Major moves
Brisbane’s
bi-annual celebration of the performing arts, the Brisbane Festival
opens this month with the promise of a smorgasbord of artistic
events across the city.
The festival’s opening event is a free performance
on 18 July by the acclaimed The Black Arm Band at the River Stage
at Gardens Point. The band features a line-up of some of the most
respected names in Australian music, performing works from an
inspirational songbook of contemporary Aboriginal life. Referencing
of course John Howard’s well-known “black armband
view” comment, the event aspires to be a celebration of
mutual recognition between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
The festival’s major theatrical events come
to Brisbane from around the globe. Headlining the event will be
the Contemporary Legend Theatre of Taiwan’s lavish production,
The Kingdom Of Desire. With a cast of 22 actors, 15 musicians,
spectacular stage design, elaborate costuming and incorporating
Chinese opera with intricate dancing and acrobatic fighting, 
The
Kingdom Of Desire fuses traditional Chinese Opera and both
traditional (it’s based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth)
and modern Western theatre. Performed in Mandarin with English
surtitles, The Kingdom Of Desire is exclusive to Brisbane Festival.
The other big-name event is the Australian premiere
of Declan Donnellan’s legendary production of Anton Chekhov’s
Three Sisters. Another Brisbane Festival exclusive, Three
Sisters is Chekhov’s sweeping family saga of three
sisters and a brother living in a small provincial town, dreaming
of a better life in Moscow. This production is performed in Russian
by a stellar Russian ensemble, again with English surtitles.
Modern opera takes centre-stage with The Navigator.
Barrie Kosky, one of the most provocative and adventurous directors
in the world today, directs this production with music by internationally
acclaimed composer Liza Lim and performed by the renowned ELISION
Ensemble.
Another Australian premiere for the 2008 event will
be a new production of Dostoyevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor,
directed by the legendary Peter Brook. The Grand Inquisitor promises
a gripping monologue exploring religious belief, human freedom,
compassion, weakness and the abuse of power.
There’s dance in the form of international
dance sensation Marie Chouinard’s new work bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS.
This powerful contemporary ballet features 10 dancers creating
a spell-binding performance in response to Johann Sebastian Bach’s
Goldberg Variations by using different devices including crutches,
rope, prostheses, and harnesses, which at times liberate their
movements and restrict them at others. The piece was awarded the
Grand Prix du Conseil des Arts in 2007, Canada’s most prestigious
cultural award.
Local
writing steps into the spotlight with the Queensland Theatre Company’s
new play, The August Moon. Combining documentary video,
news footage and live audio recordings, the story revolves around
the death of a resident at the August Moon Caravan Park when Cyclone
Larry hit northern Queensland. The play uncovers an inspiring
tale about the resilience of a local community faced with unbelievable
catastrophe.
In the visual arts, the Brisbane Festival has commissioned
BIG SQUARE EYE; the world premiere of a massive multimedia
artwork that delves into the mind’s eye of young people
from the suburbs of Brisbane and throughout regional Queensland.
The 15 featured artists have been selected from over 150 young
people across Queensland, each receiving intensive mentoring support
by one of five media artists working with the project. BIG
SQUARE EYE crosses generations and geography to present an
hour-long detonation of young language in the moving image.
Brisbane Festival’s 2008 programme also revisits
some of the most popular elements from 2006. The Origin Across
Brisbane programme of community events will take in ten Brisbane
suburbs across the three weekends of the festival. Following its
success in 2006, Origin Across Brisbane presents 10 world-class
events in Brisbane’s suburbs and communities over the three
weekends of Brisbane Festival 2008. Music, dance, new theatre
productions and an intimate long Sunday lunch will fill the parks,
city streets, shopping centres and suburban haunts of Brisbane:
BF08
under the radar (formerly the Brisbane Festival Theatre Fringe)
is also back with a much extended programme that now spans the
entire 16 days of the festival and this year the festival will
also include a series of concerts in people’s backyards,
aptly named Brisbane Backyards.
Brisbane Backyards boldly goes where no other festival
has gone before, taking a giant leap over the fence and into suburban
backyards for a series of backyard parties featuring live music
acts. Through eight intimate events, the Festival aided by local
residents, will celebrate the quintessential Brisbane backyard
‘get-together’.
A major sideline event will be the Courier-Mail
Spiegeltent, which will be in residence at Queens Park in the
central city for 17 days and nights playing host to a kaleidoscope
of music, performances, cabaret and conversation from all around
the globe. Patrons will have the opportunity to dance on the parquet
floor or sit back in one of the intimate booths as the Spiegeltent
transforms itself from an elegant salon into a vibrant cabaret
room, late night dance club, afternoon jazz bar and discussion
forum with some of the festival’s most renowned participants.
Highlights of the Spiegeltent’s 2008 programme
include Parisian band Les Yeux Noirs, London trio the Tiger Lillies
and the world premiere of Feasting On Flesh featuring renowned
actor Billie Brown and music by Gotye; as well as the popular
In Conversation with Lyndon Terracini series that will see him
chatting with Declan Donnellan, Liza Lim, Barrie Kosky and others.
With more than 900 performances over 17 days, the
2008 Brisbane Festival promises to be the largest event to date.
The festival kicks off on Friday 18 July and runs till Sunday
3 August.
.
David Edwards
