Theatre and dance productions showcased at the Subiaco Arts Centre

Hot on the heels of Fringe World and the Perth Festival, Western Australia's latest arts festival, focused on Perth's growing independent theatre sector, is underway at the Subiaco Arts Centre.

Running from 12th March to 12th April with the Arts Centre's Studio, the Independent Theatre Festival is presented by the Subiaco Arts Centre and the Perth Theatre Trust.

The festival features six productions over four weeks, beginning with Classic Works' production of Anne Nelson's The Guys, set in a New York City fire station in the weeks immediately after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in which 343 New York City Fire Department personnel lost their lives.

The five other works in the festival program are Dancers Speak Volumes, choreographed by Linton Aberele, Louise Honeybul and Brooke Leeder; The Standover Man, a magic-realist take on the criminal underworld written and directed by Jessica Messenger; Weeping Spoon Productions' Trampoline; a dance theatre adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid; and the immersive theatre work Crash Course, directed by Nikki Heywood and produced by Performing Lines WA.

Introducing the Festival program, Subiaco Arts Centre General Manager Jessica Davey explained "this initiative has been in the works for about 18 months.

"There's so much independent theatre in WA (and we are) looking for an opportunity to showcase the productions and the creativity (of) the Western Australian theatre sector is coming up with.

"What we've established is that there is a gap between the very new work and the professional work, so this is about trying to engage production companies and performers into taking that next step."

"We really wanted to open [the festival] up to as many different styles of theatre as possible, so we've got a good three straight theatre [productions], we've got an immersive theatre work, which is going to be interesting; and we've got a dance work with a bit of theatre in it, and a theatre work with a bit of dance, so it's really, really diverse."

All of the works in the program have previously been successfully presented at Perth venues such as PICA and The Blue Room Theatre, providing Western Australian theatre makers with the rare and important opportunity to remount and further refine their work.

Speaking to online publication artsHub, Davey added "the biggest point of this whole operation is allowing us to help artists with the next step of their career, so that their works don't go forgotten after so much blood, sweat and tears. That's really important for the independent theatre sector - there's so much new work being made, but not many opportunities to be able to remount it.

"And with the decline of the big stadium acts ... there's been an opening for theatre work, smaller theatre work, because people want to learn over here, and that's what we've giving them the opportunity to do."

The Subiaco Arts Centre is managed by AEG Ogden.

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