Art, music and performance takes over Melbourne once again with RISING this winter.
The 2025 programme features 65 events, 327 artists, 15 new commissions, 9 world premieres, 5 Australian and 10 Victorian. All of them are sure to showcase Melbourne in all its moon-lit glory across two epic weekends.
RISING will transform the city into a pulsating playground of music, theatre and dance, and public performances. Attendees can check out mini golf reimagined as art, get lost in a storm of kinetic lasers, groove to Punjabi beats at Fed Square, or. . . Do literally nothing.
“RISING is about breaking conventions - bringing wild, intimate, and unexpected creativity into the heart of Melbourne,” RISING Co-Artistic Directors Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek say. “We are a festival of art music and performance that is proudly challenging and uncompromisingly inclusive.”
'Kill Me'
“This year, audiences are invited to navigate a storm of lasers in the prismatic fantasy of the Capitol Theatre, swim through a composition of tactile sound in the City Baths, join in an audio-visual experiment deep under the ground of our town square or compete in the defiant act of doing nothing.”
The 2025 programme will spill into laneways, arcades, underground basements and grand theatres. You can explore the city in a number of ways, including Japanese artist Shohei Fujimoto’s intangible #form able to be explored every night of the festival. . . BLOCKBUSTER at Fed Square celebrating South Asian culture. . . Moorina Bonini’s new public artwork Matha at Hamer Hall. . . Night Trade at Capitol Arcade. . . The Melbourne Art Trams project and more.
Music lovers will be able to whet their appetite for tunes through the likes of Japanese Breakfast, British cool girl Suki Waterhouse, queen of yearning Beth Gibbons, indie-rap icons Black Star, Aotearoa’s Marlon Williams, UK duo Mount Kimbie, California’s Jessica Pratt and more.
In the realm of arts, the theatre, dance and performance programme is set to bring bold reimaginings, genre-defying spectacles, and deeply personal works to the stage.
'Hedwig And The Angry Inch' - Image © Ryan Cara
Argentine choreographer Marina Otero presents ‘Kill Me’, a raw performances unravelling the artist with fearless honesty and theatrical mayhem. Then there’s ‘Complete Works: Tabletop Shakespeare’, where six performers condense most of the Bard’s plays using nothing but wit, imagination, and household objects. ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ is a hilariously offbeat exploration of heartbreak from EBKM. . . ‘BLKDOG’ arrives direct from the West End. . . and cult favourite rock musical ‘Hedwig And The Angry Inch’ makes its bold return starring Seann Miley Moore.
‘LEGENDS (Of The Golden Arches)’ is a bold, witty two-hander taking audiences on a bogus adventure through the golden arches and into Chinese hell, from Joe Paradise Lui and Merlynn Tong.
“This winter RISING festival is set to dazzle and surprise us, transforming Melbourne’s iconic spaces with creativity – from a mini-golf inspired exhibition in the Flinders Street Station Ballroom to laser beams in the Capitol Theatre and a massive participatory music event at Melbourne Town Hall that will get the city singing and dancing,” Minister for Creative Industries Colin Brooks says.
“There’s also a huge offering of music, theatre, dance, showcasing our incredible local talent alongside a big line-up of international acts. There are plenty of ways to get involved and plenty of reasons to visit Melbourne this winter.”
Check out the full programme.
RISING (Melbourne) is on from 4-15 June.
