Performing arts

Australia’s performing arts are full of energy and originality. They reflect the nation’s broad cultural diversity, including its unique blend of Indigenous traditions, its colonial heritage and the rich mosaic of migrant influences.

Many Australian performers and companies have been acclaimed around the world, including dancers, actors and classical, jazz, rock and folk musicians. Companies such as Circus Oz and Legs on the Wall and Indigenous groups such as the Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theatre have been praised for the quality and originality of their productions.

Australian dance is renowned for its exuberance and vitality. Major companies such as the Australian Ballet and the Sydney Dance Company tour regularly with a diverse range of Australian and international work.

In music, Australian performers have achieved notable success in most genres and styles, from classical to rock, indie, jazz, folk and country. Opera Australia is among the most active opera companies in the world.

Australians are enthusiastic supporters of the arts. According to a survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, almost 14 million Australians (85 per cent of the adult population) attend an arts or cultural performance or event (including films) every year. In the performing arts, more than 25 per cent attend a popular music concert, 16 per cent an opera or musical, 17 per cent live theatre, 10 per cent a dance performance, and 9 per cent a classical music concert.

The Australian Government is committed to supporting the arts in Australia and, in particular, to ensuring that regional and remote communities can develop and sustain a vibrant cultural life. The government funds two programs to encourage tours in Australia by performing arts groups—Playing Australia and the Contemporary Music Touring Program.

Music

The first music heard in Australia was produced by Indigenous Australians. Songs were handed down as part of a rich oral tradition and were accompanied by wooden instruments such as the didgeridoo—a wind instrument made from a hollowed piece of tree branch.

Early non-Indigenous music had its roots in the folk genre. Bush and colonial music told of hardship and isolation in a new land. Australian folk music was influenced by successive waves of settlers from diverse backgrounds, starting with British, Irish and Scottish convicts. More than 6.5 million migrants from around 200 countries have settled in Australia since the Second World War, greatly enriching Australian music.

Virtuoso guitarist Slava Grigoryan, born in Kazakhstan, explores the Argentinean tango and Brazilian bossa nova. Violinists Richard Tognetti and Barbara Jane Gilby, pianists Roger Woodward, Geoffrey Tozer, Simon Tedeschi and Duncan Gifford, and conductor and violinist Nicholas Milton have been acclaimed on Australian and world stages. Conductor Simone Young has established a world-wide reputation as a leading conductor of her generation.

Each of Australia’s eight states and territories has a critically acclaimed symphony orchestra. Other orchestras such as the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra have attained world-class status, and there are also smaller ensembles such as the Australian String Quartet, Guitar Trek and the Stellar Quintet.

Each year, Musica Viva, which is partly funded by the Australian Government to promote music in Australia, presents 2500 concerts throughout the country, plus educational events for 400 000 students and their teachers. Musica Viva has managed the Australian Government’s cultural relations music touring program for the past 30 years.

Opera

Opera in Australia started in the early 19th century, when English operas were introduced to the colony. Larger-scale operas were staged from the 1850s as bigger theatres were built. Australia has produced several opera stars who have made their mark internationally, including Dame Nellie Melba, who achieved legendary status during a 38-year career that started in 1887, and Dame Joan Sutherland, one of the world’s greatest operatic sopranos, whose career spanned almost 40 years, from 1951 to 1990.

Today their legacy has been handed down to stars such as Deborah Riedel, Lisa Gasteen and Yvonne Kenny. Opera Australia, the national company, is one of the world’s busiest opera companies and has the spectacular Sydney Opera House as its home. Opera Australia was created in 1996 through the merger of the Australian Opera and the Victoria State Opera. Australia also has three state operas—Opera Queensland, the State Opera of South Australia and the West Australian Opera.

Rock and popular music

Australia is well known for its original rock and popular music, built on the foundations laid by artists such as Johnny O’Keefe, the Easybeats, AC/DC, INXS, Men at Work, Crowded House, Midnight Oil, John Farnham and Olivia Newton-John.

Newer artists such as Paul Kelly, the Waifs, Missy Higgins, Wolfmother, Ben Lee and Silverchair have also won acclaim in Australia and, increasingly, internationally. Yothu Yindi, which had hits in the 1990s, used Aboriginal music as the basis of its songs, bringing traditional music to broader audiences. Another group, The Wiggles, has won an enthusiastic following among children in many countries. The national government-funded youth radio station, Triple J, actively promotes new Australian talent.

Jazz

Jazz emerged in Australia during the 1920s and grew strongly in popularity, particularly after the Second World War. One of Australia’s earliest jazz musicians was Frank Coughlan, who played with the first jazz group to come to Australia in 1924. He later performed in England before returning to Sydney to play at the Sydney Trocadero Club when it opened in 1936.

Other leading Australian jazz musicians include Graeme Bell, who formed his first band in the late 1930s and toured Europe in the late 1940s to great acclaim. Many regard Bell as the father of Australian jazz. Don Burrows, who joined his first band in 1944 at the age of 16, made the first of many international tours in 1950 and is still active today. Bernie McGann, an innovative alto saxophonist, has been at the forefront of creative jazz in Australia for more than 40 years. James Morrison, who formed his first band at nine, started playing professionally in nightclubs from the age of 13 and played in the Monterey Jazz Festival in the United States at the age of 16.

The first Australian Jazz Convention was held in Melbourne in 1946 and has been held annually ever since.

Folk and country music

Some of Australia’s earliest music consisted of the folk songs of ordinary people—music dealing with everyday experiences, often against a background of hardship in a distant country. Common themes included battles against the elements (floods and drought), loneliness and isolation, droving, shearing and bushrangers (outlaws). Many of the songs were influenced by successive waves of convicts and free settlers, mainly British, Irish, Scottish and Welsh in the early years.

Country music, which emerged from folk traditions, grew in popularity in Australia in the early 20th century, becoming an established feature of rural Australian life by the 1930s. Initially, the most popular country stars were Americans but, by the late 1930s, Australian performers started to develop their own style of country music, which grew in popularity in the 1940s and 1950s. Although born in New Zealand, Tex Morton (1916–83) has been described as the father of Australian country music. Other significant early figures were Buddy Williams and Smoky Dawson. Slim Dusty (1927–2003) was one of Australia’s most prolific and popular country singers, writing more than 1000 songs. In 1957, he recorded a song that became a major Australian and international hit, The Pub with No Beer.

By the 1990s, country music in Australia had achieved mainstream popularity. Newer Australian country stars include Lee Kernaghan, Gina Jeffreys, James Blundell, Kasey Chambers, Beccy Cole and Troy Cassar-Daley. Several Australians have also achieved significant success overseas, including Keith Urban in the United States.

Dance

The first Australian dances were those of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Ballet and other forms of dance came to the colony with the arrival of European settlers and grew in popularity from the mid-19th century. Today Australian dance ranges from the more traditional works of companies such as the Australian Ballet to the ‘distinct yet unpredictable, genre-defying’ performances of Chunky Move. Other successful and innovative Australian dance groups include the Sydney Dance Company, Australian Dance Theatre and Dance North. Indigenous groups such as Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theatre adapt and present Indigenous dance to wide audiences.

Theatre

Western theatre traditions came to Australia with the European settlers in the late 18th century. The first theatre was opened in the colony of New South Wales in the 1790s. Other major theatres were opened in Sydney and Adelaide in 1833.

Today each Australian state has a major theatre company as well as many smaller companies and professional and amateur theatre groups. Australian theatre grew in the 1950s and diversified further after the 1970s, with the establishment of new theatrical groups and venues as well as major multi-arts festivals in Perth (1953), Adelaide (1960) and subsequently other capital cities, which provided platforms for new and established works.

Notable Australian playwrights include David Williamson, Barry Oakley, Jack Hibberd, Hannie Rayson, Louis Nowra, Alex Buzo, Nick Enright, Peter Kenna, Jim McNeil, Oriel Gray, Betty Roland, Stephen Sewell and Alma de Groen. Leading theatre figures include John Bell, Richard Wherrett and Ken Horler. In 1990, John Bell established the much-acclaimed Bell Shakespeare Company. The 1990s saw a revival in Australian musical theatre with shows such as Bran Nue Dae and The Boy from Oz.

Comedy

Australia has a significant comedy tradition, dating back to early colonial days. Australia’s national sense of humour encompasses everything from satire to slapstick and is often characterised by irony and self-deprecation. From the mid-19th century, popular entertainment included burlesque, vaudeville, musical comedy and circuses.

By 1900, there was a thriving circuit of vaudeville and revue shows. One of Australia’s most successful vaudeville stars and comedians was Roy Rene ‘Mo’, who was born in 1892 as Harry van der Sluice. ‘Mo’ appeared on the Tivoli theatre circuit for more than 30 years and also did radio work from 1946.

Leading Australian comedians include Barry Humphries, with his array of characters, including housewife Dame Edna Everage and cultural attaché Les Patterson; Paul Hogan, who starred on Australian television in the 1970s and in the Crocodile Dundee films; and satirists Rod Quantock and Max Gillies. Stand-up comedy is also flourishing. Top Australian and international comedians are showcased annually at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which was launched in 1987, runs for just over three weeks and has a total attendance of more than 400 000 people. Actor Eric Bana began his career as a stand-up comedian, and the popular television comedy Kath and Kim has been syndicated overseas.

Government support

During 2006–07, the Australian Government provided $5.4 million to support 39 performing arts tours through the Playing Australia Program and $171 668 to support 19 tours through the Contemporary Music Touring Program.

The government also provides funding to national performing arts organisations to train Australians for performance roles and in areas such as direction and costume design. In 2006–07, the government provided total funding of $14.4 million to seven organisations: the Australian Ballet School, the Australian National Academy of Music, the Australian Youth Orchestra, the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association, the National Institute of Circus Arts, and the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

The Australia International Cultural Council (AICC), Australia’s key cultural diplomacy body and an initiative of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has supported international touring by Australian artists for a number of years. With funding directed principally through its focus country programs, the AICC has assisted touring by practitioners in fields such as theatre, dance, film, new media, music, visual arts, literature, cultural heritage, design and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts. The AICC’s priority regions of interest are Asia, the South Pacific, the Middle East and Western Europe/North America.

The Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Government’s arts funding body, has supported artists and arts organisations since 1968. In 2006–07, the Australia Council provided more than $156 million in total funding through 1799 grants, projects and initiatives. The council provides support in the areas of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts, dance, inter-arts, literature, major performing arts, music theatre and visual arts.

Note: Unless otherwise stated, all dollar amounts are in Australian dollars.

Further information

This fact sheet is also available to download ( PDF)

last updated March 2008