Brisbane festival will be bringing work from as far afield as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Singapore in September to ask some big questions about Australia’s politics and place in the world.
Incoming artistic director David Berthold – formerly of La Boite theatre company – unveiled his inaugural program for the city’s international arts festival on Thursday. Against the grain, it featured just one European act among the 456 shows, which include seven world and 13 Australian premieres.
Instead, Berthold has centred his program around two clusters of work from and about the Congo and Singapore, inspired by a local Brisbane performer Future D Fidel, who has written the festival’s headline homegrown show, Prize Fighter.
A young African Australian, Fidel spent much of his childhood in refugee camps after fleeing the Congolese militia in the civil war. La Boite began working with him, and the result is this semi-autobiographical show about a talented boxer preparing for the biggest fight of his career.
Over the course of three weeks in September, festivalgoers will also see Les Ballets C de la B’s Coup Fatal featuring Congolese counter-tenor Serge Kakudji; Macbeth, reframed by South African director Brett Bailey as a story of Congolese warlords; and Le Cargo, by dancer and choreographer Faustin Linyekula.
“The west clearly has a blind spot when it comes to the Congo and Africa in general,” says Berthold. “My eyes were completely opened by what I’ve read and seen in these works … but this is also about talking to the city. It’s been fabulous to meet African leaders and the community in Brisbane. There’s all sorts of layers.”
Singapore is the flipside of the same story, says the director, whose secondary interest was sparked by a series of trips to a country where plays must still be presented to the government for approval before they are produced in public.
“Not many people know that about Singapore,” says Berthold. “It’s a near neighbour of Australia. We know Changi airport, we go shopping there, we do business. But its cultural history and complexity, the way it has dealt with colonialism, is almost the complete opposite to the Congo.”
In the 50th year of the country’s independence, Berthold has programmed five shows from Singapore, including an all-male version of The Importance of Being Earnest by Wild Rice theatre company. His hope is that seeing a range of shows from both countries will get Australian audiences thinking about their own.
“The Congo is one of the largest nations in the world and one of the poorest; Singapore, one of the smallest and richest. The Congo is flooded with natural resources. If it harnessed its water, it could power all of Africa. Singapore doesn’t have its own fresh water supply. It has to get it from Malaysia. Singapore has a charismatic leader who, through the notion of free trade but at some cost of free press, has made Singapore a world powerhouse in less than 50 years. The Congo, well, they’ve had not any leadership ever, and that’s part of the problem.”
Another festival highlight, Flexn, a dynamic dance work from the US that tackles black incarceration, is likely to feel close to home for audiences in the wake of protests at the G20. So too One Beautiful Day, by Ilbijerri theatre, which looks at the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in police custody on Palm Island. It will premiere on Palm Island before coming to Brisbane and features Doomadgee’s niece.
“In Australia we have conversations about censorship. We have conversations about marriage equality. We have conversations about resources and taxes and race. But to put them in another context gives them another layer entirely,” says Berthold.
“There is a circuit of festival works and it’s very easy to cherry-pick those works. To me, that is not a creative act, just to assemble the same old things. A festival is very well placed to be at the nexus of heart and community and participation – a great hotspot for the arts at the moment.”
With Berthold at the helm of Brisbane festival, Wesley Enoch newly announced in Sydney, Neil Armfield in Adelaide (with Rachel Healy) and Jonathan Holloway in Melbourne, the majority of major city arts festivals in Australia will soon be run by practising theatre directors – a plea made by Ralph Myers at Belvoir theatre in December 2014.
“Suddenly that speech feels like another century ago,” says Berthold. “Suddenly we have all these theatre directors running festivals. How it manifests I don’t know.
“But if you can have both things – do the great art but also have the great eye-opening conversations – then for me, that’s a festival experience.”
• Brisbane festival 2015 runs from 5 to 26 September at venues citywide
