If ever an arts event can afford to name-drop, Perth International Arts Festival has it in spades.
With events that pay tribute to pop icon Andy Warhol and high priestess of soul Nina Simone while heralding local talents like director Matt Lutton, Black Swan Theatre and WA Symphony Orchestra among an international line-up of musicians like Antony and the Johnsons, James Brown’s jazz children Breakestra and iconic rocker Marianne Faithfull and numerous European directors and French dance company Compagnie Montalvo-Hervieu, it almost too hard to choose what to attend this summer.
The 2010 program was launched on Wednesday November 4 by Perth International Arts Festival Artisitic Director Shelagh Magadza, who has secured unprecedented growth in audience numbers with more than 330,000 West Australians attending Festival events last year.
‘The 2010 program brings some of the most exciting artists of our era to Perth, many for the first time,’ Ms Magadza said.
‘This is a chance to see some of the best work from around the world, along with uniquely Australian stories.
‘Only at Festival time can audiences experience so many enriching events.’
Spanish masters of large-scale outdoor theatre, La Fura dels Baus, will kick off the festival with their visual spectacle of acrobatics, music and light that takes place 70 metres above the ground.
The city’s heart will come alive to Beck’s Music Box, while 12 productions, including two world premieres and four Australian premieres, will be held across Perth theatres.
Exclusive to the Perth Festival is the once-banned and world renowned Maly Drama Theatre production, Life and Fate – adapted from a classic Russian novel, this play depicts the life of a Jewish physicist, Viktor Shtrum, who must balance personal morality with aiding Stalin’s pursuit of the atomic bomb.
Another giant is the Australian premiere of the classic docu-drama Six Characters in Search of an Author by exciting young British director Rupert Goold and starring Tony-winning actor Ian McDiarmid and Olivier Award-nominated Catherine McCormack.
Highly original Norwegian company Jo StrØmgren Kompani brings a tempest in a teacup story, The Society – when a collective of sworn coffee drinkers is infiltrated by a tea-drinking traitor, all hell breaks loose.
And for those who wish to really become immersed in the theatre, the innovative Rotozaza’s Etiquette gives audience members a role in the play with the use of headphones, a script and some props, the results will surprise.
Then there is of course the ever popular Lotterywest Film Festival at Somerville Auditorium, the Perth Writers Festival Family Day for children, opera, Art City and Perth Writers Festival featuring thought-provoking sessions with Irvine Welsh.
All bookended by the spellbinding Mercury Prize-winners Antony and the Johnsons and a night under the stars at Kings Park with Sing the Truth: The Music of Nina Simone.
Full program details can be found on www.perthfestival.com.au with tickets available through BOCS. The festival runs from February 5 to March 1, 2010.
Aja Styles
