Leading Australian Performers Will Appear At Edinburgh International Festival as Part of UK/Australia Season

The UK/Australia Season, the largest and most ambitious cultural exchange between the two nations, today announces a series of new commissions and UK premieres as part of Edinburgh International Festival (5 - 28 August 2022). The diverse group of Australian performing artists is the largest contingent to attend the festival in its 75-year history.

Highlights of the UK/Australia Season at Edinburgh International Festival:

• The festival's spectacular free opening event Macro sees acclaimed Australian circus company Gravity & Other Myths joined by First Nations dance company Djuki Mala, the National Youth Choir of Scotland and a host of Scottish musicians (5 August)

• The UK debut performance by the Australian World Orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta and featuring Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg (19 August)

• Chineke! Chamber Ensemble perform with digeridoo virtuoso William Barton (12 August)

• The European premiere of You Know We Belong Together is Julia Hales' deeply personal exploration of the frustrations and aspirations of living with Down Syndrome, set around her favourite programme Home and Away (24 - 27 August)

• Violist and composer Brett Dean performs with and conducts the Hebrides Ensemble (20 August)

• UK premiere of award-winning play Counting and Cracking by Sydney-based theatre company Belvoir, which explores Australia as an immigrant nation and Sri Lanka post-independence (8 - 11 August)

• The Pulse by Gravity & Other Myths combines acrobats with a choir of thirty voices at the Edinburgh Playhouse (8&9 August)

Michael Napthali, UK/Australia Season Director, said:

"The Australian artists we are presenting at the 75th Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) showcase the highest levels of Australian creativity, innovation and imagination. With more than 200 events are taking place across our two nations as part of the Season, it is thrilling to support Australia's return to the EIF with our largest ever contingent of performing arts companies as each in their own way will offer audiences a response to the question posed by the Season "Who Are We Now?" To present a programme of this scale in any normal year would be notable; that we are partnering with EIF to do so in the receding shadow of a global pandemic is simultaneously astonishing and inspiring."

Fergus Linehan, Festival Director and Chief Executive, said:

"Over the past year, we at the Festival, working closely with the UK/Australia Season, have reflected on the theme of 'Who Are We Now?' The result is a truly significant programme of music, theatre and dance that offers audiences a sense of Australia's past, one that includes the world's oldest civilization, it's present, and glimpses of its future. The Season has also offered us the opportunity to open doors of collaboration between Australian and Scottish artists that will, we hope, form creative relationships that will last long after this year's festival."

Exploring the theme "Who Are We Now?" the UK / Australia Season 2021 - 22 will deliver an ambitious programme of events in the UK in 2022 including: the UK dance tour of Between Tiny Cities, choreographed by internationally-renowned Sydney hip-hop dance artist Nick Power; Brisbane's Circa Contemporary Circus bring Stravinsky's seminal The Rite of Spring to the circus stage at Brighton Festival; and Queensland Ballet's new talent will be on show at the Royal Ballet's Next Generation Festival. For more information, visit ukaustraliaseason.com.

The UK / Australia Season events at the 75th Edinburgh International Festival are supported by the UK/ Australia Season Patrons, the Australian Government, through the Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grants Program, the International Cultural Diplomacy Arts Fund, the Australian Cultural Fund and the British Council. Further support has been provided by the Government of South Australia through Arts South Australia, EventScotland and the PLACE programme.

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