicious use of taxpayer’s money, Chief Minister and Minister for the Arts Jon Stanhope replied: “Similar and complementary events at other venues will add to audience choice this year.
“As the festival itself grows, there are increasing opportunities to co-ordinate programming with theatres across the city.”
Festival Fringe director Jorian Gardner is also the “CityNews” arts editor and had no part in the preparation of this story.