Forget Covid, Brisbane Festival is live and local
Launching her second festival program, director Louise Bezzina is encouraging Brisbane people to enjoy their city.
Last year, the Brisbane Festival was the first major arts festival back on the block after the first wave of Covid lockdowns. On Friday, as this year’s festival gets under way with the long-awaited stage premiere of Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe, festival director Louise Bezzina has the distinction of launching two festival programs mid-pandemic.
Few would envy being an arts producer in these uncertain times, but Bezzina is as optimistic as they come. She learned some important lessons last year, but there’s not too much she would change going into her second program. She remains true to her instincts: that the festival should reach out to Brisbane people wherever they are, and that the program be about the exhilaration of live performance, not the half-life of digital streaming.
Her successful Street Serenades series of concerts, delivered to every one of the 190 named suburbs in the City of Brisbane last year, demonstrated that people will respond to a festival when the festival goes to them.
The Street Serenades, which return this year, were a response to the pandemic and a tactic to avoid having large numbers of people descend on the inner city. They also had the benefit, Bezzina says, of introducing about 80,000 people to the festival program.
She says that while she’d prefer to be able to offer the festival to all comers, including interstate visitors, border closures have made a necessary virtue of a program designed for local people.
“We deliver these enormous festivals in highly populated cities, and I think that we’ve still got a long way to go to cultivate a deep sense of connectivity and pride in our city festivals,” she says.
“This is an opportunity to harness that love and ownership of the festival, because we know that once the locals love it, then the rest happens for you. They are our best promoters, the ambassadors for it.
“So as we start to open up, we can use that wonderful, genuine connection that’s been made to spread the word even further about the Brisbane Festival.”
Bezzina’s program again combines in-theatre performing arts with site-specific events, and a festival hub around the South Bank Piazza. Highlights of the performance program include a “space opera” adaptation of Moby Dick by innovative local company Dead Puppet Society, contemporary dance from Dancenorth and the Australasian Dance Collective, and a new knock-em-down cabaret show, Demolition, from Polytoxic. The festival opens with singer David Campbell in concert on the Piazza stage.
But there have been some casualties. Local globetrotting company Circa was forced to cancel Silver City – a new show staged in an enormous chrome inflatable designed by British architect firm ALA – because of Covid-induced delays in fabrication. The local premiere of Bunggul, a concert celebration of Gurrumul’s music, already seen at other festivals, also has been cancelled.
The loss of two big-ticket events is disappointing, but the fact the festival is able to go ahead when, across the border, southeastern Australia is in lockdown, seems a minor miracle. Other major festivals have been hurt by the pandemic. The Sydney Festival in January lost its opening attraction and the midwinter Vivid Sydney festival was postponed and then cancelled. Melbourne’s newest festival, Rising, was put on hold just one day after opening, and Illuminate Adelaide temporarily went dark, again due to Covid lockdowns. Last month’s Bleach festival on the Gold Coast, where Bezzina was the founding director, was cancelled, and new director Rosie Dennis will now present her inaugural program next year.
The Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Brisbane festivals have gone ahead, with modification, thanks to the virus being kept at bay.
Still, the pandemic continues to interfere with Bezzina’s plans. Because of travel restrictions, the $14.6m program has no major international or interstate productions, thrusting the spotlight instead on local artists. Bezzina says she is proud that Brisbane and Queensland artists have risen to the challenge and produced new work without compromise.
Last year, venues were restricted to 30 per cent audience capacity and, to avoid crowds, the festival was not able to widely market its events. That, and the barrier to interstate visitors, substantially downsized the festival’s economic impact, from $46m in 2019, to $14m last year. On the up side, Bezzina says, philanthropic and corporate support have increased since last year, to $720,000 and $1.6m respectively.
Restrictions on seating capacity in venues were lifted last week, meaning festival shows can play to full theatres.
“We are heading in the right direction in terms of rebuilding our income,” Bezzina says.
“I’m hopeful that with a greater capacity this year, a bigger program, and the ability to really communicate, the economic impact will be much greater.”
Bezzina has not been swayed in her belief that the festival is a “live” event to be experienced in person, and not remotely via digital relay. She is aware of recent innovations with hybrid arts presentations – that is, simultaneously live and live-streamed – and with the extended reality technology deployed by music festival Splendour in the Grass with Splendour XR. But she’s not yet convinced. She says she would prefer a digital program to be artist-led, and genuinely engaging for audiences, rather than be content-sharing for its own sake.
“I believe in live performance, I believe in that interactivity,” she says. “I think that without the right (digital) infrastructure in place, it’s really hard to capture a range of experiences. It needs to be thought about from the beginning, and this program wasn’t – it wasn’t set out to be a hybrid-style program.
“But I can see merit in it and I think we are going to need to consider our innovation and creativity if we are to make it a really exciting experience for audience members.”
Bezzina has capitalised on Brisbane’s warm spring climate and the city’s natural features. The Art Boat, a barge with illuminated, inflatable sculptures by Melbourne design team ENESS, will ferry people between the industrial Northshore precinct at Hamilton and South Bank. A bar and live performances will be on board for the journey.
More than ever, Bezzina says, it’s important to signal to the public that there’s a festival happening in the city. Last year, with the avoidance of crowding events, it wasn’t possible to have a festival hub. Now, visitors will be welcomed to the BOQ Festival Garden, with ticketed shows at the South Bank Piazza and free entertainment and food outlets around the precinct. Bezzina says the festival will ensure that Covid safety requirements are followed, including QR codes, social distancing and masks.
She is especially proud of the reception for last year’s Street Serenades, and this year “suburban hosts” have been involved in the organising. Participating artists include pop singers Christine Anu and Montaigne, dancers from the Queensland Ballet, DJs, circus acts, and The Australian’s own Trent Dalton.
“We are putting new shows into community spaces, we’ve opened it up for suburban hosts, so the community has a sense of ownership – they tell us where they want the concert,” Bezzina says. “There’s the ability to track where artists are travelling, and you can follow your favourite artists and go to all of the suburbs across the city where they’re performing.”
As she approaches the opening of her second mid-pandemic festival, Bezzina admits to being on a knife edge.
The program may not be everything she would otherwise wish for, but she has given Brisbane people the opportunity to celebrate their city and their good fortune.
The Brisbane Festival, September 3-25.
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The best bits of the Brisbane Festival
ART BOAT
Airship Orchestra and Sky Castle are inflatable sculptures that light up and change colour, cleverly devised by Melbourne design team ENESS. They will accompany voyagers on the Art Boat, left, a river cruise between the Northshore precinct at Hamilton and the festival hub at South Bank. Boat cruises Thursday to Sunday.
BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE
The adventures of Eli Bell and his brother, August, come to theatrical life in the stage adaptation of Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe. Playwright Tim McGarry and director Sam Strong have transformed Dalton’s tale into a theatrical epic.
Playhouse, QPAC, until October 3.
FORGERY
Six dancers respond to performance instructions delivered to them by artificial intelligence in Forgery, a piece described as crossing the frontier of creative agency. The world premiere for the Australasian Dance Collective is devised by choreographer and coder Alisdair Macindoe.
Cremorne Theatre, QPAC, September 22-October 2.
ISHMAEL
Innovative Brisbane company Dead Puppet Society has been inspired by the seafaring adventure of Moby Dick and the stage possibilities of live-capture technology in its new production, Ishmael. Instead of whales, the MV Pequod’s crew is hunting rogue asteroids in outer space.
Cremorne Theatre, QPAC, September 3-18.
STREET SERENADES
The popular series of suburban concerts returns, with pop-up events taking place across Brisbane. Featured artists include Boy & Bear, Montaigne, Christine Anu, dancers from the Queensland Ballet and Casus Circus. Street Serenades are happening in 190 Brisbane locations.
Check the Brisbane Festival website for details.