/ a festival of melbourne
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Kristy Edmunds presented Merce Cunningham: The Melbourne
Residency and Josephine Ridge paid tribute to the influence on Melbourne
dance of Trisha Brown with an extensive survey of her work in 2014. In the
same year Melbourne’s particular relationship with the fast-changing art of
circus was explored, including acknowledgement of the seminal role played
by Chinese acrobats brought to Australia in the early 80s by Carrillo Gantner
and Clifford Hocking, whose time with Circus Oz and the Flying Fruit Fly
Circus changed the face of circus in this country.
The Festival club or hub provides both an extension and a focus.
The combination of performance spaces and social meeting places
enlivened by the atmosphere of a festival can be intoxicating. John Truscott
first introduced The Festival Club at the Vic in the Victorian Arts Centre.
Leo Schofield moved his club to The Beacon, Southgate; Jonathan Mills
made the most of The Famous Speigeltent and the late night ClubSpiegel,
which continued long after his tenure; Robyn Archer inventively added The
Blue Thong Club then The Blue Rinse in the Art Centre’s Black Box. Kristy
Edmunds created The Artist Lounge, which, in 2007, she opened to the
public so that artists and audiences could mingle. Brett Sheehy looked to the
Forum on Flinders Street before he commissioned Strut & Fret to create the
first iteration of the Foxtel Festival Hub on the banks of the Yarra between
Princes Bridge and the famous boat sheds.
This was in 2012 and it was the first purpose built pop-up Festival
hub. Josephine Ridge took the concept a step further with the Bluebottle
designed venue located on the same site, which provided a high quality
environment for contemporary music and a lively social scene. For 2015, the
site was extended to include a large Spiegeltent and its house-show, Limbo,
with its mix of cabaret, circus and acrobatics.
Finally, to return to Brett Sheehy’s taxi driver test, Melbourne
Festival has found all sorts of ways of drawing in the whole city. Many of the
world’s most famous festivals take place in small towns: even Edinburgh
has a population of less than half a million. In a busy metropolis like
Melbourne, it’s not so easy for the Festival to cut through. John Truscott
installed special lighting in the trees, built arches over St Kilda Rd and
conceived the extraordinary Botanica with Paul Bangay, which married arts,
design and Melbourne’s love for gardens. For years, outdoor stages and
street acts animated the city beyond the traditional venues and large-scale
opening events, such as Sue Nattrass’ Chromolithe and the closure of the
Flinders Street Station crossroads, were loved and anticipated aspects of
the Festival imprint.
Over time, these Festival activities have become less frequent,
perhaps because of rising costs, seemingly increasingly unstable weather
or curatorial preference. Melbourne now has a huge outdoor summertime
extravaganza in White Night and arguably, Melbourne Festival has become
more focussed on its role as a meaningful and long-term contributor to
the cultural life of the city. Impact comes dressed in many guises and after
30 years, Melbourne Festival has continued to honour its traditions while
constantly seeking to reinvent itself in ways that keep it relevant, fresh and
innovative.
As this text is being written, another chapter of Melbourne
Festival is drawing to a close: Josephine Ridge’s final Festival is about to
get underway. Waiting in the wings, in true festival style, is her successor,
Jonathan Holloway, a veteran of four successful Perth Festivals and much
more before in his native England. The wonder of international arts festivals
and of Melbourne Festival in particular, is that there is a whole world of
unknowns yet to discover, work to create, experiences to share and stories
to weave into the fabric of this city. We can be certain, as we look forward to
the next 30 years, that there will always be surprises.