Sydney Fringe Festival has announced its 2017 Festival Ambassadors, as well as the next wave of programme highlights set to bring Sydney to life in September.
For the first time, Fringe will be introducing a brand new Festival Hub: a 7000m2 warehouse at Sydney Park in Alexandria which will be transformed into multiple performance and exhibition spaces. During the festival, the hub will be home to immersive light, art and theatre experiences, music and theatre performances, a 200-seat vegan feast, a masquerade ball and more!
“The inaugural HPG Festival Hub is the Sydney Fringe Festival’s largest and most exciting activation to date and the result of a major new partnership with local property developer, HPG Australia. It will see the warehouse space – roughly the size of an airport hangar – transformed into a thriving independent arts centre and festival hub,” Sydney Fringe CEO and Festival Director Kerri Glasscock says.
The 2017 Festival Ambassadors are tasked with championing the independent arts and this year's Fringe programme. They are: Tim Freedman of The Whitlams, renowned Australian artist Ben Quilty, social commentator and writer Benjamin Law, performance artist Betty Grumble and performer, poet and activist Candy Royalle. The ambassadors will be part of the programme at the new HPG Festival Hub with headline performances by Tim Freedman, Betty Grumble and Candy Royalle.
A series of live music gigs and performances will take place during the Fringe Ignite Launch Party which will celebrate the opening of the festival at Kensington St Chippendale. Curated by vocalist NGAAIRE, this event will see performances scheduled across the day in shops, bars and restaurants along the street, converting them into free pop-up venues filled with live music and performances.
'Silent Theatre'
Keeping the celebrations of opening weekend going, Heaps Gay will present a Masqueerade for two nights only, transforming the Festival Hub into a world of mystery and disguise... Reality will be suspended and art will become real life.
Other highlights of the programme include two world premiere theatre experiences, and a world first interactive art exhibition. 'Silent Theatre' presented by Sydney Fringe Festival together with Urban Newtown will invite audiences to voyeuristically observe the happenings in the hotel watching from the streets below, catching glimpses through the hotel windows whilst listening to the story unfold through headphones. Mongrel Mouth’s 'UNDERTAKING' takes over a section of the HPG Festival Hub with a fully immersive theatrical experience. World renowned British Gif-iti artist INSA will exhibit a world first retrospective of his innovative GIF-iti works in the main courtyard of World Square in the city, taking street art and converting them into animated GIFs. Visitors are encouraged to download the ‘Gif-Iti’ app to interact with the artworks, with the works coming to life when patrons hover their phone screens in front of the suspended artworks.
This year’s festival includes two huge music events. The Global Rhythm music festival returns for its fifth year, filling Glebe’s Bicentennial with a family-friendly kaleidoscope of sound, food and art featuring a lineup of performances from San Lazaro, Alphamama, King Tide and The Strides with Afro Moses (Homage to Fela Kuti) along with more to be announced. Lah Lah’s Big Live Band and the Sydney Youth Orchestra join together for a special collaboration, performing in the Sydney Town Hall to close the festival.
