“Every year we’ve added some things and really created more meaning for it,” says Josephine Ridge, the 11th Artistic Director in the festival’s history. “We’ve created more ways for the public to understand just what’s going on and to understand how important the cultural significance is and the stories behind. We’ve actually also just put up a video on our website that shows a dance that we want the public to learn. So at the conclusion of the cultural business we’ll have a moment where everybody in the ceremony will dance together with everyone from the public watching in Federation Square. That’s something we’ve been working on for the past three years, to really give a greater visibility to the culture of the five clans and to provide a way for others to participate.
“At the conclusion of that we have a wonderful concert, which is going to be a massive jam session. The Deans will be providing the backbone for it all, but then we have this fabulous array of Indigenous and culturally diverse performers that we’re working on with Multicultural Arts Victoria. James Henry has curated all of that, and it’ll be a really high energy way to come out of TANDERRUM and to start the festival.“
Some highlights of the 2015 program include Headlong’s radically staged theatrical production of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece 1984 (alongside auxiliary events such as a live reading of the text in Parliament); a one-night-only performance with Flight Facilities joining forces with 50 classical musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to create a brand new and all-immersive experience of their debut album Down To Earth (of which all 12,000 tickets sold out with two hours); Batsheva Dance Company presenting two works by one of the world’s pre-eminent dance makers Ohad Naharin; and New York Narratives, which will see theatre makers from Performance Space 122 (PS122) in New York and Arts House in Melbourne exploring the history of each of the two cultural capitals in a multi-faceted exchange program.
That’s just scratching the surface of the gargantuan program, which will showcase well over 70 events by artists and companies from countries including Iceland, Faroe Islands, Israel, UK, Mali, USA, China, Sweden, France, Canada and Germany, with eight world premieres, 17 Australian premieres and 15 events exclusive to Melbourne Festival.
For the fourth year, the custom built Foxtel Festival Hub will light up the banks of the Yarra. Hosting performances from the likes of The Field, The Fall, Kiasmos, Rhye, The Basics, Katie Noonan, George Maple, Bombay Royale and Cut Copy DJs. Also serving as a beer and cider bar and an al fresco cafe, the Hub remains the perfect pre and post-show destination.
“We’re also going to have The Spiegeltent down there on the Yarra hosting LIMBO,” says Ridge. “That means there are going to be 1,000 people down there every night. It’s a great social environment where you have the artists and the audience all in together, having a drink and something to eat, enjoying the spectacular views of the city skyline and talking about the shows they’re seeing. It’s such a great energy down there. On Sundays we also have the Visible Music Sessions with Multicultural Art Victoria’s incredibly diverse artists. It’s all free, and they’re great afternoons.”
(Some of) Josephine Ridge’s Picks of the Festival:
OK. It wouldn’t be fair to ask an Artistic Director to talk about every show in the program that they love, but here are a just few of Ridge’s personal highlights.
1984
“It’s as topical now, if not more so, as when it was first published. The production itself is incredibly powerful. It doesn’t let the audience off the hook for a moment, and it doesn’t shy away from any of the issues. You feel that topicality and relevance really strongly, but it’s still very much George Orwell’s 1984.”
NYX
“Obviously I couldn’t have seen this one yet, but the work that Antony Hamilton did with Alisdair Macindoe as part of Dance Massive was phenomenal and deserved all of the accolades that it received. I think it’s really exciting that this is the next work of Antony’s that we’re going to see where he takes it. He’s been working on it for quite a long time so I think it’ll be quite a mature work.”
Courtney Barnett, Jen Cloher, Adalita and Gareth Liddiard perform Patti Smith’s Horses
“It’s going to be a real festival audience – I’m going to love it, it’ll be an audience of cross generations. You’re going to have all of those people who first heard Horses 40 years ago and those who also love artists like Courtney. It’s such a great album, and they’re all such good musicians, all of them. It’s just going to be a really fun night.”
Bronx Gothic
“It’s a work by Okwui Okpokwasili – it’s a monologue about two young teenage girls. It’s about their coming of age, their sexual awakening, their relationship to the world, to each other and trying to make sense of it. Okwui’s created this really intimate environment; the audience actually sit with her inside a curtained space. It’s very clever, it’s beautifully performed, you can’t take your eyes off her.”
32 rue Vandenbranden
“I first saw this show at a festival in Bogotá – in fact it was one of the reasons I went there because I really wanted to see this work, and I wasn’t disappointed. I invited them over immediately and it’s taken until now to get them here. It’s highly choreographed and is a very physical piece. There’s also some wonderful music, from Stravinsky to Pink Floyd.”
The 2015 festival will also mark the final of Josephine Ridge’s three-year reign as Artistic Director. She’ll be succeeded by Jonathan Holloway in 2016. Over the course of her tenure, Ridge has overseen some of the most successful and innovative programming in its history – and will no doubt leave a highly cherished legacy behind in supporting the arts and culture of Melbourne.
“I was away for ten years,” she says of the decade she lived in Sydney before taking up the role as Artistic Director. “I spent some time in Melbourne here and there, but actually living here again? It made me realise what an extraordinary city it is – and how interesting it is in so many different ways, and just how beautiful it is. What I’ve wanted to do was find ways to celebrate that. The response that I’ve been getting ever since first starting seems genuinely enthusiastic. People are engaged. I feel that there really is a sense of excitement and I think that’s a wonderful thing for the festival to do. I feel that if I can leave the festival with people feeling that way about the festival and the city then that’s a really great thing.”
BY TYSON WRAY
