Platform Papers > Issue 04: The Myth of the Mainstream

The Myth of the Mainstream: Politics and the Performing Arts in Australia today

by Robyn Archer

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Paperback. $12.95 rrp. Publication April 2005

ISBN 0 9757301-0-X

In a passionate personal/political statement, Australia’s most celebrated festival director and cabaret artist accuses Australia and its political leaders of selling out its arts to populism. ‘A prejudice against the intellectual, a preference for pure entertainment, the adherence to ‘in or out’, ‘black or white’—these are some of the consequences of falling for the myth of the mainstream.’

Archer urges her readers to be curious, to question and debate. ‘If the myth goes unchallenged, the spirit of art will continue to be marginalised. Those who believe we can afford that loss in the morass of mistakes and short-term thinking that make life on this earth increasingly pleasurable for the few and tortured for the many, those people need the power of art far more than they know.’

Robyn Archer, AO, is one of Australia’s best-loved performers, a playwright, songwriter and columnist. She has been director of nine Australian arts festivals and is now artistic director of Britain’s Liverpool European Capital of Culture year of celebrations in 2008.

This issue also includes responses to Julian Meyrick.

Platform Papers invites considered responses to Robyn Archer's argument for publication in the July edition.