Darwin Festival has launched its full program for 2023, stretching over 18 days from 10–27 August. This year’s winter festival engages more than 850 local and international artists and packs more than three world premieres, as well as performances from the Darwin Symphony Orchestra, Opera Australia, Karul Projects and more. With a host of music, theatre, dance family, fashion, and film in store, ticket sales open on 2 June, with a two-day presale beginning at 9am on 31 May.
Darwin Festival’s Festival Park. Photo © Helen Orr.
This year marks the first festival under the leadership of new Artistic Director Kate Fell, succeeding Felix Preval who had held the position for six years; she will provide creative direction until the 2025 Festival.
“Darwin Festival 2023 is an invitation to immerse in a unique, tropical winter play-space, rich with magical moments and deep Territory narratives,” said Fell.
“Once more, the festival offers a spectrum of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts and culture, thrilling performances, and intriguing discussions, taking place across the cityscape of Darwin, and transforming familiar places into sites of discovery. We can’t wait to welcome audiences to this year’s Festival.”
Music highlights
Darwin Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Paz Tassone.
The Darwin Symphony Orchestra’s Destiny & Desire program delivers the NT premieres of Brett Dean’s Siduri Dances with flautist Tania Watts as soloist, and Rebecca Erin Smith’s Foreigner or Foreigner alongside works by Wagner and Copland.
Opera Australia’s production of The Barber of Saville tours across Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs from 9–17 August, performed with a live orchestra, acrobatics and a note of hilarity.
Club Awi cultivates a lineup of music from all over the world every Friday and Saturday night of the festival; to close the final weekend of the festival, Katie Noonan performs Joni Mitchell’s iconic Blue album.
The festival also features a host of Australian contemporary music stars – Budjerah, Regurgitator, Triple J Unearthed High winner Jacotine, Arnhem Land’s Yirrmal and Haiku Hands, with local talent performing at The Railway Club and in Festival Park.
The 17th annual National Indigenous Music Awards will also be announced in a ceremony during the run of the festival.
Theatre and Stage highlights
Frank and David Spry in Kingadong. Photo © Elizabeth Rogers
The festival will launch the world premiere of Kingadong, a performance that sketches the life and advocacy achievements of Marranunggu/Marrathiel elder Frank Spry. Featuring music, readings and images, the work has been developed by Spry and his son David, and shares a tale of struggle and resilience of the Stolen Generations.
A cast of Darwin women come together to perform stories of eight Australian women in I’m With Her, a show that delves into the experiences and overcoming of sexism in the modern age.
Darwin-based playwright Mary Anne Butler’s Cusp will be presented with Brown’s Mart and Australian Theatre for Young People. Tracking the story of three of NT’s young adults, it spotlights a humanity that blooms from the turbulence of opposing social and personal pressures and change.
Re:group’s Coil brings the bittersweet nostalgia stirred up by the closure of local video stores in a live cinematic tribute to an earlier age.
Batshit takes aim at the ‘crazy’ label pushed onto women, performed by Leah Shelton, trawling through social psychoanalysis, contemporary sexism and how it emerges.
There’s also a series of cabaret acts, to be hosted at the Festival’s Spiegeltent – the French Blanc de Blanc, Robyn Archer’s An Australian Songbook, Briefs’ Dirty Laundry, and a celebration of First Nations culture in Reckoning,
Dance highlights
Karul Projects SILENCE, produced by BlakDance. Photo credit Simon Woods
The fruit of a 30-year relationship between Tracks Dance Company and the Lajamanu community, Milpirri Sensorium mixes together performance footage, hand-crafted banners and a soundtrack featuring two languages for a festival headliner.
Gold Coast-based dance-theatre collective The Farm offers a world premiere with the performance of Stunt Double, a perilous delve into the power dynamics between actors and their stunt stand-ins in the climb for fame. Set on-set on a 70s Australian action film, it engages real stunt doubles performing risky, daring feats on stage and ropes in its audience as the surrounding crew.
A second dance world premiere, The Other Side of Me, spawns from the international partnership between NT Dance Company with the UK’s Northumbria University. Exploring the echoes of cultural and social displacement through the true tale of a NT-born Aboriginal man adopted by a white family, the work is choreographed by the company’s Artistic Director Gary Lang.
Karul Project’s Silence fills its stage with sand and seven dancers, scored by a live percussion ensemble for a stark examination about the promise and silence around a First Nations Treaty.
Nick Power’s project Deejay x Dancer traces the growth of the early hip hop movements in New York block parties in the 70s with three Australian break dancers, with live music from DJ Total Eclipse.
More information on the full program for the 2023 Darwin Festival is available here.
