Melbourne's new Rising festival has announced its 2023 program: and its huge! The program spans 185 events featuring more than 400 artists, including 35 commissions and 12 world premieres.
The festival embraces the winter and the night, and will take place from June 7 to 18, with indoor and outside events – in historic buildings and traditional venues, in public gardens and squares, car parks and churches, from the ground to the sky. Many are free, with audiences invited to "reflect, reckon, rave, and revel in Melbourne’s nighttime culture". Like its predessessor, White Night, the festival boasts many family activities, such as iceskating along the Birrarung Marr, and fantastic light shows and fantasies. Many public arts institutions, such as the galleries, are open late into the night.
The program is too large to list in its entirety here, but the exclusively dance offerings are:
Tracker, director-choreographer Daniel Riley’s first show as Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre, which tells the story of Riley’s great-great-uncle. June 7-18 at Arts House.
The Australian Ballet's Identity, with two especially commissioned works: one from resident choreographer Alice Topp and another from Daniel Riley (his second presentation in this festival). Topp's ballet Paragon, in celebration of the company's 60th anniversary, is a tribute to the company’s origins, and stars an intergenerational mix of emerging talent and masters from past decades. Riley's The Hum "evokes the search for cultural perpetuity while centering on the tangible-yet-invisible connection between performers, the orchestra and audience". It has a score by celebrated composer and soprano Deborah Cheetham and costumes by Taungurung fashion designer Annette Sax, and is a first-time collaboration between the Australian Dance Theatre and the Australian Ballet. June 16 - 24 at Arts Centre Melbourne.
TANZ, by Austrian choreographer and "provocateur" Florentina Holzinger, who has been hailed the "Tarantino of dance". It is described as "an abject two-act romp that plunges meat hooks through the idea of self-optimisation in the name of art, beauty and ballet", questioning the concept of beauty and perfection. It prompted walkouts and fainting as well as accolades and rapturous applause at its premiere in Vienna. June 8-10 at Arts Centre Melbourne.
At Arts House, The Dan Daw Show "delves into the often-misunderstood core of care and communication inherent to BDSM culture". This is a "joyous duet" created by London-based theatre-maker Dan Daw, who was born disabled and identifies as "crip". June 15-18, Meat Market.
For the full program, go here.