Celebrating 40 years of Melbourne Fringe Festival: ‘Access to art and culture is a human right’

Its boundary-pushing, norm-defying creativity and commitment to cultural democracy – centred on empowering all individuals to realise their right to creative expression – is what makes the Melbourne Fringe Festival the defining independent arts festival of our city.

“At Melbourne Fringe, we believe that access to art and culture is a human right, and we really dedicate ourselves to supporting anyone to express themselves,” says Simon Abrahams, Creative Director and CEO of Melbourne Fringe. “I see my job as helping Melbourne express itself and that is something I’m deeply passionate about.”

Melbourne Fringe Festival 2022 dates and locations

• Melbourne’s beloved independent arts festival turns 40
• It will be the first in-person Fringe Festival in three years
• It runs from 6 – 23 October 2022 in venues across the city, with bases at Trades Hall and Queen Victoria Market

Explore Melbourne’s latest art events, exhibitions and performances here.

10 weird and wonderful shows to see at Melbourne Fringe Festival 2022

Alongside their impressive open-access Fringe Festival, Melbourne Fringe runs the year-round venue Fringe Common Rooms and arts sector leadership programs.

“I think about the venues of this Trades Hall building, which is about solidarity, social change and fighting for justice – I think they’re things that the Fringe really believe in,” says Abrahams. “We’re really passionate about First Nations artists, deaf and disabled artists, really changing the hierarchy and fighting for cultural equity. I’m inspired every day by thinking about how to make a festival in this city, how to amplify voices from the margins and how to work with Melbourne’s incredible artists to make something that has real impact on this city.”

Reflecting on 40 years of Melbourne Fringe inspired this year’s festival theme of time and envisioning its future. “We’re thinking about the past in order to write our future,” says Abrahams. “We’re thinking about what kind of world we want to create. We haven’t had a festival since 2019 in person, so it’s about time that we’re back. It’s about time that we brought people back to the city. It’s about time for social change and we learned a lot through the pandemic. It’s about time for Treaty.

What to see at Melbourne Fringe Festival 2022

“There’s a work called IT-ME TIME Traveller, which is a work by Betty Apple – part of our Fringe Focus Taiwan program – that explores time, and she plays this kind of time-traveller from the future. There are lots of ways that this program explores time both literally through events and shows in the festival and also thematically through this idea of social change and thinking about the future and climate change.

There’s Pendulum, which is a contemporary dance work by Lucy Guerin and Groundswell by Matthias Schack-Arnott. And we have works like Radial, a new work by Back to Back Theatre that will explore the history and future of the Fringe.”

The Rest Is Up To You: Melbourne Fringe 1982-2062 is an interactive and immersive exhibition that will be held at the State Library, which reflects on the past 40 years and invites artists and audiences to share their vision of Melbourne Fringe for the next 40 years.

Melbourne Fringe Parade and Street Party returns

Most excitingly, the Melbourne Fringe Parade and Street Party will return to Lygon Street after a 21-year hiatus.

“I felt we couldn’t celebrate this enormous milestone without including the parade, which was an iconic central plank of the festival’s programming for so many years in the 80s and 90s,” Abrahams enthuses. “I’ve been wanting to bring it back and I felt this was the moment. It’s a march for the arts. It’s an opportunity for our community to come together to say to this city that art matters and that creativity matters, and we’re asking people to show up and march, and celebrate and be part of that process.”

Supporting artistic expression in all its forms from cabaret and drag, acrobatics, absurdist comedy and satire to experimental dance, installation art, spoken word, music, visual arts and film, the impressive program will feature over 400 shows.

“Diversity and inclusivity are so central and vital to our vision for Melbourne Fringe and to representing the arts and artists in Victoria,” says Abrahams. “We’re so proud that Melbourne Fringe is such a diverse festival and that it represents our community so well and we want the diversity of our audiences to join our incredibly diverse artist line-up as well. We hope that everyone can see themselves on stage at Melbourne Fringe.”

Deadly Fringe and Yalinguth

The Fringe Festival has commissioned the brilliant Deadly Fringe First Nations program since 2017. “Deadly Fringe is our game-changing First Nations artist and producer support program and there are a number of new commissions this year – Yalinguth Live is a major First Nations work featuring incredible elders like Kutcha Edwards and Bart Willoughby – who performed at the Fringe in the 90s – and it’s an immersive walking tour in real life and using augmented reality, where audiences walk down Gertrude Street to get an understanding of historical Aboriginal Melbourne with some extraordinary performances.

“And at the other end of that, we have works from artists like Stone Motherless Cold who is an amazing First Nations drag queen and she’s created a work, which is about queer black futurism, so thinking about what our world might look like via a black lens.

“We’ve got Brodie Murray who’s an amazing young playwright with a new work called The Whisper that’s based on Brodie’s grandmother’s story. And a work called Minyerra, which is a new live music event by Neil Morris who often goes by the moniker DRMNGNOW. It’s the biggest ever First Nations program by an absolute mile – we’re really excited.”

Radical Access

The exciting program Radical Access is Fringe’s new arts sector leadership program for Deaf and Disabled artists. “Radical Access is really looking to radically shift the role of disabled artists in the independent arts,” says Abrahams, proudly.

“We’ve got two bold new commissions this year. One is Raina Peterson who’s an amazing queer disabled Indian dancer and storyteller, and that will be at Temperance Hall. And there’s another work called If Our Bodies Could Talk, which is a work about disability, the body and memory. It will be performed at the National Gallery at the Great Hall and that’s Eliza Hull who is an incredible disabled musician and Roya The Destroya who’s a really brilliant circus artist and they come together to create this work.”

Fringe Festival shows for kids

As a foster carer, it was particularly important to Abrahams to include a children’s program at the Fringe Festival. “Working in a children’s program is an enormous passion of mine,” says Abrahams.

“I really believe very deeply in the role of young children and young people as central to our culture. I believe that children have extraordinary viewpoints and they’re not just our future, they’re also our present with extraordinary ideas and thoughts to share, so I’m always interested in quality programming, contemporary programming and creating brilliant work for children that talks about our world right now.

“I’m really excited by some of the children’s programming by works like Kidstruments, which is a collaboration with the Jazz Festival that sees children’s custom-designed instruments played by jazz musicians, and by works like Pram People, which is commissioned through Polyglot Theatre that is about community participation and creating an immersive colour spectacle using prams and pram users.

“There’s work like Threads, which will be a beautiful participatory experience of art play, and Saltbush, which is an amazing immersive First Nations work that’s been touring for a long time and we finally got it for Melbourne Fringe, so super exciting.”

The sheer diversity of the program

From food and pop culture to politics, futurism and mental health, artists at this year’s Fringe are tackling an incredible variety of subjects. “There’s a work called Live Leisure Yabby Fishing Restaurant by Long Prawn who are a company that explores the intersections between art and food,” Abrahams enthuses, “and it takes place at Collingwood Yards where you get to fish for yabbies while art happens around you, then you get to pass this yabby to a chef who will cook it for you and you get to eat it straight away.

“There’s a work called Dynasty: Drag & Dumplings, which is a drag cabaret show with vegan dumplings fed to you throughout the night. There’s Loafaoke where you sing karaoke, but the only songs are Meatloaf. Benn Bennett, Sarah Ward and Bec Matthews do an event called Up Late with Kate, which looks at the rise of Kate Bush. There’s a number of quite political works, including The Briefing and satirical comedy Dear Donald/Dear Hillary (Their Secret Correspondence).

“We’ve had a huge rise in the numbers of non-binary, gender-fluid and trans artists in our festival, which is amazing, and we’ve worked really hard to achieve as well. Some of the most interesting trans and gender-diverse artists are Miss Cairo, a show called T4T – A Transgender Showcase and Shapeshifting, which is a trans choir who will be performing at the Pride Centre.

“It’s been such a tough time the last couple of years and I think it’s really great that some of our artists are so brave in sharing their stories and using this as a great opportunity to talk about their own experiences,” Abrahams reflects.

“There’s shows like Naomi, which is the artist Patrick Livesey talking about their mother’s death by suicide. It’s a really thoughtful, considered and beautiful exploration of that. And there’s works like I Survived The Psych Ward Party, which analyses our mental health system and explores that lived experience. There are a number of works that explore that notion of personal storytelling and using people’s own experiences to channel that through the arts.”

Melbourne Fringe Festival major performances

The full program is available via the Melbourne Fringe website. Joining the recently announced  Fringe Parade & Lygon St Block Party (Saturday October 15) and the Runaway Festival Park headliner, Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett is a selection of featured events and programs:

• The Rest Is Up to You: Melbourne Fringe 1982-2062 (6 October 2022 – July 2023) – a major new, free exhibition and sound installation at the State Library of Victoria reflecting on the previous 40 years of the Melbourne Fringe Festival and imagining its next 40 years.
• Groundswell (Matthias Schack-Arnott) (6 – 23 October) – an innovative, enormous percussive rain drum installed on the forecourt of the State Library that can be played by the people of Melbourne by walking upon its vast surface. This free immersive installation explores people’s joint efforts to address climate change that is as sonically beautiful as it is visually arresting.
• Runaway Festival Park (6 – 30 October) – This ‘art park’ will the home of spectacular cabaret, laugh-out-loud comedy, new and experimental circus, and the very best in for-kids-only entertainment, right in the heart of the Queen Victoria Market at the new location of Testing Grounds. Headlined by international cabaret sensation- Bernie Dieter, the site includes two beautiful venues – the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent and the Headfirst Acrobats Vault performance dome.
• Pendulum (Lucy Guerin Inc and Matthias Schack-Arnott) (7– 23 October) – a site-specific, contemporary dance event and spectacular meditation on time coming to the Docklands with amazing views and unforgettable art. Dancers move in sync with a field of suspended bells in a dance performance installation that will transform the Docklands’ unique open-air Shed 21.
• So Soiree Garden (6–30 October) – our south side entertainment destination! A vibrant hub embedded in the beautiful Grattan Gardens and featuring eight days of performances across comedy, cabaret and circus, featuring Garry Starr, Granny Bingo, Hot Department, Michelle Brasier and more.
• Radial (Back to Back Theatre) (23 October) – a new short film, shot on the streets of Prahran on a circular camera track showing 40 years of the Fringe community in motion. It will be created, recorded and edited entirely during this year’s Festival and premiere at a special screening at the Jam Factory alongside a retrospective of Back to Back’s work on film.
• Town Choir (Theatre Replacement) (22 October) – in this free, live outdoor music event three local contemporary writers pen their thoughts, which are then sung, unedited, in perfect four-part harmony by a mass choir of 200 people in a spectacular performance at Prahran Square.
• Deadly Fringe – Melbourne Fringe’s First Nations program features brand-new works by senior and established First Nations artists including: Yalinguth Live (8 October), an immersive art event along Gertrude Street exploring Aboriginal Fitzroy’s extraordinary history through music and talks (Produced by Jason Timaru and featuring Kutcha Edwards, Bart Willoughby and local Elders); and a group exhibition exploring Blak queer futurism led by emerging artist Stone Motherless Cold, A Rainbow of Tomorrows (8 October – 12 November)
• Radical Access – Fringe’s brand-new sector leadership program for Deaf and Disabled artists and arts workers featuring two extraordinary new commissioned works including: If Our Bodies Could Talk (6 October) by roya the destroya and Eliza Hull at the Great Hall at NGV and Temperance Hall Present Raina Peterson (19 – 22 October).
• XS – a program of experimental, contemporary and live art for children. Featuring the world premiere of Pram People (22 – 23 October), a major new work by Polyglot Theatre, alongside Kidstruments Live (16 October) by Playable Streets and presented in partnership with the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Threads (15 – 16 October) and two brand new works created for children by the creators of the smash hits YUMMY and Reckoning.
• Fringe Focus Taiwan – features two extraordinary works from Taiwan’s most compelling contemporary artists. Betty Apple presents IT ME TIME TRAVELLER (13 – 15 October), a rave by a mermaid from the future and withMachine Folklore (14 – 15 October), Software2050 and NAXS FUTURE create an immersive, hypnotic audio-visual performance experience using artificial intelligence at The Substation.
• Springboard – a remarkable series of experimental and innovative new circus works that have been in development for three years.
• HEXADECA (Pulsing Heart) (14 – 23 October) – a new free participatory public artwork in the heart of Fed Square invites you to play one of 16 spinning musical bucket seats that creates an unusual participatory musical playground.
• Design Fringe (17 September – 18 October) – the evolution of Fringe’s 36-year-old iconic Fringe Furniture program. The program features an exhibition across Linden New Art and Carlisle Street Art Space and includes a public program of talks, keynote events and designer in residence program.
• Festival Hub and Club Fringe (6 – 23 October) – Fringe’s beloved late-night Festival Hub and Club is back and transforms Trades Hall with over 100 performances in 10 different venues from some of Australia’s most boundary pushing artists. 6 October is Melbourne Fringe’s enormous opening night 40th birthday party, with the dress code “Fringe Fashion 2062”.
• Open Access Program with over 400 events from 2,000+ independent artists with highlights including:
  • Live Leisure Yabby Fishing Restaurant (Long Prawn) (21–22 October) A live yabby fishing and eating experience. Tickets grant an hour of fishing where you will be able to catch yabbies, then pass them to a chef to dispatch ethically and then be cooked.
  • Grand Theft Theatre (Pony Cam and David Williams) (13–23 October) – an experimental theatre highlight from the Festival. Six theatre makers will recreate re-examine and re-perform 12 iconic moments from performance history.
  • Loafaoke (Lucy Best and Nicky Barry) (9, 16 and 23 October) A ridiculous Meatloaf-themed communal karaoke session.
  • Crystal Touch (Deep Soulful Sweats) (16 October) A four-hour participatory line dance marathon at Coburg RSL.
  • Gina The Synth Cat (Luke Million) (20-22 October) Luke Million, multidisciplinary artist and Tik Tok sensation brings his synthesisers and drum machines for a feline journey around space.
  • Dynasty: Drag & Dumplings (Worship Queer Collective) (21 October) A fabulous queer Asian cast brings Old Shanghai cabaret to life in this drag and dine show featuring handmade vegan yum cha delicacies.
  • Performance highlights from artists including Jude Perl, Kween Kong, Andrew Hansen (The Chaser), Vidya Rajan, Jordan Barr, Lou Wall, Geraldine Quinn, Sarah Ward and more.

Melbourne Fringe Festival runs from October 6-23. For more information, visit https://melbournefringe.com.au/.