Sydney Festival 2018 announces full program

The annual cultural celebration Sydney Festival returns to transform the city on January 6-28, 2018. It seeks to deliver the highest quality art and to experiment with some big ideas.

Festival Director Wesley Enoch follows his inaugural year with a continued strong commitment to Australian and Indigenous work in a program spanning dance, theatre, circus, visual art and music, reaching from Sydney’s CBD to Parramatta.

Dance highlights include:

– Contemporary ballet Tree of Codes, a unique collaboration between choreographer Wayne McGregor, artist Olafur Eliasson and musician Jamie xx (January 6-10)

– Force Majeure’s taboo-busting new work You Animal, You. A provocative new dance theatre work inspired by smell and directed by Danielle Micich (January 5-8)

– An intimate and hyper-theatrical performance entitled Beast from disabled performer Dan Daw. Collaborators include choreographer Martin Forsberg, designer Jenny Nordberg and lighting designer Guy Hoare (January 16-19)

– Contemporary dancers Narelle Benjamin and Paul White’s Cella. The duo moves through a series of varied patterns, uniting to discover the natural symmetry in us and around us (January 18-21)

– Sydney Dance Company and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image present Stuck In The Middle With You. Virtual reality, dance, documentary and narrative storytelling collide in this presentation (January 5-28)

– “Talking Dance” sessions featuring conversations with connected dance and theatre makers (January 14, 21 and 22 at Carriageworks)

Overall, Sydney Festival 2018 comprises 136 events, 47 of which are free. 702 performances take place across 51 venues, featuring over 700 artists from 22 countries. With 12 world premieres, eight Australian premieres, 14 Australian exclusives and nine new Australian works, summer in Sydney is not to be missed. Visit www.sydneyfestival.org.au for more information.

Photo: Tree of Codes at Manchester International Festival 2015. Photo by Ravi Deepres.