The Perth Festival annual arts feast is being led this year for the first time by Anna Reece. West Australian-born, she was formerly the Executive Producer of the Festival before she moved on to direct the Fremantle Arts Centre from 2020 until last year. She was also Project Manager and Consultant for Co3, Perth’s contemporary dance company, for a time back in 2015.
"To deliver a festival for my home and the city I love is beyond my greatest dreams,” she said in the 2025 program launch. “This bold and spirited international capital city of endless opportunity and kaleidoscopic possibility, with a pulse is as vibrant as it is eclectic.”
Amid the dance highlights she has chosen are two overseas companies, each headed by a charismatic European choreographer. Each is a Perth Festival exclusive.
Choreographer Marco da Silva Ferreira is one of Europe's most celebrated choreographers but he has never brought his work to Australia before now.
His company will present Caracaca. Inspired by rave culture and traditional Portuguese dance, the work is described as “sexy, rhythmic, hypnotic, joyous, political and at one sublime moment, deeply moving. A work that searches to connect the past and the present through dance, desire and fear”. (February 7-9, Heath Ledger State Theatre.)
From another sunny part of the world comes Greece’s Christos Papadopoulos, who will present LARSEN C. He is another acclaimed choreographer who has never been to Australia. Larsen C is a huge, 10,000-year-old ice shelf in Antarctica. Twice the size of Wales, it moves so slowly that it can’t be detected by the human senses. It is as if the pulse of its movement is absorbed by space and time. In Larsen C, human bodies constantly move to that same perpetual rhythm. “Shifting as one, glacially slowly, like the ice itself,” the program notes say. (February 20 – 22, Heath Ledger Theatre.)
Festival favourite Ballet at the Quarry will also return with three new Australian ballets, one each by Loughlan Prior, Lucas Jervies and Tara Gower. (February 7 to March 1.) Another local highlight will be Perth Moves, by STRUT Dance, with six nights of dance classes culminating in the world premiere of Manifest, by Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, featuring 12 local dancers and a "silent choir of 150 community volunteers". (February 18-20, Forrest Place.) For Rhys Ryan's article about this project, go here.
There are many other highlights across all art forms, featuring over 380 artists (143 international artists and 173 local WA artists), and taking place in numerous atmospheric and unusual venues, including the East Perth Power Station, which will open its doors as Perth Festival’s newest precinct, transforming the long-dormant site into the ultimate destination for hot summer nights.
Perth Festival runs from Friday 7 February to Sunday 2 March.