Fireworks will signal beginning of Brisbane Festival
Brisbane will be transformed from rooftops to river when the most ambitious Brisbane Festival yet launches this year.
Brisbane Festival
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Brisbane Festival will light up the City from the river to the rooftops this year.
The festival is on from September 2 to 24 with more than 580 performances, 230 of which are free.
It’s artistic director Louise Bezzina’s third and most ambitious festival to date, and she will be unveiling the program on Tuesday, with tickets going on sale Wednesday.
She was hampered by Covid-19 for her first two but now things are loosening up she wants everybody to know that her festival is on again.
So on Saturday, September 3, the second night of the festival, Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust will announce it has begun with a bang – five barges, two bridges, eight buildings all going off with six tonnes of fireworks.
“I am very excited that we now have Riverfire opening the festival,” Bezzina says.
“It’s such a great way to let everyone know that Brisbane Festival is happening.
“Nobody can miss it.”
In actual fact the festival kicks off the night before with an embarrassment of riches – the maiden voyage of Brisbane’s Art Boat for 2022 designed by superstar artist Lindy Lee this year with a cosmic theme of The Spheres.
There will also be the premiere of Dead Puppet Society’s collaboration with Sydney company Legs on the Wall – Holding Achilles, a new take on the story of Achilles and ancient Troy, the opening of the BOQ Festival Garden at South Bank, a festival hub and Camerata with Lior: Compassion.
And then The Courier-Mail presents the opening night concert featuring Jessica Mauboy in the South Bank Piazza.
Bezzina has just returned from a trip to Paris, London and Venice scouting international acts for next year but she can’t reveal anything about that yet ...or she’d have to kill us.
She stresses that the accent is still on local talent to a large degree.
Two years of the pandemic meant she mined the rich ore of Queensland talent for two festivals delivered against the odds when the rest of the arts world remained locked down.
“I think the whole world has changed in terms of their perspective in programming now that we are back out in the world,” Bezzina says.
“The energy of local artists remains and we will continue to showcase locals.”
This year there will be a world premiere of Cirque O L I O, an all ages magic, circus and dance spectacular and there will be a plethora of local talent on show including in Brisbane Serenades, which spreads out across the city in community venues.
That event started out as Street Serenades, a community outreach program that involved the festival going to every one of Brisbane’s 190 suburbs during Covid-19 in guerrilla-style pop-up events that came and went quickly due to restrictions.
Bezzina says there is increased national programming this year.
“There’s Sunshine Supergirl, a play about Yvonne Goolagong and Manifesto, an amazing dance piece by the Stephanie Lake Company,” she says.
“Even Brisbane Serenades will have a more national flavour this year with more artists from interstate.”
The hit Australian production of Girl From the North Country, starring Lisa McCune and featuring the music of Bob Dylan, will also be part of the festival this year, and Dancenorth from Townsville, which had a huge festival hit with RED last year, will be back with a new work entitled Wayfinder.
There are also some international works, including a spacey installation at West Village at West End entitled The Planet Series by UK artist Luke Gerrand, and UK Theatre Company Rhum and Clay presenting Italian playwright Dario Fo’s Mistero Buffo, a play about a Deliveroo driver.
Festivalgoers will also be pleased to know that Strut & Fret is back with Blanc de Blanc Encore in the spiegeltent at North Shore Hamilton, and at South Bank Piazza with an adults-only late-night show called The Purple Rabbit.
The festival will be going from the river to the rooftops, with a unique closing weekend series of artistic happenings entitled Raise the Roof, which will be held on rooftop venues around town featuring local performers and artists including Michael Zavros who has explored his heritage with a saucy Greek experience for the Lina Rooftop, South Brisbane.
It will be entitled Dionysus Redux Utopia, and will transform that particular rooftop into a “hedonistic acropolis”.
Only at the Brisbane Festival, right?
After the official program launch on Tuesday night, tickets will go on sale on Wednesday at 9am
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