The next Director was Clifford Hocking ( 1997 ), a complete shift from the flamboyant Schofield . Hocking ’ s public profile was smaller , but he was a man of the theatre and music , an adept behind-the-scenes-operator who could work around agents and pick up the phone directly to high profile artists anywhere in the world .
Hocking programmed a massive event that spanned Irish opera and theatre , including a focus on Beckett by The Gate Theatre of Dublin ; the New York City Ballet ; edgier independent productions ; and a huge visual arts program that included the Andres Serrano show that became a cause célèbre . As outrage began to build around the American artist ’ s piece , Piss Christ ; a photograph of a small crucifix apparently submerged in the artist ’ s urine , the Archbishop of Melbourne , George Pell , unsuccessfully sought an injunction to have it removed , visitors attacked the work , and finally the National Gallery of Victoria cancelled the show . Mark Ravenhill ’ s confronting theatre piece Shopping and Fucking also upset conservatives , with Premier Jeff Kennett famously commenting , ‘ It ’ s not the sort of challenge I want on a Tuesday night ’. It was a tense moment for freedom of speech in the Festival ’ s history .
Contemporary performance was well represented by Denmark ’ s Hotel Pro Forma and the Australian debut of arguably Britain ’ s most influential composer of the time , Gavin Bryars and his ensemble . Hocking also presented Stephen Page ’ s Rites , an astonishing take on the Rite of Spring performed by The Australian Ballet and the Indigenous Bangarra Dance Company . It was a work of immense cultural and emotional significance that bowled Festival audiences over and went on to tour the world . ‘ The Australian Ballet danced with the Australian ballet ,’ Hocking is said to have remarked . The work was performed in a triple bill program with world premieres by choreographers Stephen Baynes and Twyla Tharp .
Hocking was not well and it was announced from the beginning that he would do one Festival and that Sue Nattrass ( 1998 — 99 ) would complete the three-year block . Like Hocking , a person of the local theatre world , Nattrass dug deep into Melbourne ’ s cultural life and continued the Festival ’ s expansion on to the streets — and facades — of Melbourne . Decades before Melbourne went fluoro with White Night , Nattrass stopped Melbourne in its tracks opening the 1998 Festival with Patrice Warrener ’ s joyously coloured Chromolithe , which transformed Flinders Street Station into an illuminated canvas .
Nattrass shone a light on Indigenous and multicultural work , with artists such as Leah Purcell ( Box the Pony ) and Deborah Cheetham ( White Baptist Abba Fan ) making their Festival debuts , not as padding for more conventional work , but in star turns . She also presented the original production of Jane Harrison ’ s landmark Australian play Stolen , directed by Wesley Enoch , produced by Playbox and the Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative .
Australian debuts of international artists included Korean soprano Sumi Jo , the Nederlands Dans Theater III and France ’ s Ballet Preljocaj . Nattrass also introduced Melbourne to Ireland ’ s Abbey Theatre ( The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde ), who returned to the Festival in 2009 with Terminus .
Creating a nice link to her successor , Nattrass programmed the contemporary Australian opera The Ghost Wife composed by Jonathan Mills with the libretto by Dorothy Porter .
“ It was a tense moment for freedom of speech in the Festival ’ s history .
”
11
/ Artistic directions