The arts festival revolution David Binder

Sydney I had been waiting my whole life

to get to Sydney I got to the airport to

the hotel checked in and sitting there

in the lobby was a brochure for the

Sydney Festival I thumb through it and I

came across a show called minto live the

description read the suburban streets of

minto become the stage for performances

created by international artists in

collaboration with the people am in tow

what was this place called minto Sydney

as I would learn is a city of suburbs

and Minter lies southwest about an hour

away I have to say it wasn’t exactly

what I had in mind for my first day down

under I mean I thought about the harbour

bridge or bondi beach but minto but

still I’m a producer and the lure of a

site-specific theater project was more

than I could resist so off I went into

Friday afternoon traffic and I’ll never

forget what I saw when I got there for

the performance the audience walked

around the neighborhood from house to

house and the residents who were the

performers they came out of their houses

and they performed these

autobiographical dances on their lungs

on their driveways the show is a

collaboration with a uk-based

performance company called loan twin

loan twin had come to minto and worked

with the residents and they had created

these dances this australian indian girl

she came out and started to dance on her

front lawn and her father peered out the

window to see what all the noise and

commotion was about and he soon joined

her and he was followed by her little

sister and soon they were all dancing

this joyous exuberant dance right there

on their lawn and as I walked through

the neighborhood I was amazed and I was

moved by the incredible sense of

ownership this community clearly felt

about this event

mental I’ve brought Sydneysiders into

dialogue with international artists and

really celebrated the diversity of

Sydney on its own terms the Sydney

Festival which produce meant alive I

think represents a new kind of 21st

century arts fest of all these festivals

are radically open they can transform

cities and communities to understand

this I think it kind of makes sense look

where we’ve come from modern arts

festivals were born in the rubble of

World War two civic leaders created

these annual events to celebrate culture

is the highest the highest expression of

the human spirit in 1947 the Edinburgh

Festival was born in Avignon was born

and hundreds of others would follow in

their wake the work they did was very

very high art and stars came along like

Laurie Anderson and Merce Cunningham

oribella posh who made work for this

circuit and you had these seminal shows

like the Mahabharata and the monumental

Einstein on the beach but as the decades

passed these festivals they really

became the establishment and as the

culture and capital accelerated the

internet brought us all together high

and low kind of disappeared a new kind

of festival emerged the old festivals

they continued to thrive but from

Brighton to Rio to Perth something new

was emerging and these festivals were

really different they’re open these

festivals because like in minto they

understand that the dialogue between the

local and the global is essential

they’re open because they asked the

audience to be a player a protagonist a

partner rather than a passive spectator

and they’re open because they know that

imagination cannot be contained in

buildings and so much of the work they

do is site-specific or outdoor work so

the new festival it asks the audience to

play an essential role in shaping the

performance companies like della Guardia

which I produce and punch drunk

create these completely immersive

experiences that put the audience at the

center of the action but the German

performance company remedy protocol

takes us all to a whole new level in a

series of shows that includes one

hundred percent behind coover 100%

Berlin Remini protocol makes shows that

actually reflect society Remini protocol

chooses 100 people that represent that

city at that moment in terms of race and

gender and class through a careful

process that begins three months before

and then those hundred people share

stories about themselves and their lives

and the whole thing becomes a snapshot

of that city at that moment lyft has

always been a pioneer in the use of

venues they understand that theatre and

performance can happen anywhere you can

do a show in a schoolroom in an airport

in a department store window artists are

explorers who better to show us the

cydia new artists can take us to a

far-flung part of the city that we

haven’t explored or they can take us

into that building that we pass every

day but we never went into an artist I

think can really show us people that we

might overlook in our lives back to back

is an Australian company of people with

intellectual disabilities I saw their

amazing show in New York at the San

island ferry terminal at rush hour we

the audience were given headsets and

seated on one side of the terminal the

actors were right there in front of us

right there are among the commuters and

we could hear them but we might not have

otherwise seeing them so back-to-back

take site-specific theatre and uses it

to gently remind us about who and what

we choose to edit out of our daily lives

so the dialogue with the local and the

global the audience as participant and

player and protagonist the innovative

use of sight all of these things come to

play in the amazed

work of the fantastic French company

royal deluxe royal deluxe is giant

puppets come into a city and they lived

there for a few days for the Sultan’s

elephant royal deluxe came to central

London and brought it to a standstill

with their story of a giant little girl

and her friend a time-traveling elephant

for a few days they transformed a

massive city into a community where

endless possibility rained the Guardian

wrote if art is about transformation

then there can be no more transformative

experience what the Sultan’s elephant

represents is no less than an artistic

occupation of the city and a reclamation

of the streets for the people we can

talk about the economic impacts of of

these festivals on on their cities but

I’m much interested in many more things

like how a festival hubs the city to

express itself how it let’s come into

its own festivals promote diversity they

bring neighbours into dialogue they

increase creativity they offer

opportunities for civic pride they

improve our general psychological

well-being in short they make cities

better places to live case in point when

the Sultan’s elephant came to London

just nine months after 77 a Londoner

wrote for the first time since the

London bombings my daughter called up

with that sparkle back in her voice she

had gathered with others to watch the

Sultan’s elephant and you know it just

made all the difference lyn gardner in

The Guardian has written that a great

festival can show us a map of the world

a map of the city and a map of ourselves

but there is no one fixed festival model

I think what’s so brilliant about the

festival’s the new festivals is that

they are really fully capturing the

complexity

and the excitement of the way we all

live today thank you very much