Perth Festival launches 2018 Program

This summer, the 2018 Perth Festival invites you to see art in a different light and revel in a feast of captivating experiences to suit every taste and budget. The Festival welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors from February 9 to March 4 as more than 700 of the planet’s best and brightest artists and entertainers descend on Perth for one of the world’s most magnificent multi-arts celebrations.

From the free opening event that heralds the rise and fall of the sun along St. George’s Terrace to the soul-explosion finale at Elizabeth Quay, the festive spirit promises to arouse all the senses across 24 glorious summer days and nights.

Celebrating 65 years as Australia’s oldest arts festival, the third annual program recently announced by Artistic Director Wendy Martin again promises to be an essential Perth summer experience.

Living up to its reputation for diversity and excellence, the 2018 Festival includes nine Australian exclusives, two world premieres, five Australian season premieres, two commissions and a dizzying array of more than 230 music, theatre, dance, literature, film and visual art events – many of them free.

“For 65 years, Perth Festival has been at the heart of our city,” says Martin. “In this singular and remote place on the edge of Australia, we welcome the innovative and visionary artists who bring their dreams and their endless capacity to surprise, entertain and provoke us.”

The 2018 Dance Program invites some of the world’s most brilliant choreographers and dancers to Perth. From Taiwan’s award-winning U-Theatre explodes Beyond Time, a glorious mix of martial arts, dance, thundering taiko drums, music and multi-media. Created from a 50-day walking meditation across Taiwan, this Australian exclusive is a timeless journey into the awe-inspiring moments in life. 

Vessel is an extraordinary new work from in-demand Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet and renowned Japanese sculptor Kohei Nawa, which wows as seven dancers test the limits of human movement on a stage flooded with water. With a score by composer Ryuchi Sakamoto and Marikho Nara, Vessel was hailed a masterpiece at its Japanese premiere in January and has its first international outing in Perth before a European tour.

Britain’s wild child of dance Michael Clark and his award-winning company make their Perth debut with the Olivier Award-nominated to a simple, rock’n’roll … song, a potent dance and music cocktail set to a stunning soundtrack by Erik Satie, Patti Smith and David Bowie.

Australian dance luminaries Lucy Guerin, Gideon Obarzanek and Dancenorth form a dream team with Indonesia’s powerhouse music duo Senyawa to create Attractor, a trance-dance odyssey that invites audience members on stage to share a ritual of ecstatic abandonment.

Direct from war-torn Syria’s Umayyad Mosque comes the Australian exclusive of White Spirit, a profound sensory and spiritual experience in which Sufi music and mysticism collides with Tunisian street art. Led by the stirring voice of Noureddine Khourchid, seven religious singers perform exquisite invocations as three Whirling Dervishes of Damascus hypnotically spin on a stage made thrillingly vivid through the live illuminated calligraphy of Tunisian street artist Shoof. 

The West Australian Ballet returns with its much-loved Ballet at The Quarry to present the world premiere of Milky Way, a groundbreaking collaboration with Gary Lang NT Dance Company and opera artist Deborah Cheetham that retells Lang’s mother’s Yolngu Milky Way creation story.

For more information, visit www.perthfestival.com.au. Tickets are now on sale to the general public.

Photo (top): Beyond Time. Photo by U-Theatre. Photo (left): Vessel. Photo courtesy of Perth Festival. Photo (right): White Spirit. Photo by Cyril Zannettacci.