16
“
Sheehy found the
contemporary music
scene dynamic.
”
By the time Brett Sheehy (2009—2012) took over, there was a feeling in some
quarters that the Festival had become too cerebral and he was encouraged
to take a new direction. Most importantly, he was to make the Festival more
accessible: less for the arts cognoscenti and more a part of Melbourne’s
everyday life. Having successfully directed two summer festivals, in Sydney
and Adelaide, his first instinct was to take the Festival outdoors and he
prepared a big program for it. The weather was atrocious. He tried again
the following year, bringing out the Spanish aerialists k@osmos who opened
the Festival. The weather was even worse. A family show that was expected
to draw 25,000 people a night attracted a few stragglers in raincoats. By
2011 he had calibrated his program so the outdoor component was more
modest, although it did include the spectacular Angels—Demons.Parade,
by the Russian art collective AES+F: a procession of seven supersized
fibreglass babies placed at strategic positions down Swanston Street and
St Kilda Road.
Sheehy brought a personal inclination towards the style and
content of northern European theatre and set out to show Melbourne theatre
making they had not seen before. He twice invited the famous Schaubühne
Berlin, which brought brilliantly updated productions of two Ibsen plays that
highlighted the contemporary relevance of their themes: the nature of truth
in An Enemy of the People and the position of women in Hedda Gabler. He
brought out choreographers Sasha Waltz, an alumna of the Schaubühne,
and Hofesh Shechter, an alumnus of Batsheva Dance Company, who are
now pushing boundaries with their own companies. He invited the National
Theatre of China for the first time and introduced Australian audiences to
groundbreaking Dutch director Ivo van Hove with his Opening Night.
As he realised the vibrancy and depth of the local theatre and dance
scene, he increasingly worked with Melbourne artists in devising ideas. The
visual arts scene was a revelation and he became more and more interested
in that too. He contributed to the classical music scene by presenting, for
example, the London Philharmonic Orchestra (2009) and a residency with
Thomas Adès, which included performances with the MSO, Calder Quartet
and ANAM (2010). He also found the contemporary music scene dynamic.
Every kid knew where his or her favourite bands were playing on any night
of the week, as he put it. He created a contemporary music forum, and
made new music an identifiably separate part of his Festivals. Ambitious
collaborations between Indigenous musicians and famous names from
around the world, produced from scratch—Seven Songs to Leave Behind,
and notes from the hard road—were emblematic of his music programs.
MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: 30 YEARS