10 December 2008
Leta Keens
For his last hurrah with the Sydney Festival, director Fergus Linehan is determined to go out in a blaze of glory.
New Year in Sydney always starts with a bang – and plenty of colour – as fireworks explode over the harbour and the streets are packed with partygoers. Ten days later, the Sydney Festival starts with a bang of a different kind, as Festival First Night explodes through the city centre, closing it down to traffic and transforming its streets and laneways into concert venues. This year, 10 stages from Hyde Park to Angel Place will feature hundreds of musicians, dancers and artists – all scheduled to appear at ticketed events, too – and a quarter of a million people are expected to attend. You might stumble upon Grace Jones, Canadian DJ A-Trak, funk-soul band Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings or, with contemporary dance a focus of this year’s First Night, the accessible and visually striking Chunky Move or Bangarra Dance Theatre. “They talk about art being for everyone,” says festival director Fergus Linehan, who’s putting together his fourth and final Sydney Festival. “This is taking it to its natural conclusion.”
Cockatoo Island, a former prison and shipbuilding centre, will host All Tomorrow’s Parties, curated by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Repeated twice over one weekend, “it’s unlike any other rock festival,” Linehan says. “It will be very dark in lots of ways, but with a program of people you wouldn’t normally see together – acts like Spiritualized, The Necks, Laughing Clowns, The Saints. The idea was set up a few years ago in England as an antidote to big corporate festivals – this is very laid-back, with the emphasis on keeping it small.” Elsewhere, music ranges from indie singer Bon Iver and French chanteuse Camille to Masters Of Tradition, a concert featuring respected Irish traditional artists, and The Swell Season, a collaboration between Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, who were seen in the film Once.
Dublin’s Gate Theatre performs a trio of plays by Brian Friel, whom Linehan describes as “the greatest living playwright”. His writing, he says, “is incredible storytelling with quite dense language. He always plays with the truth and uses language to manipulate the truth.” You will need stamina for the eight-hour journey through Shakespeare’s history plays in The War Of The Roses, produced by the Sydney Theatre Company and featuring Cate Blanchett; and the nine-hour Lipsynch, nine overlapping stories by Canada’s Robert Lepage, performed in English, French, German and Spanish with surtitles.
Parramatta is the epicentre of a series of shows for children, while Darling Harbour is the venue for screenings of cult films with live accompaniment – for example, the British band The Bays will play along to Run Lola Run. The screen and stage will float on the harbour, with viewers either watching from boats or dry land.
Another free highlight, predicts Linehan, will be Jazz In The Domain, which this year features the European collective Gypsy Queens and Kings.
For those who get up early – or go to bed late – there’s a beachside dawn chorus on each Saturday of the festival. “It’s at that time where there’s light in the sky… and none of the animals make any noise. You’ll be able to lie in the sand, hear incredible music and watch the sun come up.”
There are shows with a $25 ticket price that “allows us to be playful and the audience to be playful,” Linehan says. “If they were paying $70, they’d want it to change their lives.”
The Famous Spiegeltent makes a welcome return to Hyde Park and alongside it will be a smaller, 150-seat tent, the Bosco Theater. “We wanted to have a secret venue. Last year, a lot of the artists were asking to do late-night shows after their gigs and we’d have to say no, because we didn’t have anywhere for them. With this, we’ll have a show every night, but won’t announce it until that morning. You can register and we’ll text you what it’s going to be – and first in, best dressed. There could be some very weird combinations of artists or someone incredibly big doing a quiet little show. Who knows?”
A journey of discovery not just for the audience, it seems.
Source: Qantas the Australian Way January 2009