Sydney Festival serves up 23 days of art, culture and creativity

Sydney is alive with creativity as more than 40 venues help to transform the city into an artistic playground for the Sydney Festival.

Sydneysiders, you’re about to be spoiled. The arts are taking over the city for the next 23 days, as the Sydney Festival opens Saturday for its 49th iteration.

More than 40 venues will host a variety of artistic endeavours from some of the best artists the world has to offer, with vibrant acts that aim to deliver an “exhilarating summer of art”, including one that flips farm life on its head.

Festival director Olivia Ansell said the festival had become a way for people to “rediscover their city”.

“Everyone wants a piece of that interesting project that can really reflect the unique personality of the city,” she said.

Performers from Animal by Cirque Alfonse performing tricks at Dawes Point. The show will be at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatres until January 12. Picture: Julian Andrews

Mrs Ansell said the festival will give audiences a taste of what Sydney really has to offer, from plays in Darlinghurst Court House to Telly Tuita’s colourful “Tongpop” precinct takeover.

“We transform the city’s architecture and give you this exhilarating cultural experience,” she said.

The must-see act this season is Cirque Alfonse.

Hailing from Quebec, Canada, the family present an authentic, surrealist circus experience, inviting the audience to their family farm, experiencing the act as if they were a part of it.

“It’s a part of the show to bring the audiences with us,” performer Antoine Carabinier Lepine said.

“We’re doing … music, to dancing, we do the acrobats and we sing.”

Using normal farming tools as props, and maybe featuring wheelies on a tractor, their strange Quebecian sense of humour is said to leave audiences in stitches.

The Sydney Festival runs from January 4 to 26, sydneyfestival.org.au