COMING TO A CLOSE: NICOLE BEYER
A few short thank yous from the organiser of the Australian Theatre Forum, Nicole Beyer (Of the Theatre Network Victoria) – including speakers, sponsors, bloggers, caterers… and the HUGE amount of resource that saw hundreds of Australian Theatre practitioners in the same room – and many also online and interacting with blogs and tweets (near and far.)

POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE
Presenters: Jason de Santis, Nakkiah Lui, Eva Mullaley, Jason Tamiru, Alexis West, Rachael Maza

A sturdy stream of visions and hopes – ones for a united and loving and collaborative Australian theatre sector.

SUPPER CLUB WRAP UP HOSTED BY NEXT WAVE
Delegates articulate and distil the last three days, and make offers for the future, spurred on by a final set of provocateurs. Each table’s conversations will be transcribed and will form the basis of ATF 2013’s plans, actions and outcomes…

Provocateurs: David Milroy, Colin Kinchela, Lenore Manderson, David Sefton, Elizabeth Walsh

My favourite provocation from David Milroy was:

“Who are our founding mothers and fathers of our creative practice?”
And of course I can not go past the three women I look to:
Katharine Brisbane, Wendy Blacklock and Robyn Archer

And this is what we looked like:

And…

And…

And my final tweet from the car somewhere between Canberra and Sydney reflects a conversation in the car with Ms Howard:

Augusta Supple ‏@AugustaSupple 31 May
GUS: I feel like I left without saying goodbye
JANE: Um you did.
GUS: I’m no good at this.
#goodbye #atf2013

And I guess I’m not good at goodbyes because there is always a sense of “To Be continued” and “I’ll See you soon” and “Until next time” that floats silently on my tongue…

Because there is a sense that I have about this sector, industry, community … whatever you want to call it: I’m dedicated to it – to the long road to the long term… and this is another moment where my thinking got fatter or braver or smaller or something. I’ll tell you when I figure it out.