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  • Translator: Thu-Huong Ha Reviewer: Morton Bast

  • Sydney. I had been waiting my whole life to get to Sydney.

  • I got to the airport, to the hotel, checked in,

  • and, sitting there in the lobby, was a brochure

  • for the Sydney Festival. I thumbed through it,

  • and I came across a show called "Minto: Live."

  • The description read: "The suburban streets of Minto

  • become the stage for performances

  • created by international artists

  • in collaboration with the people of Minto."

  • What was this place called Minto?

  • Sydney, as I would learn, is a city of suburbs,

  • and Minto lies southwest, about an hour away.

  • I have to say, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind

  • for my first day down under.

  • I mean, I'd thought about the Harbour Bridge or Bondi Beach,

  • but Minto? But still, I'm a producer,

  • and the lure of a site-specific theater project

  • was more than I could resist. (Laughter)

  • So, off I went into Friday afternoon traffic,

  • and I'll never forget what I saw when I got there.

  • For the performance, the audience walked

  • around the neighborhood from house to house,

  • and the residents, who were the performers,

  • they came out of their houses, and they performed

  • these autobiographical dances on their lawns,

  • on their driveways. (Laughter)

  • The show is a collaboration with a U.K.-based

  • performance company called Lone Twin.

  • Lone Twin had come to Minto and worked

  • with the residents, and they had created these dances.

  • This Australian-Indian girl, she came out and started

  • to dance on her front lawn,

  • and her father peered out the window to see

  • what all the noise and commotion was about,

  • and he soon joined her.

  • And he was followed by her little sister.

  • And soon they were all dancing this joyous,

  • exuberant dance right there on their lawn. (Laughter)

  • And as I walked through the neighborhood,

  • I was amazed and I was moved by the incredible

  • sense of ownership this community clearly felt

  • about this event.

  • "Minto: Live" brought Sydneysiders into dialogue

  • with international artists, and really celebrated

  • the diversity of Sydney on its own terms.

  • The Sydney Festival which produced "Minto: Live" I think

  • represents a new kind of 21st-century arts festival.

  • These festivals are radically open.

  • They can transform cities and communities.

  • To understand this, I think it kind of makes sense

  • to look where we've come from.

  • Modern arts festivals were born

  • in the rubble of World War II.

  • Civic leaders created these annual events

  • to celebrate culture as the highest

  • expression of the human spirit.

  • In 1947, the Edinburgh Festival was born

  • and Avignon was born and hundreds of others

  • would follow in their wake.

  • The work they did was very, very high art,

  • and stars came along like Laurie Anderson

  • and Merce Cunningham and Robert Lepage

  • who made work for this circuit,

  • and you had these seminal shows like "The Mahabharata"

  • and the monumental "Einstein on the Beach."

  • But as the decades passed,

  • these festivals, they really became the establishment,

  • and as the culture and capital accelerated,

  • the Internet brought us all together,

  • high and low kind of disappeared,

  • a new kind of festival emerged.

  • The old festivals, they continued to thrive, but

  • from Brighton to Rio to Perth, something new was emerging,

  • and these festivals were really different.

  • They're open, these festivals, because, like in Minto,

  • they understand that the dialogue

  • between the local and the global is essential.

  • They're open because they ask the audience to be a player,

  • a protagonist, a partner, rather than a passive spectator,

  • and they're open because they know that imagination

  • cannot be contained in buildings,

  • and so much of the work they do

  • is site-specific or outdoor work.

  • So, the new festival, it asks the audience to play

  • an essential role in shaping the performance.

  • Companies like De La Guarda, which I produce, and Punchdrunk

  • create these completely immersive experiences

  • that put the audience at the center of the action,

  • but the German performance company Rimini Protokoll

  • takes this all to a whole new level.

  • In a series of shows that includes "100 Percent Vancouver,"

  • "100 Percent Berlin," Rimini Protokoll makes shows

  • that actually reflect society.

  • Rimini Protokoll chooses 100 people that represent that city

  • at that moment in terms of race and gender and class,

  • through a careful process that begins three months before,

  • and then those 100 people share stories about

  • themselves and their lives, and the whole thing

  • becomes a snapshot of that city at that moment.

  • LIFT has always been a pioneer in the use of venues.

  • They understand that theater and performance

  • can happen anywhere.

  • You can do a show in a schoolroom,

  • in an airport, — (Laughter) —

  • in a department store window.

  • Artists are explorers. Who better to show us the city anew?

  • Artists can take us to a far-flung part of the city

  • that we haven't explored, or they can take us into

  • that building that we pass every day but we never went into.

  • An artist, I think, can really show us people

  • that we might overlook in our lives.

  • Back to Back is an Australian company of people

  • with intellectual disabilities. I saw their amazing show

  • in New York at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal

  • at rush hour.

  • We, the audience, were given headsets and seated

  • on one side of the terminal.

  • The actors were right there in front of us,

  • right there among the commuters,

  • and we could hear them,

  • but we might not have otherwise seen them.

  • So Back to Back takes site-specific theater and uses it

  • to gently remind us about who and what we choose

  • to edit out of our daily lives.

  • So, the dialogue with the local and the global,

  • the audience as participant and player and protagonist,

  • the innovative use of site, all of these things

  • come to play in the amazing work

  • of the fantastic French company Royal de Luxe.

  • Royal de Luxe's giant puppets come into a city

  • and they live there for a few days.

  • For "The Sultan's Elephant," Royal de Luxe

  • came to central London and brought it to a standstill

  • with their story of a giant little girl and her friend,

  • a time-traveling elephant.

  • For a few days, they transformed a massive city

  • into a community where endless possibility reigned.

  • The Guardian wrote, "If art is about transformation,

  • then there can be no more transformative experience.

  • What 'The Sultan's Elephant' represents is no less

  • than an artistic occupation of the city

  • and a reclamation of the streets for the people."

  • We can talk about the economic impacts of these festivals

  • on their cities, but I'm much [more] interested in many more things,

  • like how a festival helps a city to express itself,

  • how it lets it come into its own.

  • Festivals promote diversity,

  • they bring neighbors into dialogue,

  • they increase creativity,

  • they offer opportunities for civic pride,

  • they improve our general psychological well-being.

  • In short, they make cities better places to live.

  • Case in point:

  • When "The Sultan's Elephant" came to London

  • just nine months after 7/7, a Londoner wrote,

  • "For the first time since the London bombings,

  • my daughter called up with that sparkle back in her voice.

  • She had gathered with others

  • to watch 'The Sultan's Elephant,' and, you know,

  • it just made all the difference."

  • Lyn Gardner in The Guardian has written

  • that a great festival can show us a map of the world,

  • a map of the city and a map of ourselves,

  • but there is no one fixed festival model.

  • I think what's so brilliant about the festivals,

  • the new festivals, is that they are really fully capturing

  • the complexity and the excitement

  • of the way we all live today.

  • Thank you very much. (Applause)

Translator: Thu-Huong Ha Reviewer: Morton Bast

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