Melbourne International Arts Festival acknowledges the
Wurundjeri/Woiwurrung and Boon Wurrung people of the
Kulin Nation on whose country these events take place.
We pay our deepest respects to all Elders—
past, present and emerging.
WELCOME
Last year’s Festival exceeded
all expectations. The people
who were there talked about
experiencing the unforgettable,
and those who missed it said
“well, if you’d said it was going
to be like that, we’d have gone.”
Let me begin by putting aside
my famous humility and self-
deprecating reserve to say
about this year’s Festival:
“It’s going to be like that.”
Festivals are fundamentally
fabulous, and not just for their
alliterative allure.
We may set our clocks by
broadcasts daily, but we set our
calendars by festivals. They are
our yearly wake-up call, and the
perfect celebration of one more
trip around the sun. They are
beacons, calling us together in
the good times and guiding us
to safety in the dark times.
This year’s Melbourne
International Arts Festival—
the third of four in Melbourne
for me—explores three parts
of our lives.
It is a celebration, reminding us
of the brilliance of fire, music,
story and art to amplify our
joy, intensify our relationships
and just fundamentally pump
our tyres.
It is an intervention, a reminder
of the range of stories in the
world that we need to hear
and empathise with, at a time
when stories about borders
and asylum, the safety of
children and the nature of
masculinity and strength are all
in the spotlight.
It is a collaboration between
the city and the rest of the world,
making Melbourne more than
just a rapidly growing physical
city, but one whose culture is
expanding at equal pace.
As an active commissioner and
magnet for great world art, this
Festival proves that we are a city
with skin in the game.
This year’s Festival aims to do all
of this, but with a twist.
Whilst telling compelling
stories, celebrating great artists
and getting frankly giddy on
creativity, we’ve once again put
us, the audience, at the very
centre of everything.
From diving through a coral reef
to barrelling through space in
a planetarium, from dancing
in smoke to walking through
fire, from soaring cathedrals of
sound to the sweat of circus and
boxing rings, this is our most
visceral Festival yet.
In these pages we’ve tried our
damnedest to convey what this
year’s Festival contains, but
it’s fair to say that the distance
between these pages and the
experience is greater than any
festival I’ve been involved with.
As much as we ever read about
what we are going to feel, none
of that matters when our hand
is on the handle about to open
that door, or the houselights go
down and the whole audience
holds their breath.
It almost goes without saying
that we regret things we don’t do
far more than the things we do.
We know that you’ll be as excited
about this Festival as we are, and
that you’ll accidentally spend
far more than you intend to on
tickets, but we also know that the
real thing that you are buying—
memories, conversations,
flashbacks, shared experiences,
the knowledge that you’ll never
see the world the same way
again—is worth it.
October is Melbourne
International Arts Festival.
November is for sleeping.
Enjoy.
Jonathan Holloway
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
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