Mudfest 2013

Overview

Do you like the Melbourne Festival, but find you don’t fit in with the crowd? Are you a little too young and way too poor? Well, Mudfest may be the thing for you.

Initiated in 1990 — where it basically consisted of a few drama geeks shouting Shakespeare across the quad — Mudfest has since grown into the largest student-run arts festival in the country. This year’s theme, Make it New!, has brought an impressive array of theatre, film, art, and music to the festival.

Live art is an especially exciting feature of the lineup with interdisciplinary works such as Conjunct and Blindness exploring the experiential elements of performance and reception. Audiences can look forward to vibrant light shows in galleries, and engulfing darkness in underground carparks. The theatre on offer is equally as outlandish. The (very) original work Gaga & Assange will deliver an unexpected on-stage romance, and Man Zoo will tell the surreal story of a time when naked men are kept captive in enclosures.

There may not be any actual mud at this festival, but there will be full-frontal nudity and cheap beer. When it comes to student arts festivals, what more could you want?

Check out the full Mudfest program here.

Image: Sarah Walker