Festival Director: Wesley Enoch
Sydney Festival 2018 was Wesley Enoch's second in the role of Festival Director, and saw a continued strong commitment to Australian and Indigenous work in a program spanning theatre, dance, circus, visual art and music, reaching from Sydney’s CBD to Parramatta. Hyde Park hosted our freaky fun park, the Village Sideshow while the Seidler Salon Series invited audiences to explore the architecture of Harry Seidler & Associates throughout the city.
Large-scale free installation Jurassic Plastic transformed Lower Town Hall into a colourful toy landscape with a serious message about sustainability, and Four Thousand Fish at Barangaroo Reserve allowed us to share the story of fisherwoman Barangaroo.
Our theatre and dance program had a mix of blockbuster international theatre shows and Australian works that showcased homegrown talent, while our music program plucked acts from 13 countries and almost every continent of the world.
Sydney Festival 2019 featured 133 events in 51 venues over 23 days.
ABOUT AN HOUR
Beast
Dan Daw,UK / Australia
Cella
Narelle Benjamin and Paul White, Australia
Fleabag
Dry Write and Soho Theatre, UK
It’s Not For Everyone
acrobat, Australia
Sea Sick
The Theatre Centre, Canada
WHIST
AΦE, UK
Wild Bore
Malthouse Theatre, Australia
World Without Us
Ontroerend Goed, Belgium
BAYALA
Baraya: Sing Up Country
Australia
Free Language Classes
Australia
Out of the Vaults
State Library of New South Wales, Australia
Three-Day Language Classes
Australia
CABARET
Briefs:Close Encounters
Briefs Factory, Australia
Lady Rizo: Red, White and Indigo
USA
Meow Meow’s Pandemonium
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australia
RIOT
THISISPOPBABY, Ireland
CIRCUS
Aerialize Workshops
Australia
Circus Comes to Town
Australia
Circus ndustry Forum
Australia
Flying Trapeze Workshops
Australia
Lab:Exploring New Circus Apparatus
Australia
Lab:Finding New Circus
Australia
Model Citizens
CircusOz, Australia
National Youth Circus Symposium
Australia
COMEDY
Trygve Wakenshaw: Nautilus
New Zealand
DANCE
Tree of Codes
Studio Wayne McGregor and Manchester International Festival, UK
You Animal, You
Force Majeure, Australia
FAMILY
Alice in Wonderland
Michael Sieders Presents, Australia
Join the Dots
Sydney Opera House and Art Museum and Library, Ōta, Japan / Australia
Jurassic Plastic
ArtsPeople, Japan / Australia
LORDS OF STRUT: ABSOLUTE LEGENDS
LORDS OF STRUT and THISISPOPBABY, Ireland
INSTALLATIONS / VISUAL ARTS
52 Artists, 52 Actions
Artspace, Australia
Broken Glass
Moogahlin Performing Arts and Blacktown Arts, Australia
Four Thousand Fish
Australia
In Your Dreams
Australian Centre for Photography and UNSW Galleries, Australia
Katharina Grosse – The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped
A Schwartz Carriageworks Project, Germany
Lisa Reihana Cinemania
New Zealand
Tell –Contemporary Indigenous Photography
Ballara tInternational Foto Biennale, Australia
Warm Ties
Artspace, Australia
Village Sideshow
10 Minute Dance Parties by JOF
JOFMAKESART, Australia
Cake Industries:
Heart of Luna, Crate Expectations, PartyBot
Australia
Ghost Train
Jonnine Standish and Jasmin Tarasin, Australia
Glitterbox
ZIN, Australia
Karaoke Carousel
Australia
Lucas Abela and the Temple of Din
Lucas Abela, Australia
Madame Tulalah’s Magnificent Box
Melinda Hetzel & Co, Australia
Soul of Sydney
Australia
Stuck in the Middle with You
Sydney Dance Company & Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Australia
Village Pools
MUSIC
16 Lovers Lane
Australia
Aldous Harding
New Zealand
AquaSonic
Between Music, Denmark
Bambula – Paul Grabowksy and the Wilfred Brothers
Australia
Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba
Mali
the bomb
Smriti Keshari, Eric Schlosser & Kevin Ford and The Acid, USA / Australia
Emel Mathlouthi with Rahim Alhaj & Karim Wasfi
Tunisia/ Iraq
Emma Donovan and The Putbacks – A Tribute to Ruby Hunter
Australia
Fémina
Argentina
Gotye Presents a Tribute to Jean-Jacques Perrey
Australia
Jlin
USA
Mad Max with live score by Morricone Youth
Morricone Youth, USA
Mission Songs Project – 1957 Palm Island Strike
Jessie Lloyd, Australia
Mount Eerie and Julie Byrne
USA
Night of the Living Dead with live score by Morricone Youth
MorriconeYouth, USA
PussyRiot Theatre – Riot Days
GreenwaveArts, Russia / Belarus
Rembrandt Live
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia
Rhys Chatham’s A Crimson Grail (100 Guitar Orchestra)
USA /Australia
Seidler Salon Series
- DavíðÞór Jónsson, Iceland
- GenevieveLacey, Daniel Yeadon and Neal Peres Da Costa, Australia
- GoldnerString Quartet, Australia
- MaarjaNuut, Estonia
- RahimAlhaj and Karim Wasfi, Iraq
- VoxClamantis, Estonia
Shabaka and the Ancestors
UK / SouthAfrica
Symphony Under The Stars
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australia
Vox Clamantis
Estonia
OPERA
Opera in The Domain
Opera Australia, Australia
PHYSICAL THEATRE
Backbone
Gravity& Other Myths, Australia
Highly Sprung
Legs On The Wall, Australia
TALKS / Q&As
An Evening with Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer, UK
In Conversation with Dan Daw
Sydney Festival & Accessible Arts, Australia
Sydney Morning Herald Q&A with the Artists
- AquaSonic
- Backbone
- BarberShop Chronicles
- PussyRiot Theatre: Riot Days
- TheTown Hall Affair
- TheWider Earth
Talking Dance with Critical Path
- Memoir& Autobiography
- Personal Experience
- State of Play
UTS Big Thinking Forums
- Analogue Body in a Digital World
- Competing Sovereignties
- Consuming the World
The Wooster Group Screening & Conversation
The Wooster Group, USA
THEATRE
Barber Shop Chronicles
Fuel, National Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse, UK
Broken Glass
Moogahlin Performing Arts and Blacktown Arts, Australia
The Daisy Theatre
Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, Canada
Monroe& Associates
The Last Great Hunt, Australia
My Name is Jimi
Queensland Theatre & Belvoir, Australia
My Urrwai
Ghenoa Gela, Performing Lines & Belvoir, Australia
The Town Hall Affair
The Wooster Group, USA
Tribunal
PYT | Fairfield, Australia
The Wider Earth
Queensland Theatre and Dead Puppet Society, Australia
AUSTRALIA DAY
Ferrython
