Sheehy promises the world

Sheehy promises the world

It’s being touted as a ‘truly international festival’, the most pan-cultural that artistic director Brett Sheehy has produced, so what global delights can we expect from 2011’s Melbourne Festival?

A veteran curator of arts festivals including Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne since 2009 – Sheehy said he never really approaches a yearly program with a set idea in mind.

“I’ve never preemptively themed a festival, because you want to be open to everything, but I did notice a lot of the works coming on to the radar were having a stronger connection with politics,” he said.

That certainly seems to be the case with festival offerings such as New York Theatre Workshop’s Aftermath – a fusion of agitprop, frontline journalism and theatre created from interviews with 35 refugees who fled Iraq in the wake of the US-led invasion.

Even the closing night event, notes from the hard road and beyond, features singers such as Joss Stone, Mavis Staples and Rickie Lee Jones, with The Black Arm Band, presenting a canon of songs from civil rights, anti-war, environmental and women’s suffrage movements.

While not overtly political, festival opener Rhinoceros In Love, from the National Theatre of China, may still hold sway as a landmark piece of international arts programming.

The glimpse into 21st century Chinese theatre is thought to be the first time a contemporary work from China has been selected to be performed outside of the country by a Chinese, rather than a foreign, company.

“I went to China last year with the specific purpose of finding a major theatre work and I was scheduled to see a lot of traditional stuff. The Chinese Government thought that was what I was interested in, they were surprised I was looking for contemporary work,” Sheehy said.

“I went and had a look at Rhinoceros In Love and I couldn’t believe that in mainland China there were epic, contemporary productions of contemporary plays with young people, dealing with love and relationships and music, that weren’t touring.”

With just one festival left in his tenure before taking the reins at the Melbourne Theatre Company next year, Sheehy has at least some idea about what he’d like his legacy to be after 2012.

“From the day I got the job, what I wanted to do was make the festival accessible to everyone. I know people have said, ‘He tries to be all things to all people’, but I don’t resile from that one iota.

“The festival belongs to the four million people of Melbourne and in any Melbourne Festival there should be something that any of those people can open the program and want to take a look at.”

INFO: www.melbournefestival.com.au

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