Perth Festival releases 2020 program

To be deliverd "on a bedrock of Indigenous culture", the Perth Festival 2020 is looking to welcome "everyone to a glorious summer celebration of people and place".

Perth festival has launched their 2020 program that will see more than 250 events across theatre, music, dance, opera, film, visual arts and literature and ideas, entertain audiences from 7th February to 1st March.

Artists include Mavis Staples, Neil Gaiman, Meow Meow, Rufus Wainwright, Kate Tempest, Bryony Kimmings, Paul Kelly, Garrick Ohlsson, Michael Keegan-Dolan and new Festival commissions that celebrate such diverse figures as Gurrumul, Philip Glass, Beethoven and Bon Scott.

Beginning with the Festival theme of Karla, a Noongar term meaning fire and by extension country and home, new Artistic Director Iain Grandage’s four annual programs on Noongar Boodjar will capture an ever‐expanding orbit of stories from the local to the global.

Grandage advises “Perth Festival 2020 will be a huge, euphoric celebration of Perth, Western Australia - it’s my hometown and I love it. We introduce a sparkling new Festival hub, City of Lights including our new contemporary music venue Chevron Lighthouse, welcome the return of the much-loved Chamber Music Weekend and premiere exciting new works made especially for you by talented local artists working with artists from across the country and around the world.

“Our Festival is a campfire for sharing stories and inviting belonging. In celebrating place, and the depth and range of Australian indigenous culture, our entire first week is dedicated to First Nations performances.

“This is a first for any major Australian international arts festival and a celebration of Australia’s unique voice in the world.”

In a landmark event, Perth’s Yirra Yaakin Theatre presents the world’s first Noongar-language play, Hecate, an adaptation of Macbeth by writer-director and Perth Festival Associate Artist Kylie Bracknell (Kaarljilba Kaardn).

Other 2020 highlights include Bangarra Dance Theatre’s ravishingly beautiful Bennelong, the Yolŋu cultural spectacular Buŋgul, Circa’s renowned ensemble joining 18 local performers in the world-premiere circus event Leviathan and the Australian-exclusive international hits Tao of Glass, by Philip Glass and Phelim McDermott, and MÁM, Michael Keegan-Dolan’s follow-up to his 2019 Perth Festival smash Swan Lake.

10 kilometres of the Canning Highway will see the free Festival finale Highway to Hell celebrate Perth’s connection to legendary rocker Bon Scott on 1st March over the Labour Day long weekend.

Perth Festival is proud to offer this wonderfully vast program, which has something for everyone in 2020.

Image: Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Bennelong. Credit Daniel Boud