From Thursday 11 – Saturday 27 October, the Melbourne Festival will take up residence at Arts Centre Melbourne, which becomes a hub of activity with over 10 events being staged across its venues.
Arts Centre Melbourne Chief Executive Judith Isherwood said, "Melbourne Festival is an exciting time for our entire art-loving city and we are delighted that Arts Centre Melbourne will once again host many events and performances across the Festival's 17 days."
Arts Centre Melbourne's contribution to this year's Melbourne Festival includes Ployglot Theatre's world premiere How High the Sky. A theatrical event specially created for children aged under 12 months and their parents, this groundbreaking new work will be on show in the State Theatre Rehearsal Room from Wednesday 24 – Sunday 28 October.
How High the Sky has been designed to absorb infants in an immersive world of balloons, shadows, streamers and music. Babies can clutch and move floating balloons, twist under a sea of streamers or simply sit and absorb the atmosphere.
How High the Sky has been developed with the assistance of Arts Centre Melbourne, Junction Festival, Australia Council for the Arts and the generous support of Miss Betty Amsden OAM, and Daniel and Danielle Besen through Polyglot's Ambassadors' Circle.
Other events on offer at Arts Centre Melbourne as part of the Melbourne Festival are Germany's Schaubühne Berlin, who return after a sold out season last year with the acclaimed Hedda Gabler. This year, Thomas Ostermeier brings us another Ibsen classic with An Enemy of the People in Arts Centre Melbourne's Playhouse Theatre from Sunday 21 – Saturday 27 October.
Presenting the iconic Sidney Myer Music Bowl in an audacious new light, Chucky Move's An Act of Now has audiences seated on the stage itself. From Thursday 18 – Saturday 27 October, each individual will watch and listen intimately in on headphones, as the footfalls and reactions of dancers meld with a quietly pulsing score.
The new Hamer Hall will also showcase its new acoustics with a special concert series by Antony and The Johnsons (USA) on Friday 12 and Saturday 13 October. In Swanlights, Antony and The Johnsons present a soaring hymn of love and loss, a reverie of nature, a celebration of the feminine and ode to our ephemeral place in the world.
Videos