JAFA 2013
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Jane Austen Festival Australia was held from 18-21 April 2013 in Canberra and celebrated 200 years since the publication of her timeless masterpiece, Pride & Prejudice. For many, Pride and Prejudice is their first acquaintance with Jane Austen. For most, it remains their favourite among her novels.
2013 Participant Feedback:
Thank you so much Aylwen and John and the Festival work group. We have enjoyed a week in Canberra ... we went down specially to go to the Jane Austen F. and everything was S0 well organised and beautiful to see the fine costumes, and enjoy watching the dancing. (E, Glasshouse Mountains, QLD)
Thanks for another great festival! I had such a good time that I came home and was inspired to make a Jane Austen cake! (Kristy, Facebook)
Fantastic weather for the weekend (even if rather cold and windy), so glad the rain held off until late last night night/early this morning. Thanks everyone for a great weekend! (Jodie, Facebook)
I would like to thank the organisers and volunteers who made this amazing event happen this weekend. I had a fabulous time. My mum and my sisters will definitely be back again. (Cassandra, Facebook)
Aylwen, thank you and congratulations for this weekend. Although I couldn't stay past the Lanyon event (which was much enjoyed) it's wonderful to see JAFA go from strength to strength each year - clearly you've created something people have found enjoyable and worthwhile. Bonnets off to you and John and enthusiastic volunteers. Warm regards, Jacqui
Hi Aylwen, I have returned home today to work and the 21st century and wanted to thank you and your husband for the most wonderful weekend. I am from Brisbane and will definitely be making the journey back again next year, and hopefully bringing more friends with me. You, your husband and the people involved in the dance club were most gracious and we felt very comfortable and welcomed into your world ... See you next year. (Johanne, QLD)
Thursday 18 April 2013
Opening Night - 7.00pm-9.30pm 87 Schlich Street, Yarralumla, Canberra
Jane Austen Festival ticket holders are invited to an informal social potluck get-together at the festival director's private cottage in Yarralumla. Dinner and BYO contributions welcome. Bring along any last-minute sewing.
Friday 19 April 2013
Regency Dance School - with Dr John Gardiner-Garden
Sociable and fun workshops from 9.30am - 3.30pm learning regency dances with live music from Sally Taylor and Charlotte Fletcher. No experience or partner necessary but smooth, low-heeled shoes desirable. Period costume welcome. Cold drinks and biscuits provided.
9:15-10:30 The Country Dance—I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principle duties of both; and those men who do not chuse to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours (Northanger Abbey, 1817)
11:00-12:15 The Cotillion and Quadrille—Much obliged for the quadrilles, which I am grown to think pretty enough, though of course they are very inferior to the cotillions of my own day. (Jane Austen to Fanny Knight, 20 February, 1816).
1:30-2:45 The Reel—Do you not feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel? (Pride and Prejudice, 1813)
2:45-4:00 The Minuet—I can neither sing so well nor dance so gracefully as I once did—and I have entirely forgot the Minuet de la Cour (Love and Freindship, 1790)
Regency Sewing & Craft Workshops, limited attendance (Registrations open 4 March 2013 to ticket holders only)
FRIDAY 11.00-12:15 Regency Gowns from Saris Adrienne Unger
FRIDAY 1.30-4.00 Late Regency Bonnet Lynne Cook
FRIDAY 4.30-5.30 Dorset Buttons Aylwen Gardiner-Garden
Symposium on Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice
Austen experts from near and far will share their thoughts in a series of lively discussions, ranging from Shakespeare to social media, from music to marketing. We’ll find out why Pride and Prejudice is more than just a romance, and our overseas visitor, Tim Bullamore from Bath, UK, will attempt a defence of George Wickham. Come along and see if he can convince you.
Pride and Prejudice and Shakespeare
Dr Heather Neilson, Senior Lecturer, English Program, UNSW at ADFA
Sociable Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Social Media
Dr Nicola Parsons, University of Sydney
More than a romance
Laura Carroll, Lecturer, School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry, Latrobe University
In defence of Mr Wickham
Tim Bullamore, Editor, Jane Austen’s Regency World, Bath, United Kingdom
Music as a personal accomplishment in Pride and Prejudice
Dr Gillian Dooley, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Humanities, Flinders University
Pride and Prejudice and the Elvis Impersonator … the marketing of Jane Austen
Ms Janet Lee, University of the Sunshine Coast (USC)
The program will cover a range of topics related to the novel, including musical themes and film adaptations. Attendees will enjoy a most scrumptious afternoon tea of muffins, cakes and biscuits.
DINNER WITH DARCY, 7.30pm - 10.30pm
English Roast Dinner & Desserts
Various Entertainments: Theatre, Song, Fashion and Dance
Canberra Improv Theatre
Canaberra Academy of Dramatic Art (CADA)
Fashionistas Fashion Parade
Gabriel Bieniek
Alison Goodman
Artemis Productions
Earthly Delight Historic Dance Academy
Saturday 20 April 2013
Regency Dance School - with Dr John Gardiner-Garden
Sociable and fun workshops from 9.30am - 3.30pm learning regency dances with live music from Sally Taylor and Charlotte Fletcher. No experience or partner necessary but smooth, low-heeled shoes desirable.
Period costume welcome. Cold drinks and biscuits provided.
9:15-10:30 Essentials for capital dancing—What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy!—There is nothing like dancing after all.—I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies (Pride and Prejudice, 1813)
11:00-12:15 The Finishing dances—We dined at Goodnestone, and in the evening danced two country-dances and the Boulangeries. (Jane Austen to Cassandra, 5 September, 1796)
1:30-2:45 The Allemande and Waltz—Mrs. Weston, capital in her country- dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible waltz ; and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to Emma, had secured her hand, and led her up to the top (Emma, 1816)
2:45-4:00 More Cotillions and Quadrilles
Lawn Games
Archery
Croquet
Bat and Trap
Graces
Regency Sewing & Craft Workshops - Limited Attendance (Registrations open 4 March 2013 to ticket holders only)
SATURDAY 11.00-12.15 Trimming your Pineapple (four sided) Reticule Joanne van Raaphorst
SATURDAY 1.30-4.30 Making a Chemisette Kelly Lock
SATURDAY 4.30-5.30 Death Head Buttons Lynne Cook
Various Talks & Workshops
Alison Goodman - Write The Regency: a practical writing workshop (Workshop limited to 12 participants)
Join New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman for a one-hour hands-on writing workshop. You will learn the basics of good fiction writing, how to weave
in your Regency research, and Alison will lead you through a fun and easy exercise that will help you create a fabulous first paragraph for your own Regency story.
Alison Goodman is the author of EON and EONA, a New York Times Bestselling fantasy duology. She is also the author of the award winning Singing the Dogstar
Blues, and a wickedly dark crime novel, A New Kind of Death. Alison is currently working on the first book of a Regency supernatural adventure series, which is to be published early 2014 by Penguin USA and HarperCollins Australia. Visit Alison’s website at: www.alisongoodman.com.au
Lindie Ward - Three Muslins – up close and personal
You think of muslin when there’s talk of Jane Austen. Such a feminine and comfortable textile, perfectly suited to our climate in Australia. On the Australian Dress Register we have 3 beautiful muslin gowns from New South Wales collections. They date from 1800-1813 - a touch early but let’s say they are from Austen’s ‘informative period’. Let’s look inside these three muslins and show you how the dress register can reveal intimate stories about people and communities in the past.
Lindie Ward is curator of design – textiles and lace - at the Powerhouse Museum. Her current exhibition is the award-winning Love Lace exhibition which features the extraordinary work of 134 artists from 20 countries.
John Potter - Royal Navy of the Regency Period
The British Royal Navy of the Regency period is one of the most famous and effective fighting forces on sea or land in the history of warfare. This presentation will discuss, in broad layman’s terms, the organisation of the Royal Navy in the Regency period, ship types, the roles and responsibilities of officers, sailors and marines and their recruitment, ranks and uniforms. This presentation will also showcase some of the weapons and equipment in use at the time.
John is an Officer in the Royal Australian Navy and has had postings to various ships, Naval establishments and Headquarters over his 27 year career to date. His most recent assignments have included a 3 year overseas posting to the United States and a six month operational deployment to the Middle East in support of Australian forces in Afghanistan. John’s hobby interests include military and naval history, music, non professional theatre and military and naval re-enactment focussing in particular on the British Royal Navy and Army of the Napoleonic period and Australian forces on the Western Front in WW1. He and his very patient wife, Bronwyn have two children, Sarah (10) and James (9).
Stephen Gapps - The British Army in the Colony of NSW during the Regency Period - Rum Puncheons, ratbags or rebels?
My line of attack will be an overview of the NSW Corps 20 years (1790-1810 bookended by short overviews of the Marines and 73rd Regt) and their role in current popular imagination of the early colony. Much maligned by H V Evatt and others in the 1930s (who invented the ‘Rum Corps’ name then – it was never contemporaneous. Rum Puncheons was) I will ask the questions; were they typical of the British Army regiments stationed in colonies? Were they a poor, unruly regiment or in fact quite good?
Jacqui Newling - The Curry Concept
Jaqui will discuss the emergence of curry from the mid-1700s as a high society Regency food to its Anglicization and acculturation through the 1800s much in parallel with (and a metaphor for) British power in India.
Jacqui Newling - Workshop: Make curry according to Martha Lloyd's recipe
Deborah Mulhall, - Acting Austen
Want to know how 29th Century actors prepare for a period play? Acting Austen is a workshop where participants may observe or experience what an actor goes through in rehearsing an Austen adaptation for stage. Deborah Mulhall, both writer and director of many years’ experience, will be using a scene from her adaptation of Pride & Prejudice which will be staged in Sydney later this year. Using various acting exercises, participants will go through a typical early rehearsal process.
GRAND NAPOLEONIC BALL 7.30pm - 11.30pm (Formal Evening Function)
This is a fantastic opportunity to wear your Regency ball gown or tailcoat & breeches. An evening of fine music, fun dancing, games, cards and a late evening regency supper.
It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind;—but when a beginning is made—when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt—it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more. (Emma, 1816)
We will be providing hand-written dance cards produced in the period manner on a reproduction 18th Century printing press to all advance ticket purchasers.
Sunday 21 April 2013
"Picnic at Pemberley"
Costumed Promenade, Picnic & Historic House Tour 9.30am - 1.30pm
Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy requests the pleasure of your company at a Picnic at Pemberley. The morning festivities will commence at 9.30am and will include a guided house tour, battledore & shuttlecock, croquet and other diverting pastimes - including some dancing and a promenade.
We have booked a private coach to take you to Lanyon Homestead where you will received a guided tour through the historic homestead and grounds.
The Lanyon Cafe will open especially for us, so you can purchase hot teas, coffee and delicious food from 10am or bring your own picnic basket and spread your rug on the Apricot Lawn below the homestead. Don't forget to have a ride in our horse and carriage!
Through Bass and Human Nature: A Musical Tour through Pride & Prejudice
An afternoon concert in St Johns Anglican Church will include soprano Gillian Dooley and pianist Fiona McCauley. The program will comprise music from the Austen family music collections and readings from the novel. Includes afternoon tea from 4-4.30pm.
Jane Austen Festival Market Day
Market stalls, fencing and participant-led country Regency entertainment—browse some homemade wares, try some swordplay, and put your name against 15 minutes to show a craft, lead a couple of favourite dances, workshop a new dance, recite a story, stage a play, play some tunes or sing some songs. Join in some period games - battledore & shuttlecock, graces, hopscotch, croquet, cricket and more! Tables will be set up under shady marquees with early 19th century board and card games.
Jane Austen Festival Cotillion Ball
7.00pm - 10.30pm
Shall you be at the Cotillion ball tomorrow? (Northanger Abbey, 1797, published 1818)
