Turbine at DownstageDown­stage opens its doors for the first time this sum­mer with three new shows open­ing in less than a week!

This time last year Tim Spite’s SEEyD Com­pa­ny thrilled audi­ences with the paua poach­ing action adven­ture Paua (net­ting Spite the Chap­man Tripp Direc­tor of the Year Award in the process). Now they’re back with a re-work­ing of ear­li­er suc­cess Tur­bine, which blew peo­ple away at BATS in 2006: An envi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious fam­i­ly have their prin­ci­ples test­ed when a pow­er com­pa­ny wants to build a wind farm in their ‘back yard’.

Tur­bine opens offi­cial­ly on Fri­day but ear­ly birds (or the price sen­si­tive) can see pre­views on Wednes­day or Thurs­day night for only $20.

Per­cus­sion-mon­sters Strike are back for one night only on Sun­day, play­ing favourites and show­cas­ing tracks from their forth­com­ing CD. Guests Lisa Tom­lins (The Eggs) and Mana (Rhom­bus) col­lab­o­rate and DJ Samu adds breaks. Strike Soundsys­tem is on Sun­day at 8.00pm.

Down­stage has been build­ing rela­tions with the Edin­burgh and Ade­laide Fringe fes­ti­vals in recent months and the first result hits the stage from next Wednes­day. Adam Page is a South Aus­tralian vir­tu­oso with a phe­nom­e­nal facil­i­ty for dozens of dif­fer­ent instru­ments and Adam Page Solo is a musi­cal show like no oth­er. Ful­ly impro­vised, Page records and loops mul­ti­ple instru­men­tal tracks, adding lay­ers and tex­tures with every new instru­ment. The show has already won awards at the Ade­laide Fringe and sold out in Edin­burgh and is total­ly fam­i­ly-friend­ly.

Details of all the shows can be found at the Down­stage web site. Mean­while, here’s Strike in action:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=NZ&v=TFlYcOTBCN4]