Ten Sydney Festival Highlights to Have on Your Radar This Summer

Remember when Sydney Festival and Belvoir St Theatre transformed Sydney Town Hall into a Sri Lankan homestead for Counting and Cracking? This year, the festival is building a tennis court in the heritage building to tell the life story of Australia’s former world number one, Evonne Goolagong. You’ll sit courtside as Katie Beckett (Which Way Home) takes on the role of the tennis legend — the first Indigenous woman to win a Grand Slam, and 14 of them in total. Written by Andrea James, Sunshine Super Girl is a celebration of Goolagong’s rise from country town beginnings to a household name. It promises humour, humility and a stellar ensemble cast, including Luke Carroll (Black Comedy), Jax Compton (Muggera Dance Group), Katina Olsen (Sydney Dance Company) and Kyle Shilling (Bangarra Dance Theatre).

Image: Jamie James.

Australian dance theatre company Force Majeure creates theatrical movement-based storytelling that really is unforgettable. We’re still recovering from the tour de force of 2018’s You Animal, You, programmed as part of Sydney Festival, and its latest show has us just as hyped. Inspired by the themes of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, the world premiere production prods questions about human survival, ageing and environmental destruction — so, just the small things. Performers Pamela Rabe, Paul Capsis and Olwen Fouéré will be joined by 13 young performers to tussle with those challenging intergenerational issues.

Brisbane-based Circa is one of the leading circus companies in the world. Under the artistic direction of Yaron Lifschitz, Circa has performed its thrilling, physically demanding shows to more than a million people in over 40 countries. So, we’re pretty lucky to have another chance to see its prowess in the upgraded version of a show that premiered at Sydney Festival 2017. Like all good sequels, Humans 2.0 is a love letter to what’s come before, and a chance to go even further with its feats of strength, ferocity and boundary-pushing acrobatics. Ten of Circa’s finest ensemble members will move to music by composer Ori Lichtik, celebrating what it means to be human.

Image: Justin Ma.

Infatuation. Jealousy. Lust. Every matter of the heart has been written about in poetry. And in Persian cultures, there’s a 1000-year-old practice of courting your lover through rhythmic language. Inspired by curtain shows, intimate storytelling and epics ballads from the streets of Kabul, Tehran and Quetta, Dorr-e Dari invites audiences to turn off their dating apps and tune into the language of love with hosts Bibi Goul Mossavi, Jawad Yaqoubi and Mahdi Mohammadi. The Sydney Festival show has been created by progressive western Sydney theatre company PYT Fairfield.

Image: Anna Kucera.

Returning to Sydney Festival following a sold-out performance in 2020, leading didgeridoo player and composer William Barton and acclaimed violinist Véronique Serret are performing meditative music together in two shows at the Seymour Centre. At the time of writing, both performances are already operating a waitlist for tickets — and understandably so. The collaboration of two powerhouse performers results in soaring vocals and distinctly Australian sounds that are reminiscent of our country’s vast and diverse landscape. Heartland brings in traditional songlines and modern storytelling via Barton’s mother, Aunty Delmae Barton, who wrote the show’s poetry especially for these performances.

Raunchy, dazzling and sharpy satirical, Siren Theatre Co’s H.M.S. Pinafore is a romp of a remake that received rave reviews when it premiered at the Hayes Theatre in 2019. Now, as part of Sydney Festival, you can see director Kate Gaul’s hilarious caper at Riverside Theatres over ten sequined shows that come with a content warning. H.M.S. Pinafore is one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas, which features star-crossed lovers, tongue twisters and mistaken identity — plus all the classic tunes ‘I’m Called Little Buttercup’ and ‘He is an Englishman’.

After a year like 2020, it feels somewhat like we’ve reached the end of humanity. Maybe the end of everything? Now, take that dystopian vision of the future and sprinkle a bit of cannibalism into the picture. That’s what physical theatre maestro Mitch Jones has done with his darkly comic Autocannibal. With Earth’s resources completely decimated, the sole-surviving human must consider making a meal of himself in order to live another day. It’s the morbid, visceral clowning around we deserve to start a new year.

Image: Jacinta Oaten.

Inspired by the life of a dear friend, Maureen: Harbinger of Death is a one-person show that celebrates the wisdom and acerbic life advice of older women in a society that often dismisses its female elders. Co-creator and performer Jonny Hawkins takes to the stage in minimal costume — bar for a herbal ciggy — to embody Maureen in her boho living room. Expect storytelling of the most entertaining and heartwarming kind as Hawkins and director and co-creator Ranney bring back their friend’s passion for life as a self-described ‘working class glamour queen’.

Image: Joe Engstrom.

Sydney Festival has always been synonymous with live music, and after a year of very few opportunities to dance and sing along to live tunes, the festival is teaming up with the city’s live music venues to bring us a suite of intimate gigs. Waywards, Club Parramatta, The Marly, The Lansdowne and the Old 505 are all hosting local musicians, record label owners and DJs from January 16–23. You can see Triple J favourites E^ST and Jaguar Jonze at the Seymour Centre; Alice Ivy and futurist R&B project KYVA at Waywards; Emily Wurramara at Eternity Playhouse; and Haiku Hands at The Albion Hotel. Tickets range from $15 up to $95 for a night of cabaret, and as spaces are limited some gigs are already running a waitlist.

The foundation that awards journos for the most powerful stories of the year is hosting a series of talks at Sydney Town Hall for anyone who’s been gripped by the news lately. You can hear from journalist and documentary maker Pat Abboud on storytelling from within diverse communities and sub-cultures; The Sydney Morning Herald’s investigative journalist Kate McClymont joins Jan Fran to discuss the city’s underbelly; and Guardian Australia’s Indigenous Affairs editor Lorena Allam joins journo Laura Murphy-Oates to talk about tracking the state-sanctioned massacres of Indigenous peoples across Australia. Each talk is ticketed from $25 per session.