Embargoed until 7pm WST (10pm AEDT) 4 NOVEMBER 2015
PERTH INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL LAUNCHES 2016 PROGRAM
11 FEBRUARY – 6 MARCH 2016
Perth International Arts Festival Artistic Director Wendy Martin today launches her first
program with an invitation to join us on a big, bold adventure.
“Perth International Arts Festival provides a unique moment in our year to engage with
artists from across the globe,” she said. “Visionaries, mavericks and dreamers – it’s through
the lens of their imaginations that we get to see, understand and re-imagine our world. Dive
into the program and discover daring projects made by some of the world’s most brilliant
creative minds.”
The 2016 Perth International Arts Festival program delivers a cultural adventure for arts
lovers of all ages and tastes, living up to the Festival’s global reputation for daring and
excellence. This summer, around 800 of the world’s most visionary artists inhabit and enrich
Perth, transforming the city with projects bold and beguiling.
In a quintessentially Western Australian experience, the 64th Festival spills across unique
venues and glorious, outdoor spaces including the Festival’s new home at Elizabeth Quay.
Under Wendy Martin’s artistic vision, the 2016 Festival welcomes audiences from WA and
further afield to experience an exceptional collection of international artistic experiences.
Perth International Arts Festival is the longest running annual multi-arts celebration in the
Southern Hemisphere, and the jewel in the crown of Western Australia’s cultural life. The
$17.6 million Festival is the first of four Festivals under Wendy’s artistic leadership and
brings innovative new work to Western Australia.
The 2016 Festival opens with Home, an epic celebration of the landscape, culture and
community of Western Australia. Directed by grand public-performance magician Nigel
Jamieson in collaboration with Noongar elder and artist Dr Richard Walley, Home is part
concert, part visual arts installation, and features a roll call of Western Australia’s most
evocative and imaginative artists including The Triffids, The Drones, The Panics, Pigram
Brothers, The Waifs and John Butler; writers Kim Scott, Tim Winton, Robert Drewe; and
Shaun Tan. An exciting event for the whole family, it is a testament to the incredible talent
of Western Australian artists and the powerful sense of place in their work.
In 2016, the exciting hub of the Festival has a new home, in the north-west corner of
Elizabeth Quay. Each night, the Chevron Festival Gardens is the place for festival-goers to
gather, eat, drink, share stories and participate, enjoying a diverse, quality program of free
events that connects and activates the city.
The 2016 Theatre program is equal parts philosophical, raucous and haunting. In a must-see
Festival highlight, Simon Stone – one of the most in-demand directors on the international
scene – thrills with his fearless re-imagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic story of family
dysfunction and deception, The Wild Duck. The fierce, heartbreaking Belvoir production
makes its Western Australian premiere following smash hit sold-out seasons in Sydney,
Melbourne, London, Vienna and Holland and comes direct from Belgium. Further Australian
highlights include Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid, from the genre-bending ‘kamikaze
cabaret’ diva which subverts Hans Christian Andersen’s underwater tale of teen selfsacrifice, salvation and seduction into a glittering spectacle of contemporary cabaret, and
the second part of Meow Meow’s Malthouse Theatre Little trilogy of fairy tales gone rogue
that began with Little Match Girl. Western Australian artist James Berlyn performs for an
intimate audience of 16, with the world premiere of I Know You’re There, a gently profound
meditation on suicide and depression tracing three generations through storytelling, dance
and conversation.
Inviting world-renowned talent to Australian shores, international Festival theatre highlights
include Refuse The Hour, a phantasmagoric chamber opera from inimitable South African
artist William Kentridge. Interweaving live music, projections and dance, Kentridge takes
centre stage, leading a mesmerising investigation into time itself that journeys to the edge of
science, theatre and art. A roaring success since opening in Denmark, The Tiger Lillies
Perform Hamlet sees cult British band The Tiger Lillies present their anarchic take on
Shakespeare’s classic. Crafting a macabre, absurdist feast of sumptuous song and opera
grotesque, they catapult Hamlet into a world of Weimar punk cabaret with new songs and
an ensemble of actors, circus artists, giant puppets and video projections. These two theatre
highlights are both exclusive to PIAF.
From the UK, the Australian exclusive of Common Wealth’s No Guts, No Heart, No Glory is a
raw and courageous production devised from real-life stories. Taking over the Queen Street
Gym, No Guts, No Heart, No Glory riffs off its high-energy setting to explore the dreams and
realities of life for young Muslim women through boxing. American actor/illusionist/inventor
Geoff Sobelle unpacks our relationship to everyday items in The Object Lesson, a hilarious
and heartbreaking solo performance/junk-pile-installation that invites audiences to poke
about and delight in Sobelle’s immense, chaotic, richly crafted storage space before it comes
to life. Britain’s Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe bring the Australian premiere of their
wildly acclaimed Every Brilliant Thing, a touching, humorous play about depression, which
celebrates all the little things that make life worth living.
In 2016, the Festival’s Dance program dazzles with dynamic work from some of the world’s
leading choreographers and dancers. From one of India’s most important dance-makers,
Aditi Mangaldas, comes the Australian exclusive of Within, an emotionally complex group
work that employs the phenomenal speed and precision of Kathak technique, juxtaposing
the contemporary and the traditional. Performing in Perth for the first time, Belgian
choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui uses the multiple languages of the body to ignite and
illuminate the great religious and philosophical texts in Apocrifu. In this Australian exclusive,
Cherkaoui contrasts colliding universes, performing with classical ballet-dancer Yasuyuki
Shuto and contemporary dancer and circus artist Dmitiri Jourde, against the choral backdrop
of the Corsican ensemble A Filetta.
The Perth International Arts Festival 2016 Artist in Residence, Claire Cunningham, brings her
work to Australia for the first time with two highly acclaimed shows: Guide Gods and Give
Me A Reason To Live. Rejecting traditional dance techniques, Cunningham’s performances
communicate powerful perspectives on disability and faith as the Glasgow-based artist
considers her own physicality through delicate movement, which incorporates the crutches
that have been a part of her since aged 14. From Toulouse’s Compagnie 111, Plexus depicts
a female warrior entrapped by 5,000 cords – a breathtaking forest of brilliantly lit strings – in
this Australian exclusive. Plexus was created by visionary Aurélien Bory for dancer Kaori Ito,
who moves puppet-like, defying the laws of gravity to conquer her environment. From
Brazilian choreographer Lia Rodrigues comes the Australian exclusive of Pindorama: 11
naked dancers move between a plastic tarp and water in a bare room in a visceral and
sensory dance experience. The West Australian Ballet returns with its much-loved Ballet At
The Quarry summer season, presenting five works under the stars, headlined by acclaimed
British choreographer David Dawson’s On The Nature of Daylight – a rapturous pas de deux
to the music of Max Richter and 5, a tour-de-force for five dancers.
The Festival creates extraordinary arts experiences for all audiences with many works
dedicated to the young and young at heart. The Australian exclusive of Kazuko Hohki and
Andy Cox’s The Great Escape (A Borrowers Tale) is an immersive work of magical,
participatory theatre that leads children aged 6-11 on a detective hunt through interactive
installations, storytelling and music, inspired by Mary Norton’s beloved tale The Borrowers.
Enjoying its third year, Screenkids expands in 2016 to host a free interactive exhibition of
playful digital innovation, together with two Australian-premiere programs of Europe’s best
animated short films for children, curated by the Netherlands’ Cinekid Festival. To
commemorate the 40th birthday of The Snake Run – Albany’s gnarly downhill skate park and
the oldest community-funded skate park in the world – The Snake Run Project is a free
gathering of contemporary dance, freestyle skateboarding, street art and live music.
Children rub shoulders with their literary heroes at the Perth Writers Festival Family Day, a
free day of interactive performance, public art-making, storytelling with Lucy Cousins and
Maisy Mouse, and more.
The 2016 Festival Classical Music program journeys the spectrum from ancient choral
delights to glorious baroque, spirited ragtime, bebop, and contemporary orchestral jazz.
Wynton Marsalis – one of the world’s great jazz musicians and composers – brings his
renowned Jazz At Lincoln Centre Orchestra to Perth to perform Swing Symphony for the
first time, his homage to the evolution of swing, together with the West Australian
Symphony Orchestra at the Perth Concert Hall. In a dedicated series of 18 stellar events over
three days, the Chamber Music Weekend rejoices in Mozart to Messiaen, Back to Bartok,
Liszt and Ligeti, plus a day dedicated to Schubert, inside the stunning acoustics of Winthrop
Hall and its grounds. Making its world premiere, Soft Soft Loud: Blood on the Floor is the
intricate chamber ensemble version of English composer Marc-Anthony Turnage’s 1996
deeply moving masterpiece, the latest in Fremantle Arts Centre’s annual program of crossgenre collaborations. In an Australian exclusive, the all-male Corsican sextet A Filetta
perform original compositions full of soaring vocals and heavenly harmonies influenced by
their island’s strong vocal traditions. The singers and musicians of Italy’s Concerto Italiano,
one of the world’s most revered early music ensembles, use seventeenth-century
instruments to perform Claude Monteverdi’s vibrant baroque masterpiece Vespro della
Beata Vergine 1610 (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin).
Over 25 nights, Perth showcases an eclectic selection of the most exciting contemporary
music spanning poetic folk, electronica, dub, African rhythms to Balkan gypsy-swing.
Highlights include philosophical American singer-songwriter William Fitzsimmons; sublime
Icelandic contemporary composer Jóhann Jóhannson; revered American, feminist punkrockers Sleater-Kinney; Swedish Grammy-Award winner José González, 21-year-old rising
London rapper Little Simz; Afrobeat stars Seun Kuti & Egypt 80; Pitchfork-endorsed,
Nashville-based singer-songwriter Natalie Prass; Indigenous Australian living legend Kev
Carmody, the “New Zealand Elvis” Marlon Williams, and a roof-raising, Australian exclusive
show from the UK’s House Gospel Choir, who invite you to join them to sing and dance
together for the closing weekend of the Festival
The 2016 Visual Arts program is studded with diverse voices who transform contemporary
mythologies into experiential art. Renowned artist Bharti Kher from India presents her first
solo exhibition in Australia, In Her Own Language. Featuring figurative sculptures, wall
panels built from her signature bindis and sari works this exhibition offers a window into her
richly textured practice. Sweden’s Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg create a netherworld of
strange delights and encounters through sculpture, light and sound in the surreal and
sensory The Secret Garden. In Black Sun Spanish Australian artist, Dani Marti combines
woven textures and film in his seductive and confronting portrait tributes to humanity and
intimacy. Screenings of the fast paced and ecstatic visions by Ryan Trecartin are on offer at
the State Gallery while at John Curtin Gallery the exhibition Face to Face shows mesmerising
works by acclaimed artists Shaun Gladwell, Carsten Höller and John Tarry.
Over four days, the 2016 Perth Writers Festival brings a superb program of international and
Australian novelists, activists and contemporary philosophers to Perth. In an unmissable
evening and Festival Special Event, Richard Dawkins, one of the most influential thinkers of
our time, takes to the stage at the Perth Concert Hall to reflect on a lifetime of tireless
intellectual adventure. An illuminating opening address by cultural thinker Roman Krznaric
on the power of empathy to fundamentally transform our lives, and a closing address on the
artist’s portrayal of issues central to our humanity from US neuroscientist and best-selling
author Lisa Genova (Still Alice; Inside The O’Briens) bookend an incredible weekend of
literary events and discussions, with further writers attending including British author and
journalist Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman; The Men Who United The
States); Canadian Booker-Prize nominee Patrick deWitt (The Sisters Brothers; Ablutions);
Russian and American author, activist and prolific political journalist Masha Gessen (The
Man Without A Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin); and New York Times best-selling
novelist and short-story writer Lauren Groff (The Monsters of Templeton; Fates and Furies).
Fine cuisine and food writing combine in the Festival special event From Paddock To Print, a
cultural feast exploring the explosion of interest in food blogging, politics and storytelling
around eating that connects food lovers like editor Valli Little (Delicious Magazine), blogger
Michelle Crawford, (Hugo And Elsa), UK food creative Anna Jones, who has worked as Jamie
Oliver’s food stylist, and many more.
The Lotterywest Festival Films presents a handpicked selection of the world’s best new films
in a uniquely West Australian cinema setting, with screenings under the stars at UWA
Somerville and ECU Joondalup Pines. For the first time we offer two seasons of films to
ensure audiences get the latest and finest films from around the world. Season One
launches today and features five Australian premieres, including the highly anticipated
Dheepan, director Jacques Audiard’s 2015 Palme D’Or winning story of a Tamil warrior who
flees Sri Lanka for a new life in Paris. Other Australian premieres include Italian director
Piero Messina’s mesmerizing drama The Wait, starring Juliette Binoche as a single mother in
shock following the death of her teenage son, and In Harmony, director Denis Dercourt’s
simmering romantic drama set in the golden fields of rural northern France.
Season Two launches on January 18, 2016. Check our website perthfestival.com.au for upto-the-minute information.
And with the Festival’s Tix for $36, you can afford to be fearless in your choices. Visit
perthfestival.com.au and check out all the brilliant shows on offer for just $36.
Our website offers a wealth of information, images, blogs, videos and more.
BOOKINGS AND FESTIVAL INFO: 08 6488 5555 – perthfestival.com.au – Ticketek outlets
For further information, interviews or images please contact:
WA MEDIA: Rania Ghandour
+61 8 6488 8618 / 0403 025 535
[email protected]
NATIONAL MEDIA: Miranda Brown
+61 3 9419 0931 / 0411 568 781
[email protected]
Perth International Arts Festival
Founded in 1953 by The University of Western Australia, the Perth International Arts
Festival is the longest running international arts festival in Australia and Western Australia’s
premier cultural event. The Festival has developed a worldwide reputation for excellence in
its international program, the presentation of new works and the highest quality artistic
experiences for its audience. For 63 years the Festival has welcomed to Perth some of the
world’s greatest living artists and now connects with an audience of over 1 million.
Wendy Martin is the Artistic Director 2016 - 2019