Subscribing to the ancient Roman view of crowd control, Brett Sheehy, Melbourne International Arts Festival artistic director, brings performance to the people.
It’s lunchtime and Brett Sheehy has just dropped his overnight bag on the floor of a friend’s apartment in Sydney’s Darlinghurst. No time for a proper meal, he tucks into a pie (with salsa sauce) and talks until he’s hoarse about the biggest passion of his life: bringing world-class art to the masses.
Sheehy, 50, is the artistic director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. His charm, intelligence and fierce work ethic (“I’m hyperactive”) have made him one of the most astute arts festival directors in the world – and with four Sydney festivals and two Adelaide festivals already under his belt, he’s also one of the most experienced.
Each year he travels the world searching for the best dance, opera, theatre, music and visual art to bring back to Australia. “I travel for five weeks at a time and I see a show every single night, and in the day I’ll see one or two art exhibitions, as well. My job is 24/7, but I’ve never minded that; it’s the best job in the world.”
Debuts are Sheehy’s forte: artworks and performing arts companies never seen in Australia before. “It quadruples the risk because it means the audiences aren’t familiar with them and I don’t know if they will feel what I felt when I saw them.
“So much of my job is communicating art to the audience. I’m very honest about the works. Some of them are difficult and not about entertainment at all. But I guarantee that everything I’ve chosen will be challenging, original – sometimes shocking – and inspiring, as all art should be.”
This year’s festival includes “thrilling” dance and opera from Germany, French street theatre performed 40 metres in the air, experimental visual arts, a marathon 16-hour performance of the complete organ works of JS Bach, and a nightly party with some of the best bands and DJs in the world.
Sheehy says the toughest thing about the job is seeing the work through the fresh eyes of a potential audience. “I always try to sit in the audience and imagine how my mum and dad would feel watching the show, someone in the suburbs, or one of my mentors. If I think it will move them, I grab it.”
Melbourne is the perfect city for a festival, he says, because the arts precinct has 44 mainstream venues in one square kilometre. He loves Sydney for its “velocity of life” and Adelaide for its deep commitment to its arts festival, “but Melbourne is the only city in Australia where every man and woman in the suburbs, whether they are arts-goers or not, will say culture is an important part of the city. I know, because I ask taxi drivers.”
He travels very light – “I never take a book or a laptop on the plane, I watch movies or close my eyes and listen to music.
“I find travel inspiring. It restores your faith in humanity. Everyone is after love and happiness, and that’s reaffirmed in city after city, country after country. No matter how different a culture is, all the artists are trying to say the same: that the human condition is a pretty wonderful thing.”
Festival highlights
Music: 13 Most Beautiful… by Dean & Britta (USA).
Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot hundreds of 16mm screen tests of the young and gorgeous – some famous (Lou Reed, Nico, Dennis Hopper), others anonymous – that were designed to be projected in dreamy slow-motion. Dean & Britta, formerly of cult American indie band Luna, bring these silent images alive with ’60s-flavoured songs.
Classical music: Bach Marathon by Calvin Bowman (Australia).
The internationally lauded organist performs JS Bach’s entire repertoire for the organ on one of the world’s largest and most impressive instruments, the 6024-pipe Melbourne Town Hall Organ.
Visual art: Leonardo’s Last Supper by Peter Greenaway (UK).
Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper will come to life as acclaimed British film director Peter Greenaway (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover) works his visual magic on a perfect replica of the 510-year-old painting using poetry, music and avant-garde cinema technology.
Dance theatre: Le Salon by Peeping Tom (Belgium).
From the vanguard of the European performance scene, Belgium’s Peeping Tom charts the physical, mental and financial decline of a once-affluent and influential family. A story steeped in misfortune, but told with humour and grace.
Theatre: Pornography by Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg (Germany).
Written by British playwright Simon Stephens, Pornography is a snapshot of London as it crashes from the euphoric high of gaining the 2012 Olympic Games to the horror of the “7/7” terrorist attacks. One city, one day, seven stories.
The Melbourne International Arts Festival runs October 9-24.
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