Sydney Festival Unleashes 2022 Program

Forget what you knew. With a bold ambition to reimagine how we experience and interact with the city itself, Sydney Festival's 2022 line-up - the first helmed by artistic director Olivia Ansell - is set to explode onto (and into) the city's parks, pools, streets, stages and screens this summer.

Across its most revered venues and storied public spaces, amongst its iconic beaches and hidden boat sheds, Sydney will come alive with an array of free and family focussed events, illuminating public art installations, intimate provocations and large-scale performances that will mark, interrogate and celebrate the rituals of summer in the city.

From main stage gigs for 12,000 to intricate musical moments ensconced in the city's waterways; from Broadway smash hits to a ballet of BMX bikes; from a symphony under the stars to a cacophonous contemporary corroboree; from intimate moments for one to a rave on Mount Olympus; Sydney Festival is the answer to the question: what are we doing this January?

Spanning 133 events - including 33 world premieres and 52 new commissions - over 25 days, Sydney will burst to life with activity from 6-30 January.

Upon unveiling her first program, artistic director Olivia Ansell said:

"We are thrilled to reunite artists with audiences this summer, unleashing a compelling and diverse line-up of world class performing and visual arts experiences to be enjoyed outdoors, indoors and online. Sydneysiders and visitors alike can rediscover their city differently, through a contemporary, immersive, irreverent and imaginative lens. Sydney Festival's 2022 program will play a crucial role in restoring culture safely to our city".

Festival Highlights

Witha??22 nights of live music, DJs, a dash of comedy and a splash of street art,a??all roads lead to Speakers Corner - a bespoke, 1000 seat, pop-up space in the heart of central Sydney.

The line-up includes Amyl and The Sniffers; Gordi; King Stingray; Jaguar Jonze; B Wise and Friends; Emma Pask Big Band; Cash Savage & The Last Drinks; Tropical Fuck Storm; WASHINGTON; The Beths; Hope D; Future Classic Warm Up; Barkaa; Sydney Yungins; Good Morning; Kelly Lee Owens; James Morrison & William Barton; Barkaa; Jade Macrae; Radiohead for Solo Piano by Josh Cohen; and many more. Paying homage to the original Speaker's Corner - a bastion of freewheeling debate and free speech - each Sunday of the festival features a curated line-up of Sydney's most superlative spruikers, who will concurrently take to three soapbox stages to stimulate, contemplate, and possibly irritate at Soapbox at Speakers Corner. Beloved ABC Sydney broadcaster James Valentine kicks off hosting duties for the first Soapbox session, with cultural historian Warren Fahey taking the reigns for the remaining three Sundays.

An embrace of epic scale and iconic location, THAW will stop audiences in their tracks. This visually arresting work marks a dramatic return to the festival for the renowned, Legs On The Wall. Featuring a 2.7 tonne, intricately sculpted block of ice hoisted 20 metres above the harbour from the foot of Sydney Opera House and a daring, solitary performer, THAW addresses humankind's impact on the planet in a durational performance that's part art installation, part slow-drip suspense thriller.

In a coup for Sydney Festival, punters can head to Parramatta Park with 12,000 of their closest friends for one last hurrah with the almighty The Cat Empire. The band's final Sydney performance with their original line-up, this is a not-to-be-missed moment with the legendary Australian group who re-wrote the rule book for live performance.

Stories from the past make their mark on the present in an epic-scale contemporary corroboree by Bangarra Dance Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company. 17 dancers, four musicians and five actors fill the stage with dance, poetry and song, as Wudjang: Not the Past reveals the power of messages that speak to us through the generations.

This festival, the iconic Hordern Pavilion will bare witness to the fall of a qweendom. In a hedonistic world of love, fetish and all-original house music, an ageing drag matriarch is abdicating their throne. Part rave, part theatrical extravaganza, Qween Lear propels you through the raucous history of Sydney's queer nightlife, immersing audiences in the excess and ecstasy of an era gone, but not forgotten. Elsewhere at the Hordern Pavilion the venerated New Zealand seven-piece Fat Freddy's Drop will bring their globe-trotting party-jams to its celebrated stage for one night only.

Audiences can submerge themselves in one of Sydney's most stunning outdoor pools, the Andrew (Boy) Charlton, and discover the sound of critically acclaimed UK producer Leon Vynehall at Floors of Heaven: Submersive Study. Though certified master of the dance floor, Vynehall's creativity is truly let loose when he eschews beats for peaceful sonic tapestries to craft this watery audio adventure.

In a passionate and timely call-to-arms, the festival's artist in resident Jake a??Nash will unveil Future Dreaming - a large-scale artwork located on Star Gazers Lawn at Barangaroo. Providing a focal point to reflect on our past, while demanding the future, Nash's work sings out for social, political, and cultural change and a future dreamed by First Australians.a??

The cherished Sydney Symphony Under the Stars returns to Parramatta Park. Once again, conductor Benjamin Northey takes up the baton for a program ranging from the classics of the 18th and 19th centuries, alongside leading Australian Elena Kats-Cherin's astonishing composition. And nothing - not even a global pandemic - will muzzle the famous cannons of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

Discover the music of Sydney's hidden harbour on a ferry ride to places shaped by time and tides at Acoustic Life of Boatsheds. The waterways west of the Bridge provide the backdrop for this unique maritime experience developed by celebrated company Big hART. During a series of original performances inspired by the boatsheds, workshops and waterways in which you experience them, you'll sink into the varying soundscapes of places shaped by time, tide and trade.

When two skeletons emerge from the dried-up creek bed of a remote Queensland farm, the fates of three women thousands of kilometers apart become deeply intertwined. Part concert, part story, part ceremony, a?? (stay) is an evocative new collaboration between the writer of award-winning Counting and Cracking, S. Shakthidharan and Singapore musical ensemble, SAtheCollective.

The magic of theatre meets the music of Bob Dylan in Girl From the North Country, the modern masterpiece that has taken the theatrical world by storm and is now one of the most critically acclaimed productions of the 21st Century. Written and directed by multi award-winner Conor McPherson and starring Lisa McCune, Zahra Newman, Helen Dallimore and Peter Carroll, this strictly limited Australian premiere season with Sydney Festival is one of the first productions to grace the stage at the newly restored Theatre Royal.

Radiant and mystifying, Airship Orchestra is an interactive and multi-sensory installation by Melbourne-based multimedia design studio ENESS - maestros of immersive light and sound environments for public spaces. Encompassing a luminous otherworldly chorus of 16 inflatable sculptures rising to six metres high, pulsating with glowing light and supernatural song, Airship Orchestra will transport visitors of all ages into a realm of choral sounds and rhythmic light.

We've weathered fire, flood, scandal, political failures and a pandemic in a few short and shocking years. We should probably unpack that. A gutsy four-part talk series curated by the UNSW Centre for Ideas, The Reckoning, combines big conversations with a splash of comic relief to tackle the issues shaping our future and features Julia Banks, Virginia Gay, Stan Grant, Richard Holden, Mark Humphries, Dan Ilic, Emma Johnston, Benjamin Law, George Megalogenis, Louise Milligan and Laura Tingle.

Stomping on history while dancing to a new dawn, Yung Lung is a rave on Mount Olympus from Chunky Move, one of Australia's leading contemporary dance companies. Devised by artistic director Antony Hamilton, Yung Lung comes to life via a host of co-conspirators-dancers stomp on a god-like effigy by artist Callum Morton, as a barrage of online imagery manipulated by music video director Kris Moyes rains down; and sweat soaks through Perks & Mini-designed club regalia as Bosco Shaw's lighting pulsates to the bass-heavy soundtrack of Melbourne techno experimentalist Chiara Kickdrum.

Now in its fourth incarnation at Sydney Festival, The Vigil: Songs for Tomorrow will be an intimate night of contemporary ceremony, song and fire led by the new generation of First Nations artists - an evening gathering of music, ceremony and fire to continue the conversation around identity, the future and January 26.

Theatre & Music Theatre

Global blockbusters, world premieres and new commissions - the 2022 program brings the most hotly anticipated theatre and music theatre to the stages of Sydney; brings back a classic; and shines a light on outstanding works from some of Sydney's most beloved theatre companies, affected or cancelled by the pandemic over the past year.

Nat Randall and Anna Breckon, co-creators of the remarkable marathon performance The Second Woman, join forces once more to explode the conventions of the couple drama and explore the ordinary and extraordinary facets of queer relationships in Set Piece. Nuanced camera work crushes the distance between observer and observed, theatre and film, and fantasy and reality in this powerfully intimate theatre-film experiment in which lesbian fantasy meets the queer ordinary.

An ingenious theatrical gem, small metal objects unfolds amidst the pedestrian traffic against the backdrop of Circular Quay, its moments of intensity - unnoticed by passers-by - are whispered right into your ears via a personal set of headphones. Created by Victoria's celebrated Back to Back Theatre, this award-winning production was a highlight of Sydney Festival's 2008 program, going on to entrance audiences from New York to Tokyo, and Vienna to Hong Kong.

A leafy park near Darlinghurst's fabled Wall echoes with the ghosts of its past as two men tackle an unpredictable Grindr date at Green Park. Audiences eavesdrop on an intense private encounter in a very public place in this site-specific slice of park noir by Elias Jamieson Brown. Steve Le Marquand and Joseph Althouse reprise their roles in this critically acclaimed production directed by Declan Greene, Artistic Director of Griffin Theatre Company.

Lonely hearts and nightlife fiends. Insomniacs and shift workers. Guardians over restless babies and wide-eyed truckies barrelling down the highway. These are just some of the voices of The Nightline. Collected anonymously on a special hotline and arranged by pioneering audio theatremaker Roslyn Oades and sound artist Bob Scott, The Nightline is a sonic collage of Australia's nocturnal soul.

Of all the stories Jane Hutcheon has encountered as an ABC journalist, China correspondent, war zone reporter and author, one has intrigued her more than any other: that of her mother Beatrice's turbulent childhood in pre-Communist Shanghai. Visiting Shanghai in 2018, Jane began to search for the truth of her mother's difficult beginnings. Lost in Shanghai is the result - a story of an ordinary Eurasian family in extraordinary times, set against a backdrop of fading colonial opulence, civil war and revolution.

The runaway hit of the 2021 Perth Festival, Black Brass is a play of voyaging and discovery told through tongues that span a continent (Shangana, Swahili, Kikuyu, Xhosa, as well as English) and through music and song. Soulful, uplifting, it takes everyone in the room into the rich complexity of here and now. Performed by the extraordinary Mararo Wangai, joined onstage by composer-musician Mahamudo Selimane. Black Brass is a work that stimulates all the senses - and opens the heart.

It's been a long time coming. Postponed twice due to COVID-19, Darlinghurst Theatre Company's dynamic new production of a legendary dance musical A Chorus Line arrives to a fever pitch of anticipation. Dive hat first into a world of sweat and sacrifice, featuring sensational new choreography by rising Australian dance superstar Amy Campbell, in this gritty reimagining of a classic.

Winner of the 2019 Scotsman Fringe First Award, Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran is a darkly comedic, urgent new play about entitlement, consumption and digital technology, that explores the ubiquitous feeling that our societies are falling apart. Combining digital theatre and a live Instagram feed, it is second part of a trilogy of plays from writer Javaad Alipoor about how digital technology, resentment and fracturing identities are changing the world.

Fereydoun Farrokhzad was the Middle East's greatest popstar of the '70s - think Tom Jones or Freddy Mercury. By 1981 he was a refugee: working in a German grocer. Six months before being found brutally murdered in an unsolved case, he performed to sold out audiences over two nights at London's Royal Albert Hall. A co-production between festival spotlight artist Javaad Alipoor, Sydney Festival, and The National Theatre of Parramatta Things Hidden Since the Foundation of The World is multimedia digital theatre piece that explores the mysteries surrounding Farrokhzad untimely death.

Refusing to be defined by a turbulent past, comedian and performer Oliver Twist reflects on his time as a refugee while carefully unpacking his present-day experiences in JALI. Delicately told and impossible to forget, this one-person show proves that exceptional storytelling and belly-aching laughter are powerful antidotes to trauma.

Following a successful series of development readings staged as part of Sydney Festival in 2021, Seymour Centre will present the world premiere production of The Museum of Modern Love. Adapted from the Stella Prize-winning novel by Heather Rose, The Museum of Modern Love is a transfixing new work that explores dying and living, courage and commitment-and meditates on the power of art to unite and connect us, even in an increasingly disconnected world.

Edward Albee's scalding portrait of 1960s America - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - erupted onto the Broadway stage in 1962 and has captivated audiences ever since. Now acclaimed First Nations director and actor Margaret Harvey (Black Medea, RAN: Remote Area Nurse) pulls the rug out from under a whole new generation of viewers with a modern, race-conscious and revealingly Australian interrogation of this dinner-dive into illusion, identity and desire.

Our bond with the sea is explored in Perahu-Perahu - an enchanting work of shadow theatre and music. Hundreds of intricate cut-outs trip the light fantastic in a playful piece inspired by the vessels that have sailed between the Indonesian archipelago and Australia. Perahu-Perahu, which means "boats" in Indonesian, is a collaboration between Indonesian-Australian artists Jumaadi and Michael Toisuta.

In 44 Sex Acts, five gifted comic actors get busy on microphones and fruit in this slippery and subversive take on a classic radio play. A response to humanity's decision to go harder, faster, faster, FASTER! towards the end of the world as we know it.

Directed by Bernadette Fam and presented by Green Door Theatre Company and Red Line Productions, Chewing Gum Dreams is a hilarious, irreverent ride through the last precious days of childhood. From the Emmy and BAFTA award-winning playwright and creator of Chewing Gum and I May Destroy Michaela Coel's, comes this fire cracking work that will delight you, before it smacks you harder than the 67 bus.

On a sweltering summer morning in 1892, in a small American town, a prominent businessman and his wife were brutally axed to death in their home. Their daughter Lizzie Borden was the prime suspect. Lizzie's trial was a coast-to-coast media sensation, and her story has become legend. Lizzie, presented by Hayes Theatre Co, is a revenge tale for our times set to a blistering score, inspired by Bikini Kill, the Runaways, and Hole.

Dance

From major international collaborations to urgent interrogations of our national institutions, the 2020 dance program features potent works from Australia's leading dance companies.

Sparkling with physical refinement, vitality, and impact, Decadance is contemporary dance that speaks to everyone. Performed by our own incomparable Sydney Dance Company, Decadance features excerpts of the visionary choreographer Ohad Naharin's works, including Echad Mi Yodea, crafted over a decade with Tel Aviv's Batsheva Dance Company and remoulded into a coherent whole.

Alternately challenging and joyful, Jurrungu Ngan-ga - literally 'Straight Talk'- tears down walls and builds bridges in a frank conversation with the Australian psyche. Created by Marrugeku -Australia's leading Indigenous-intercultural dance company - Jurrungu Ngan-ga is inspired by perspectives on incarceration shared with Marrugeku by Yawuru leader Patrick Dodson, as well as Kurdish-Iranian writer and former Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani - a powerful and provocative new dance work.

From climate change to mass extinction events, to the effects of our widening wealth gap, Grey Rhinos are all around us, threatening carnage. A collaboration between award winning choreographers Charmene Yap and Cass Mortimer Eipper, Grey Rhino is an audacious new dance epic which warns us to heed the dangers hidden in plain sight.

Inspired by the enigmatic optical phenomenon, Mirage is a new full-length dance work by choreographer and dancer Martin del Amo and collaborator Miranda Wheen that conjuries a shimmering world that oscillates between expectation and unpredictability. Fusing dance with striking visual design with a mesmerising score by American post-modern composer Morton Feldman, the work creates a multidimensional reality, in which nothing is what it seems...

For one night only, revellers at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (CPAC) will be transported to an underground Vogue dancefloor when The West Ball 3 takes over, while across town at The Bearded Tit a special live streaming party of the event will take place. Born from the 1970's in New York City with queer and trans communities of colour competing in "walks" of various categories that mix performance, dance and modelling, Australia's ballroom scene has quickly taken off in the past five years.

Circus, Kids And Physical Theatre

Kinetic displays of acrobatic skill, prehistoric time shifts, captivating dreamscapes and free outdoor family events throughout Sydney see all ages across the city catered for.

World-renowned Gravity & Other Myths, who brought Backbone to the festival in 2018, return with a work of mighty ambition. Pulse is a euphoric symphony of strength, sinew and haunting song, which sends humans into the air and hearts into mouths. Experience 24 acrobats and 26 voices from the Sydney Philharmonia Choir in this a vast and intricate epic folding and unfolding before you.

Directed by acclaimed Circus Monoxide Artistic Director, Zebastian Hunter The Construct is a poignant and playful mix-up of circus and contemporary dance, created in direct response to the effects of living in lockdown. Flying, tumbling and contorting across a cube of welded steel, aXis's elite ensemble reflects who we are in the new normal.

What happens when you throw a fistful of champion skaters, dancers, freerunners, BMXers and a blast of paint powder onto a half pipe together? Dial up the beats and you get DEMO, an exhilarating display of tightly choregraphed mayhem by award-winning physical theatre/street style outfit Branch Nebula, which us set to takeover Century Square in Paramatta.

Settle in for an absorbing Baroque experience. Propelled by the vivacious Brandenburg String Orchestra and gilded with the physical feats of Circa, two of Australia's finest creative companies meld music and acrobatics into an exploration of four proud and ancient cities of Italy in Italian Baroque with Circa.

It's been a while - 65 million years, actually - since Sydney echoed to the calls and footsteps of dinosaurs. Now, thanks to Erth, Sydney's world-famous dino-recreationists, it's like they never left. Made to spark feelings of wonder, Erth's Prehistoric Picnic sends Parramatta Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens back to the wilderness of a distant era. A delight for the whole family, all you have to do is pack a picnic and prepare to get very close to your favourite ancient creatures

A fluttering wonderland of swirling, pouring shredded paper, Fluffy is an interactive family show and free-play environment where mess is beautiful, creativity builds adventure and imagination runs amok. Guided by Artbomb's performers, this confetti cosmos champions art, collaboration and compost.

Combining old school whimsy with state-of-the-art technology, ZOOOM is an enchanting story of a child alone in her bedroom, unable to sleep and curious to understand. Part music video, part dream, ZOOOM is a show about all sorts of perspective. Inspired by iconic children's book "Harold and The Purple Crayon," ZOOOM channels the same philosophy; a child who makes sense of their world through art.

A mini festival within the festival, FUNPARK celebrates place, culture, young people and the community of Bidwill, Mt Druitt. FUNPARK merges contemporary art practices with local experiences, offering a diverse array of talent, activities and place-based activation. Now in its eighth year, the FUNPARK Coalition once again invites Sydney Festival audiences to come and experience local stories, talent and unique community connections.

In Magical Putt Putt, Studio A artists teach us to think differently and more expansively about the relationships between individuals and our communities. Using digital art, sculpture, two-dimensional work and a range of performative activations, Studio A promises an interactive exhibition that considers the connection between metaphysical and material worlds, between reverence and revelry with putt putt at its heart.

Music

From surprising concerts at The Cutaway to jazz in unexpected places, this year's music program strikes all the right notes.

At Night of the Soul lie amongst the raw sandstone and towering columns of The Cutaway and let the lush acoustics of this vast, cathedral-esque space surround you. This is an altogether different way to experience the sonics of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' Chamber Singers. With no chairs in sight, you'll relax into the comfort of your cushion, yoga mat or blanket and settle into the sweet spot between meditation and active listening with a program that includes Norwegian Ola Gjeilo's Dark Night of the Soul, American Eric Whitacre's translucent Nox Arumque and Arvo Pärt's mesmerising Spiegel im Spiegel.

In a welcome return to the stage for the multi-ARIA award winning and Grammy nominated Teskey Brothers, the band has re-imagined their beloved catalogue, which they'll play backed by Orchestra Victoria for a truly magical performance at the International Convention Centre.

Experience a sonic and visual journey through Yuwaalaraay country in north-western New South Wales. Let the river sing and the red dirt rumble in -barra, a fresh collaboration between acclaimed Yuwaalaraay storyteller Nardi Simpson and Ensemble Offspring that is deeply and directly inspired by country.

With her dazzlingly accomplished debut album, Martha Marlow arrives with an artistic vision fully formed. Drenched in orchestral pop, Medicine Man is an evocative, heart-on-sleeve album, exploring recurrent themes of introspection, longing and hope. Catch her at City Recital Hall this festival.

Five-time ARIA award winning artist, Katie Noonan, is set to premiere her latest album The Sweetest Taboo for the first time ever at Parramatta's Riverside Theatres. For The Sweetest Taboo Noonan takes listeners back to where it all began - the iconic pop songs of the 1980s that first ignited her passion for music.

On Sunday afternoons during the festival, Bennelong comes alive with the sounds of jazz. Enjoy Chef Peter Gilmore's à la carte menu accompanied by live music performed by Australia's best jazz musicians. Performers include Paul Cutlain Trio, Leonie Cohen Trio, Matt McMahon and friends, Loretta Palmeiro Trio, High Society (New Orleans Jazz), Sandy Evans Trio, Mike Nock Trio, Alister Spence, Yutaro Okuda and Lloyd Swanton.

Visual Arts

An eclectic survey that strikes at the heart of present-day Australia, this year's visual arts program unearths the unseen, ponders post-Impressionism and exposes the beauty in the everyday objects we take for granted.

Discover the joy of Matisse through over 100 works spanning six decades at Matisse: Life and Spirit at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This Sydney-exclusive exhibition offers an extraordinary immersion into one of the world's most beloved, innovative and influential artists.

Dean Cross' Icarus, my Son is a semi-autobiographical exhibition that takes inspiration from the ancient Greek tragedy of Icarus and Daedalus. Throughout the exhibition at Carriageworks, Cross examines themes universal to the experience of those in rural and remote communities who seek to expand their horizons. Featuring new video, sculptural and installation work, the exhibition explores ideas of home, ambition, cataclysm and loss.

Also at Carriageworks is Return to Sender - Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens' new large-scale wall assemblage for the space. In a show of pride and defiance, the installation reworks postcards depicting racist imagery from the turn of last century with contemporary representations of First Australians. Acknowledging thea??persistence of racial and sexual violence in contemporary life,a??Return to Sender is a call for resistance.

Happy Objectsa??is a celebration of the value of objects in our lives and celebrates a commitment to keeping objects longer, appreciating their beauty and stories, and embracing their function at the Australian Design Centre.

In his new exhibition Iridescent queer photographic artist and costume maker Gerwyn Davies responds to and reimagines the museums, archives, historic houses and gardens under the care of Sydney Living Museums and NSW State Archives. In a series of 12 large-scale photographic works, Davies dramatically transforms each property into a stage on which an extravagant performance is played out for the camera.

Destination Sydney: The natural world sees Manly Art Gallery & Museum, Mosman Art Gallery and S.H. Ervin Gallery collaborate to showcase almost 90 key works by nine important Australian women artists - Joan Ross, Fiona Lowry, Merran Esson (Manly Art Gallery & Museum), Janet Laurence, Caroline Rothwell, Robyn Stacey (Mosman Art Gallery), and Bronwyn Oliver, Juz Kitson and Jennifer Keeler-Milne (S.H. Ervin Gallery) - with work that celebrates the spirit of Sydney's natural environment.

Inspired by artist Doug Aitken's interdisciplinary practice, whose works will be on display at the MCA, Sonic Collisions brings together melodic frequencies of some of Sydney's most exciting musicians - blending Latin American Rhythms, Electro Soul and Hyperactive Rap. As part of the evening under the stars on the MCA's Sculpture Terrace with views of Sydney Harbour, audiences will gain exclusive after-hours access to the MCA's Sydney International Art Series exhibition, Doug Aitken: New Era.

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