Sydney Festival will be kicking off in early January and the programme looks promising.
2019's programme will feature 18 world premieres, five Australian premieres, and eight Australian exclusives. Attendees will be welcome to visual art, circus, dance, music, and theatre performances and invited to reflect on what makes this city and country.
The festival aims to celebrates a diverse range of cultures here in Australia and elsewhere overseas via quality artworks.
At the heart of the event is Blak Out, its Indigenous programme run to recognise and celebrate First Nations stories from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The Sydney Opera House will play host to Marliya, a choir of young Indigenous women from Cairns.
'Spinifex Gum' - Image © Daniel Pockett
The women will perform 'Spinifex Gum', an array of thought-provoking songs by notable activists Felix Riebl and Ollie McGill (members of The Cat Empire) alongside Briggs and Peter Garrett.
Also at the Sydney Opera House will be a stage performance of Gabrielle Wang’s award-winning novel 'A Ghost in My Suitcase', which tells the family story of a young girl’s trip to her ancestral home in China and how she entered into a world of ghost-hunting.
Other theatre delights on offer include 'The Iliad – Out Loud', a nine-hour (yes, nine) dramatic reading of Homer's 'The Iliad', and 'Home', a reflection on safety and shelter by Geoff Sobelle.
'Bayala' - Image © Jamie Williams
'Pigalle' is a new feature from the makers of 'Velvet' that will shown in the Festival Garden and Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent. 'Pigalle' is all about the two most important Ms: Music and muscles. It stars Marcia Hines, iOTA, and Bangarra's Waangenga Blanco.
The Spiegeltent's diversity reaches from artists from Cuba (Orquesta Akokan) to South Africa (Nakhane) and America (Julia Holter).
Next year's festival will be based on three themes: Migration, human endeavour, and feminism. It aims to immerse Sydney in diversity, offer the chance to embrace differences and unite in solidarity.
'A Ghost In My Suitcase' - Image © Stefan Gosatti
Three interactive art installations will be instituted to mark the half-century moon landing milestone, and praise past and present creativity, technology, and human endeavours. One of these installations is the Lunar Velocipede, a stationary rickshaw bike with wings.
The festival has instituted a challenge to the city to collectively cycle the 384,400km to the moon. Participants can use the dozen stationary bikes or donate kilometres from their own personal rides or gym classes.
Click here to view the full Sydney Festival programme.
