2018

Sydney Festival 2018 was Wesley Enoch's second in the role of Festival Director, and saw a continued strong commitment to Australian and Indigenous work in a program spanning theatre, dance, circus, visual art and music, reaching from Sydney’s CBD to Parramatta.

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2018 Sydney Festival program

Festival Director: Wesley Enoch

Sydney Festival 2018 was Wesley Enoch's second in the role of Festival Director, and saw a continued strong commitment to Australian and Indigenous work in a program spanning theatre, dance, circus, visual art and music, reaching from Sydney’s CBD to Parramatta. Hyde Park hosted our freaky fun park, the Village Sideshow while the Seidler Salon Series invited audiences to explore the architecture of Harry Seidler & Associates throughout the city.

Large-scale free installation Jurassic Plastic transformed Lower Town Hall into a colourful toy landscape with a serious message about sustainability, and Four Thousand Fish at Barangaroo Reserve allowed us to share the story of fisherwoman Barangaroo.

Our theatre and dance program had a mix of blockbuster international theatre shows and Australian works that showcased homegrown talent, while our music program plucked acts from 13 countries and almost every continent of the world.

Sydney Festival 2019 featured 133 events in 51 venues over 23 days.

ABOUT AN HOUR 

Beast
Dan Daw,UK / Australia

Cella
Narelle Benjamin and Paul White, Australia 

Fleabag
Dry Write and Soho Theatre, UK 

It’s Not For Everyone
acrobat, Australia 

Sea Sick
The Theatre Centre, Canada 

WHIST
AΦE, UK 

Wild Bore
Malthouse Theatre, Australia

World Without Us
Ontroerend Goed, Belgium
 

BAYALA
 

Baraya: Sing Up Country
Australia

Free Language Classes
Australia 

Out of the Vaults
State Library of New South Wales, Australia

Three-Day Language Classes
Australia


CABARET
 

Briefs:Close Encounters
Briefs Factory, Australia

Lady Rizo: Red, White and Indigo
USA

Meow Meow’s Pandemonium
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australia


RIOT
THISISPOPBABY, Ireland 

CIRCUS

Aerialize Workshops
Australia

Circus Comes to Town
Australia 

Circus ndustry Forum
Australia

Flying Trapeze Workshops
Australia 

Lab:Exploring New Circus Apparatus
Australia 

Lab:Finding New Circus
Australia 

Model Citizens
CircusOz, Australia 

National Youth Circus Symposium
Australia


COMEDY

Trygve Wakenshaw: Nautilus
New Zealand
 

DANCE 

Tree of Codes
Studio Wayne McGregor and Manchester International Festival, UK 

You Animal, You
Force Majeure, Australia
 

FAMILY 

Alice in Wonderland
Michael Sieders Presents, Australia 

Join the Dots
Sydney Opera House and Art Museum and Library, Ōta, Japan / Australia 

Jurassic Plastic
ArtsPeople, Japan / Australia 

LORDS OF STRUT: ABSOLUTE LEGENDS
LORDS OF STRUT and THISISPOPBABY, Ireland
 

INSTALLATIONS / VISUAL ARTS

52 Artists, 52 Actions
Artspace, Australia 

Broken Glass
Moogahlin Performing Arts and Blacktown Arts, Australia 

Four Thousand Fish
Australia 

In Your Dreams
Australian Centre for Photography and UNSW Galleries, Australia 

Katharina Grosse – The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped
A Schwartz Carriageworks Project, Germany 

Lisa Reihana Cinemania
New Zealand 

Tell –Contemporary Indigenous Photography
Ballara tInternational Foto Biennale, Australia 

Warm Ties
Artspace, Australia
 

Village Sideshow

10 Minute Dance Parties by JOF
JOFMAKESART, Australia
 

Cake Industries: 
Heart of Luna, Crate ExpectationsPartyBot
Australia 

Ghost Train
Jonnine Standish and Jasmin Tarasin, Australia 

Glitterbox
ZIN, Australia 

Karaoke Carousel
Australia 

Lucas Abela and the Temple of Din
Lucas Abela, Australia

Madame Tulalah’s Magnificent Box
Melinda Hetzel & Co, Australia

Soul of Sydney
Australia 

Stuck in the Middle with You
Sydney Dance Company & Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Australia

Village Pools 

MUSIC

16 Lovers Lane
Australia

Aldous Harding
New Zealand

AquaSonic
Between Music, Denmark

Bambula – Paul Grabowksy and the Wilfred Brothers
Australia

Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba
Mali 

the bomb
Smriti Keshari, Eric Schlosser & Kevin Ford and The Acid, USA / Australia

Emel Mathlouthi with Rahim Alhaj & Karim Wasfi
Tunisia/ Iraq 

Emma Donovan and The Putbacks A Tribute to Ruby Hunter
Australia 

Fémina
Argentina

Gotye Presents a Tribute to Jean-Jacques Perrey
Australia

Jlin
USA

Mad Max with live score by Morricone Youth
Morricone Youth, USA 

Mission Songs Project – 1957 Palm Island Strike
Jessie Lloyd, Australia 

Mount Eerie and Julie Byrne
USA 

Night of the Living Dead with live score by Morricone Youth
MorriconeYouth, USA

PussyRiot Theatre – Riot Days
GreenwaveArts, Russia / Belarus 

Rembrandt Live
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia

Rhys Chatham’s A Crimson Grail (100 Guitar Orchestra)
USA /Australia

Seidler Salon Series

-         DavíðÞór Jónsson, Iceland

-         GenevieveLacey, Daniel Yeadon and Neal Peres Da Costa, Australia

-         GoldnerString Quartet, Australia

-         MaarjaNuut, Estonia

-         RahimAlhaj and Karim Wasfi, Iraq

-         VoxClamantis, Estonia

 

Shabaka and the Ancestors
UK / SouthAfrica

Symphony Under The Stars
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australia

Vox Clamantis
Estonia 

OPERA

Opera in The Domain
Opera Australia, Australia 

PHYSICAL THEATRE

Backbone
Gravity& Other Myths, Australia 

Highly Sprung
Legs On The Wall, Australia 

TALKS / Q&As

An Evening with Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer, UK 

In Conversation with Dan Daw
Sydney Festival & Accessible Arts, Australia 

Sydney Morning Herald Q&A with the Artists

-         AquaSonic

-         Backbone

-         BarberShop Chronicles

-         PussyRiot Theatre: Riot Days

-         TheTown Hall Affair

-         TheWider Earth 

Talking Dance with Critical Path

-         Memoir& Autobiography

-         Personal Experience

-         State of Play 

UTS Big Thinking Forums

-         Analogue Body in a Digital World

-         Competing Sovereignties

-         Consuming the World

The Wooster Group Screening & Conversation
The Wooster Group, USA 

THEATRE 

Barber Shop Chronicles
Fuel, National Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse, UK 

Broken Glass
Moogahlin Performing Arts and Blacktown Arts, Australia 

The Daisy Theatre
Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, Canada 

Monroe& Associates
The Last Great Hunt, Australia

My Name is Jimi
Queensland Theatre & Belvoir, Australia

My Urrwai
Ghenoa Gela, Performing Lines & Belvoir, Australia

The Town Hall Affair
The Wooster Group, USA 

Tribunal
PYT | Fairfield, Australia

The Wider Earth
Queensland Theatre and Dead Puppet Society, Australia


AUSTRALIA DAY
Ferrython

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2018 Sydney Festival program

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