‘I am emotional’: Louise Bezzina on stepping away from her dream role
This year’s Brisbane Festival will be Artistic Director Louise Bezzina’s last. She reveals how she feels about stepping down, and the final farewell she’s planning for the city.
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There’s no knowing the limits of Louise Bezzina’s imagination.
As the artistic director of Brisbane Festival prepares to deliver her sixth and final festival in September, it looks to be her biggest and best yet.
Taking the easy road and rolling out a festival similar to those that have come before it was never going to be Bezzina’s style.
Always looking for the right mix of the new, exciting, bold and inviting, Bezzina’s swan song offers a program packed with spectacular performances, world premieres, visual delights and festival favourites from home and across the globe.
In what has become a signature move, Bezzina, 44, will use large visual cues to bring the urban landscape to life and make sure the city knows it’s festival time. Well beyond billboards, posters and banners flapping in the wind, she brings in striking and unexpected works of art that can be seen from near and far.
In 2020 it was giant finch birds wearing party hats perched atop Brisbane landmarks. In 2021 and 2022, illuminated sculptures cruised up and down the Brisbane River on the Art Boat. Then in 2023 and 2024, over 400 choreographed drones lit up the night skies.
This year the festival’s visual showstopper, Walk This Way, takes form in a public art installation by internationally recognised design duo, Craig & Karl, made up of Craig Redman and Karl Maier.
Originally from Brisbane, the pair met while studying at the Queensland College of Art and are now based in New York and London respectively. Known for their bright and playful designs, Craig & Karl have created giant inflatable artworks that will cover the length of three Brisbane walking bridges for the festival. Those chosen include the city’s newest additions, the Neville Bonner Bridge and Kangaroo Point Bridge, as well as the Goodwill Bridge between them.
Recognising Brisbane’s walking bridges was symbolic of a city moving towards a more connected, sustainable and creative future, Bezzina first had the idea to do something elaborate with them early in her tenure.
“I remember being on the Art Boat in 2021 going under the bridges and looking up and thinking, oh how glorious they would be if they had artworks on them, if they were activated and illuminated in some way that really brought them to life,” she says.
“When Neville Bonner Bridge came online last year, I’d be watching people walking across it for the festival, particularly the drone show, then with the Kangaroo Point Bridge being this wonderful, new, iconic piece of infrastructure in the city, it just felt like the perfect opportunity to utilise them in a creative way.”
Other works by Craig & Karl will be placed around Brisbane for a public art trail and outdoor exhibition titled Rear Vision.
Combined, they will span the CBD, South Bank, Howard Smith Wharves and New Farm, with further works set to take over Brisbane Airport and Westfield Chermside.
“Walking around the city, particularly if you’re being inspired on a public art walking trail, is a magnificent way to experience Brisbane. It allows an opportunity to step out of a vehicle and take in the environment and really explore and be more curious,” Bezzina says.
“I’ve been a fan of Craig & Karl for some time and I’ve always thought they fit the Brisbane Festival aesthetic beautifully, particularly with my curatorial approach having that bright, bold, joyous feeling.”
Bezzina, who was a co-creative lead of the 2018 Commonwealth Games cultural program, admits she was driven to curate a festival this year that looked like the early stages of a cultural Olympiad program ahead of Brisbane 2032.
“It’s about getting a sense of what the city could look like. My point was to show ambition of what could be created, and that’s another reason why I really wanted to lean in on such a big public art project,” she says.
“As the city gains more profile, more visitors are coming to Brisbane and curiosity about the city grows. Where there are these wonderful spectacles of ‘bright and shiny’ that highlight that Brisbane has this fun, fabulous, playful personality, it starts to give people an impression of not just what our city looks like and how glorious it looks during festival time, but it’s a city that really loves art and culture.”
With the Olympics and all the opportunities they present for artists on her mind, Bezzina was also keen to create a connection with Los Angeles ahead of the 2028 Games.
Sure enough, she secured a world premiere and Australian exclusive with none other than the internationally acclaimed LA Dance Project.
Gems is a trilogy of works choreographed by the company’s celebrated artistic director, Benjamin Millepied. He worked on the Oscar-winning film Black Swan with Natalie Portman, who he later married then divorced after 11 years together. The three works will be performed together for the first time at Brisbane Festival.
“I started looking at companies in LA that I was fond of and the LA Dance Project was really at the top of the list for me in terms of dance,” Bezzina says.
In another festival first, the privately owned Twelfth Night Theatre in Bowen Hills has been brought into the fold. A beloved venue for community theatre and small touring productions, she believed it had untapped potential and thought it would be ideal for one of the headliners, Gatsby at the Green Light.
The variety show played a sold-out run at the Sydney Opera House in 2023 and will transform Twelfth Night into a cabaret club inspired by the 1920s world of The Great Gatsby. The second showing at Brisbane Festival coincides with the novel’s 100th year anniversary.
“We’re really excited about building this wonderful relationship with Twelfth Night Theatre. It’s got a sense of nostalgia to it and renovations have been taking place in preparation for the festival,” Bezzina says.
The show’s co-creators, Craig Ilott and Stuart Couzens of Caper and Crow, had been in talks with Brisbane Festival for some time about finding the right space for their immersive production.
“We sampled a few venues but nothing quite felt right, then when Twelfth Night Theatre came into frame, there was something really exciting about it. If our production can help breathe new life into that space, that’s a wonderful thing,” Ilott says.
Bezzina’s final festival also sees the return of homegrown cultural hero and renowned Aboriginal Australian choreographer, Stephen Page. Baleen Moondjan is his first production since leaving his role as artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre in 2023.
It tells a story inspired by Page’s grandmother, a member of the Quandamooka people from Stradbroke Island, about the day a baleen whale comes to shore to take his granny’s spirit away on one final journey. Combining traditional and contemporary dance, music and storytelling, the production is set among towering replica whale bones designed by Page’s long-time collaborator Jacob Nash. It will take place on a floating barge beneath the night sky at Queen’s Wharf.
“I feel I’m the most creative I’ve ever been,” Page, 60, says.
“The older I get the more I feel like I’ve found my creative bush swagger. I feel like I’m at one with my artistry,” he says.
There is all of this and so much more in this year’s Brisbane Festival program including Riverfire, the Brisbane Serenades series of free outdoor concerts, the Skylore drone show, the new Afterglow display of fire sculptures at the City Botanic Gardens, Shake & Stir’s The Lovers, Australasian Dance Collective and the Netherlands’ Club Guy and Roni’s Bad Nature, Belloo Creative’s Back to Bilo, the disability-led Undercover Arts Festival, The Alexander Ball at the Princess Theatre, performances by Kate Miller-Heidke, John Butler and Sarah Blasko, and community programs including 100 Guitars and Community Choir: The Musical.
It’s the biggest Brisbane Festival yet with a total of 106 productions – 39 per cent are free to the public.
Although Bezzina is set to take on the role as artistic director and CEO of Brisbane Powerhouse in October, for now her heart and mind is set on making her last Brisbane Festival an absolute smash-hit.
“I am emotional about leaving Brisbane Festival and there will be a few tears at the end. It’s been such a big part of my life for so long but the opportunity to keep contributing to the cultural life of our wonderful city is something I’m really looking forward to,” she says.
Only time will tell where Bezzina’s imagination will take the city next.
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