Full 2021 Adelaide Festival program released
Artistic directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy’s full 2021 Adelaide Festival program includes four shows which will be live-streamed from venues in Europe for one performance only.
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Four performances streamed live from Europe, hit teen musical Fangirls and a one-woman play by veteran actor Robyn Nevin are among highlights of the 2021 Adelaide Festival program.
Eugene Onegin by Russia’s Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre, Medea by the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, BLKDOG by UK choreographer Botis Seva and a recital by Russian-German pianist Igor Levit will be performed live in the European mornings and streamed direct to evening audiences at Her Majesty’s Theatre.
Choral epic A Child of Our Time, Sydney Dance Company’s new work Impermanence and a retrospective of Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil’s film work also feature in artistic directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy’s fifth Festival program, which runs from February 26 to March 14.
The program includes 70 events, 10 world premieres, 14 Australian premieres and 18 events exclusive to Adelaide.
However, the largely Australian live line-up will have reduced COVID-safe capacities of 50 per cent at most venues, with chequerboard seating.
“The connection forged between performer and audience, and indeed audiences witnessing human creativity together, is a primal experience,” Armfield and Healy said in their launch statement.
“We are longing to bring it back to everyone’s lives.”
Other highlights are internationally acclaimed Adelaide physical company Gravity & Other Myths’ new show The Pulse, which will bring together all 30 acrobats from its three troupes for the first time, and a free concert by Jessica Mauboy at Adelaide Oval on February 27.
Robyn Nevin will perform A German Life, based on the documentary about Brunhilde Pomsel who was secretary to Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister for Nazi Germany during World War II.
Australian flautist Sally Walker will also curate a series of 1:1 Concerts, described as being like a “blind date” between a single musician and a single listener in a unique location.
There will also be a recital by New York countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, who will be here to star in Armfield’s opera production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Other previously announced shows include Slingsby and State Theatre’s co-presentation The Boy Who Talked to Dogs, Australian Dance Theatre’s Supernature and the Art Gallery’s exhibition Clarice Beckett: The Present Moment.
The full program and tickets are available at adelaidefestival.com.au
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