In focus: Arts Narrogin event organiser Brad Flett driven by community energy

Brad Flett’s first show as an event organiser for Arts Narrogin was the 2019 performance of A.B. Facey’s A Fortunate Life. Flett’s life of fortunate events, reflexivity and creative work began long before that, but not far away. “I was born in Wagin but I did most of my growing up in Kojonup and I went to high school in Katanning,” Flett said. “In 1996 I began travelling and I went to Vietnam.” Driven by the excitement of cultural flux and community immersion, Flett spent six months travelling through South-East Asia before making another jump and landing in Canada, where he found work in the television industry. Eight months later, flux found Flett again in the form of ripples from a far-off event. “When Princess Di had her accident and died, Dodi Al-Fayed was funding the TV show I was working on, he was financing it and the second he died money was pulled straight away,” Flett said. “They were halfway through filming an episode and they literally had to pull the plugs out of everything and we were unemployed.” An opportunity came through for Flett to work as a casting director four hours north of his Toronto home on the 1999 TV film Summer’s End. “James Earl Jones — Darth Vader — he was in it,” Flett said “Al Waxman was in it, he was an icon. It was Canadian actress Helen Shaver’s first time directing and it won an award that year for best film for children.” Following the success of Summer’s End, Flett was propelled into a career as a casting director. After seven years in the industry, Flett returned to Australia. While buying irrigation fittings to fix up a garden shortly after getting back, he was offered a three-month job in Mandurah that turned into another seven-year stint. Flett then spent six years working for Rio Tinto as a supervisor before returning to Wagin with his wife and taking on the position of events manager at Arts Narrogin, a role that connects him to his passion for community, people and culture. “We’ve achieved so much since we’ve been here together,” Flett said of the Arts Narrogin team. “Us finding our way and defining our roles has helped a lot.” Flett said a highlight of the role so far had been seeing Arts Narrogin named WA presenter of the year at the prestigious CircuitWest Pinnacle Performing Arts Awards in 2022. “That’s voted on by our peers. For them to say ‘you’re the best this year’, that’s pretty speccy,” he said. Another highlight for Flett is working for and with the people living in the district, seeing the culture communities create and providing events they enjoy. “People are everything,” he said. “One of my biggest things is community. One of my biggest roles here is being engaged in this community, in the district. It’s tapping into the gems that are in it. They’re there — you need to ignite that. “Collaborating massively and networking, that’s important to me, making connections.” One of the biggest events on the calendar for Arts Narrogin this year is the Green Shoots program, a musical initiative that kicked off in February. The project will see local musicians and choirs journey with the Perth Symphony Orchestra and Arts Narrogin to develop a collaborative concert that will take place in a hay bale arena on a farm in November. “We’ve got over 140 participants now,” Flett said. “We’ve just had another band join us yesterday. There’s another choir that wants to form out at Williams.” The co-ordination required to guide and deliver such a large event is considerable, but it’s just the kind of flux that engages Flett. “We’ve not done it before. Neither has the orchestra, we’re both on pretty unique virgin ground,” he said. “It’s exciting — it certainly gets you out of bed in the morning.”