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