Festivals : Sydney
Australia’s leading cultural festival, the Sydney Festival has been a force to be reckoned with since 1976. Welcoming the world’s best theatre, music, art and dance and running throughout the height of the Sydney summer, the festival starts each New Year off with an avalanche of artistic activity and traditionally ends on Australia Day (26 January).
The 2006 sees a new festival director after four curated by Brett Sheehy. Fergus Linehan takes over for 2006 and beyond, and has already announced a couple of highlights from the 20 days of artistic excellence that is due to hit Sydney in the annual run up to Australia Day.

Theatrical magician Robert Lepage returns to the festival after his 2001 showing of The Far Side of the Moon with his 2005 bicentenary commission in honour of Hans Christian Andersen, The Andersen Project. Using a typical device, Lepage weaves various narrative strands together, not only Andersen’s visit to the Paris World Fair in 1867 and two of his tales, The Dryad and The Shadow, but also a modern tale set in a steamy Paris sex shop.

Also heading Down Under are Mercury prize winners Antony and the Johnsons, no stranger to Sydney having been seen in the Leonard Cohen tribute Came So Far for Beauty in February 2005 (and now out on DVD). The British-born lead-singer Antony Hegarty and his New York-based band are back for three concerts at the State Theatre.

Festival favourites such as Jazz in the Domain and Bacardi Latino Festival at Darling Harbour return, along with Symphony in the Domain and the Streets Ferrython on Australia Day itself.

As Australia’s largest and most vistited metropolis, Sydney offers a variety of festivals and events to rival any major city in the world. The highest-profile of the annual festivals is the Gay and Lesbian Mardis Gras which has, since its foundation in 1978, grown to become the most spectacular event of its kind on the planet. But it is not all pink boob tubes and leather cod pieces: Sydney can offer something for everyone from surf fests to sonnets. The remarkably diverse list of events fit in to three main categories: sports, culture and the arts, with the added spice of an invariably colourful take on international or national celebrations like the fireworks display at New Year, or the annual Australia Day celebrations, both of which are centred around the perfect backdrop of the harbour and Circular Quay. The following is a summary of the major festivals held annually, or those major events specific to 2003/4. For comprehensive listings check out the free This Month in Sydney booklet from the VIC, the weekend.

This huge extravaganza is one of the largest and most prestigious cultural events in Australia, presenting the finest international artists and most acclaimed local talent in the performing and visual arts. Every summer the city’s concert venues, theatres, galleries, streets and various outdoor venues are taken over by the creative arts, featuring a wide range of music, dance and drama, exhibitions, circuses and free outdoor entertainment in a celebration of artistic innovation unmatched anywhere else in the country. A free outdoor programme, including the enormously popular symphony and jazz concerts in the Domain, complements the ticketed events, and takes place in venues such as the Rocks, Darling Harbour and in front of the Sydney Opera House.

A Sydney city-wide festival celebrating the art of drawing - ‘Drawing Connections’ - will be held through the month of July this year. The Australian Museum will join with other city art galleries, museums and cultural institutions presenting an inspiring program including an exhibition of scientific illustrations, public lectures and drawing workshops for both children and adults. The core week of the festival, July 11-15, coincides with NAIDOC Week with special drawing workshops led by the Museum’s Aboriginal artist-in-residence Jeffrey Samuels.