2013 PERTH INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

More than 500 artists from Australia and around the world join hundreds more from WA for the 2013 Perth International Arts Festival, from February 8 to March 2, 2013

Celebrated artists and companies creating work for the Festival include The Berliner Ensemble (directed by Robert Wilson), Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet, Margaret Atwood, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Maceo Parker, Jim Campbell, Frédéric Flamand and Ai Weiwei.

Artistic Director Jonathan Hollowaysaid: “Since the world’s great festivals began over 60 years ago, they have always combined sensational programming with a strong sense of the city in which they are based.”

“Perth in the summer has been the place to go for 60 years. Our program marries international excellence with the beauty, talent and energy of Western Australia.”

Following the dusk welcome Beginningson the banks of the Swan River, the 2013 Festival explodes out of the blocks, literally, with the Lotterywest Festival Spectacular: B.P.M. Bombs Per Minutefrom Les Commandos Percu (France). From the darkness, a clock ticks, bells toll and fireworks dance across the night sky. Fresh from opening the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad, these masters of the high-octane arts of explosives, percussion and drumming promie to get the Perth Festival going with a bang in 2013.

Perth Festival’s 2013 theatre program welcomes Bertolt Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble (Germany) to Australia for the first time with Robert Wilson’s production of The Threepenny Opera. Director Neil Armfield, writer Andrew Bovell, and artistic associate Stephen Pagecome together for the first time to adapt Kate Grenville’s acclaimed novel The Secret River for the stage. New York’s The TEAM(USA) takes audiences on a pioneering journey across the USA in search of capitalism, with a score that fuses Vegas glitz, Western ballads and Southern blues in Mission Drift,their musical about economics. Find the nostalgic romance of the spectacular vintage big-top tent with the Australian exclusive La Cucina dell'Artefrom sixth-generation circus performers Circus Ronaldo(Belgium). The National Theatre of Scotlandreturn to Perth Festival with their pub-crawling, theatrical hit The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, an evening of anarchic theatre, supernatural storytelling, live music and strange goings-on. Gate Theatre Company (Ireland), Samuel Beckett and Barry McGovern come together for the Australian exclusive performance of Watt, Beckett’s story of the bizarre adventures of an itinerant character and his struggle to make sense of the world around him.

Perth Festival’s programming for the young and young at heart features Clouds by Aracaladanza (Spain), a journey into the surreal world of René Magritte: clouds transform into sheep, dancers perform captivating routines and giant green apples fall from magical trees. Arena Theatre Company (Aus) presents The House of Dreaming, an interactive labyrinth brought to life by a combination of robotics, performers and projections, a three-dimensional storybook of wonder and dreams. Barking Gecko Theatre Company(Aus) presents the world premiere of Duck, Death and the Tulip, a tale about a duck who strikes up an unlikely friendship with death.

The dance program presents an Australian exclusive, Shiva Shakti from Daksha Sheth Dance Company (India), a blend of Indian classical dance, aerial performance, martial arts and yoga performed by Isha Sharvani, Bollywood actress and one of India’s finest dancers. The Ballet National de Marseillepresents The Truth 25 Times A Second, a collaboration between Belgian choreographer Frederic Flamandand Chinese visual artist Ai Weiweithat pushes the limits of human movement.

The Festival’s free program takes art to the people and turns people into art: the streets of Perth become a theatre, an art gallery, and a peep-show for the Lotterywest Festival Celebration: La Marea, an Australian exclusive that sees ten scenes play out in the illuminated windows, balconies and cafes of Rokeby Road. Of All The People In All The Worldby theatre collective Stan’s Café (UK) imagines the 1.54 billion people in Perth’s time zone (GMT+8) as grains of rice, creating a hauntingly beautiful, constantly shifting sculptural landscape that brings statistics to life in eloquent visual form.  

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 60 years the Festival has welcomed to Perth some of the world’s greatest living artists and now connects with over 700,000 people each year.

Images: The Truth 25 Times A Second (credit Pino Pipitone); The Threepenny Opera and Clouds (credit Garcia Gonzalez)