Sydney Festival 2020 starts today and runs until 26 January. Among the shows programmed, there are a few with French and francophone links to see. Here they are!
Two Crews
https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/two-crews
8 – 12 January $39-$45
Lady Rocks, Parisian break group solely made up of women dance in a battle against Australian company Riddim Nation in this show choreographed by Nick Power.
Whereas Lady Rocks specialises in combative and complex choreographed battles, Riddim Nation mixes Pacificka, African and Asian influences in its eclectic and cheeky style.
You can read our interview with Lady Rocks here.
Frontera
https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/frontera
8 – 12 January $60-$70
Fly Pan Am, Canadian electro-rock group will play live music for Canadian avant-garde choreographer Dana Gingras’s dance show with her dance troupe Animals of Distinction.
In Frontera, the question is explored as to in this world in which the human body is subject to more and more invasive surveillance and treatment, what space remains for the undisciplined, ungovernable body?
With synchronised and complex projections and lights by United Visual Artists (UVA), and live music by Fly Pan Am, 10 dancers explore ideas of inclusion and exclusion; their bodies are mapped in high resolution, their destinies unresolved.
Read our interview with Fly Pan Am here.
Forget Me Not
https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/forget-me-not
14 – 26 January $79
Ronnie Burkett, marionette master, returns to Sydney Festival, this time with his show Forget Me Not.
In Forget Me Not, you find yourself in the new now, a world where written words are forbidden and putting pen to paper is a powerful act of defiance. For those determined to compose or write a heartfelt declaration, there is one way, but it requires you to take a perilous journey to a secret camp to trouver “She, the guardian of the lost hand”, the last to retain the knowledge of reading and writing.
Absurd, romantic and provocative, Forget Me Not is a tender call to arms and a rich theatrical love letter to ourselves in these more and more uncivilised times.
We spoke to Ronnie Burkett back before his 2018 Sydney Festival performances. Read the interview here.
Romances Inciertos : un autre Orlando
https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/romances-inciertos
21-26 January $60-$70
Inspired by Virigina Woolf’s Orlando, the Elizabethan courtier who changes sex and lives for more than 300 years, this opera-ballet show from François Chaignaud, choreographer, dancer, singer is a love letter to centuries of Spanish culture and an odyssey about a shape-shifting body which crosses centuries.
In this show, François Chaignaud and four musicians playing period instruments will traverse Spanish history from the Golden Age to the 21st century, in a theatrical mix of Baroque, cabaret, flamenco and gender play.
François Chaignaud gives life to three characters – luminaries from drama, poetry and Spanish folklore: Doncella Guerrera, who leaves for war dressed as a man, San Miguel, the ambiguous archangel from the poet Garcia Lorca and Tarara, free spirited dancer and Anadulsian Roma disappointed by love and who hides a secret androgyny.
Which shows are you seeing at Sydney Festival 2020?
