Originally taken from the Sydney Morning Herald... we here at Walsh Bay are proud to share it!
Walsh Bay provides an opportunity for the city to find its mojo again...
Does anyone remember the Trade Union Club? Sydney in the 1980s was a city characterised as a place of live music. Every pub seemed to have gigs and everyone was trying to make music. Not only music, but comedy and poetry and stuff at the weirdest edges of performance.
The Sydney Front? It must epitomise real adventure and risk-taking and, more to our point, that sense of an organic, vibrant art-making precinct that erupted around Surry Hills and Oxford Street and down into Redfern and Newtown. All places where people lived and worked and got on with their lives.
For young adventurers from the suburbs, ''town'' was the centre. It was the magnetic attractor. It was freedom and the chance to invent and create and witness other creations. The suburbs could feel flat and dry and filled with sinister silence underneath the crickets and sprinklers. But the city was loud, crowded and dangerous.
What happened? Pubs and live music have been killed by poker machines, for a start. And gentrification of many of those areas made it less possible for the demographic range and the vitality of the shops to remain as sparky, quirky and forgiving.
At times Sydney can feel distant, uninterested, bored. At times you can feel the post-Olympic quandary. This is understandable and not a permanent thing. In the theatre, when you finish doing a show you often get sick and a bit blue. It's an inherent part of making and doing and showing and finally letting go of the thing that had you in its grasp.
Could it be that Sydney still has a little of those post-show blues and it is time to get on to the next adventure?
The burgeoning arts hub of Walsh Bay is perfectly placed to be the heart of a cultural ribbon stretching from Barangaroo to the Sydney Opera House. We have an opportunity to regroup and highlight some of Sydney's vitality while developing the world's first green arts precinct.
All the great cultural precincts have the feeling of being lived in. Eclectic boutiques, markets, some kind of food fair alongside bars and restaurants might all add to that feeling along Hickson Road. A freeing up of licensing would be needed to bring nooks and crannies alive with possibility, fuelled by a bit of alcohol - served responsibly, of course.
More contentious might be some specific zoning. Assisted rent for artist studio spaces? Loosening of planning constraints to avoid or lessen the costs when adapting new spaces or, even better, sensible shortcuts through occupational health and safety requirements?
More contentious still: when talk turns to providing a community payback for Barangaroo, how about making that investment available to be managed by the Walsh Bay companies with a mandate to provide cheap - or preferably free - cultural events. This would bring the companies together, give a real push for cross-artform development and opportunities to reach broader audiences.
To state the obvious: transport, transport, transport.
What else might help foster a creative and vibrant Sydney? Event recognition. Last year at Sydney Theatre Company we hosted Steppenwolf's multiple Tony award-winning August: Osage County. Later on the same stage, one of the finest casts assembled in Australia (John Bell, Richard Roxburgh, Jackie Weaver, Hugo Weaving et al) came together for Uncle Vanya. These would be considered big cultural events in any city.
When Richard Tognetti plays overseas it is an acknowledged cultural highlight. It should be no less so in his home town. When the Sydney Symphony is conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, we see another world-class cultural event on our doorstep. Bangarra Dance Theatre plays around the globe to great acclaim and its home is here in Walsh Bay. Likewise, the Sydney Dance Company receives standing ovations wherever it goes.
Pride is a great stimulus to ambition, aspiration and engagement. Not arrogance, not smugness, but there is so much here for Sydney to be proud of and yet, as events go, many seem to pass almost without notice. This would not happen in many other great cities. It's all very well to hide your light under a bushel, but it's a dreadful waste of energy, and what do you have when it is gone? Not even nostalgia.
Remember the Trade Union Club . . .
This is an extract from a talk given by Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton for the City of Sydney council last night.
