Iain Grandage, the Artistic Director of the Perth Festival, has launched his first program of events and it’s an action packed festival with many events that have excited arts and culture lovers.
It’s the first festival curated by Grandage, who has taken over from previous Artistic Director Wendy Martin, a new person is appointed every four years. For his first outing Grandage has assembled an impressive array of music, theatre, literature, dance and visual artists.
Grandage took to the stage at the Perth Concert Hall on Thursday night to unveil his program and many of the revelation drew wild applause from the audience of dedicated arts supporters.
The first week of the festival with focus on indigenous culture before exploring a wide range of themes through innovative and spectacular performances from Australian and international artists and companies.
The theme for the festival is ‘karla’ – a Noongar term meaning fire, and by extension country and home. More than 250 events across theatre, music, dance, opera, film, visual arts and literature and ideas will fill the city from 7th February to 1st March.
Mavis Staples, Neil Gaiman, Meow Meow, Rufus Wainwright, Kate Tempest, Bryony Kimmings, Paul Kelly, Garrick Ohlsson, Michael Keegan-Dolan will all take part in the festival which also features 14 works specifically commissioned for the event, they celebrate a diverse range of figures including Gurrumul, Philip Glass, Beethoven and Bon Scott.
“Perth Festival 2020 will be a huge, euphoric celebration of Perth, Western Australia – it’s my home town and I love it,” Grandage said. “We introduce a sparkling new Festival hub, City of Lights including our new contemporary music venue Chevron Lighthouse, welcome the return of the much-loved Chamber Music Weekend and premiere exciting new works made especially for you by talented local artists working with artists from across the country and around the world.”
“Our Festival is a campfire for sharing stories and inviting belonging,” Grandage says. “In celebrating place, and the depth and range of Australian indigenous culture, our entire first week is dedicated to First Nations performances.
“This is a first for any major Australian international arts festival and a celebration of Australia’s unique voice in the world.”
In a landmark event, Perth’s Yirra Yaakin Theatre presents the world’s first Noongar-language play, Hecate, an adaptation of Macbeth by writer-director and Perth Festival Associate Artist Kylie Bracknell (Kaarljilba Kaardn).
Other 2020 highlights include Bangarra Dance Theatre’s highly acclaimed production Bennelong. The work cleaned up at the 2018 Helpmann Awards and has been highly praised by critics.
Also on the menu is the Yolŋu cultural spectacular Buŋgul, Circa’s renowned ensemble joining 18 local performers in the world-premiere circus event Leviathan (pictured) and the Australian-exclusive international hits Tao of Glass, by Philip Glass and Phelim McDermott, and MÁM, Michael Keegan-Dolan’s follow-up to his 2019 Perth Festival smash Swan Lake.
The area around the Perth Concert Hall will be renamed The City of Lights, in honour of Perth’s historic night in 1962 when the city’s residents left their lights on to see how visible they would be to astronaut John Glenn as he orbited the earth. Here you’ll find a spectacular program of contemporary music and cabaret.
The City of Lights will host the best contemporary music under the stars at the Chevron Lighthouse outdoor venue. Inside, the iconic Perth Concert Hall will become a rollicking Kabarett Haus curated by the marvellous Meow Meow.
The siren extraordinaire kicks off the Kabarett Haus season with her uproarious night of musical mayhem, Pandemonium, accompanied by Pink Martini’s Thomas M. Lauderdale and the WASO conducted by festival director Iain Grandage.
On following nights, she welcomes music greats Rufus Wainwright, with his intimate new show especially created for Perth Festival, and the triumphant return of punk cabaret queen Amanda Palmer.
The music program at Chevron Lighthouse kicks off on 7 February with the powerhouse hip-hop heroics of Briggs as he brings together a host of special guest Indigenous artists for a Bad Apples House Party. The following nights will see performances from the Blind Boys of Alabama, disco diva Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King with Mondo Freaks, performance poet Kate Tempest, New Orleans marching outfit Treme Brass Band, Weyes Blood, Aldous Harding, Ngaiire,Yeasayer.
The Lighthouse comes comes to an epic finale on 1 March with the fiery, fearless and funky tunes of gospel legend
Mavis Staples.
The festival will also take over new venue Rechabites Hall in Northbridge from a performance from improvisational band The Necks who are combined with the audio-visual experimentation of Robin Fox.
To see everything on the program head to the Perth Festival site, don’t delay in buying tickets – the best stuff sells out really fast!
Top image: Leviathan by Damien Bredberg, Iain Gradage by Jessica Wyld, Rufus Wainwright by Josep Echburu.
