perth festival

In Jungle Book Reimagined, the celebrated choreographer Akram Khan brings Rudyard Kipling's classic and contested Jungle Book stories into a near-future world torn apart by the impacts of climate change. But with the original stories rooted in colonial perspectives, why revisit them a century later to tell a story of displacement amid environmental collapse?

Also, the role of Brünnhilde in Wagner's Ring Cycle is one of opera's most demanding. It requires a dramatic soprano voice with extraordinary power and maturity and is rarely tackled until a singer is well into their career. To learn more, we're joined by our ABC Top 5 resident, mezzo soprano Katrina Waters, who is investigating the mid-career transitions of female dramatic voices.

What does 'Australia' mean to you? We all have our own version of Australia, shaped by our lived experience. But what happens when our reality sits outside the collective narrative?

This year's Perth Festival takes us to the stars, with many events in the program inspired by stories of the cosmos. The West Australian Symphony Orchestra's concert Music of the Spheres included music from Australian composer Richard Mills' forthcoming opera Galileo, inspired by the life of the pioneering Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei.

Also, Aboriginal dreaming stories inspire bold new theatrical work being staged under — and among — the stars, and Palawa writer Nathan Maynard and Māori writer Jamie McCaskill take us on an adventure across the sea and through the stars and spirit world in Hide the Dog.

How do you get to the essence of an activity that is part sport, part leisure, and a large part cultural identity?

The Last Great Hunt are a collective of Western Australian theatre makers who delight in bringing the unexpected to the stage. Now a documentary, Stage Changers, offers candid insight into their process as it follows the company creating their most ambitious work.

Also, we visit a hip hop dance school breaking down barriers for young people who want to dance, and we meet Carla Stickler, a performer turned software engineer who during the Omicron wave found herself back on Broadway in Wicked after seven years away.

Zindzi Okenyo has a lot on her plate. The actor, musician and Play School host is now a theatre director. Her first plays, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner and Orange Thrower, are bitingly honest portrayals of growing up black in predominantly white communities.

Also, when Kim Crotty couldn't be with his sons, he wrote them stories instead — 47 of them. These stories are shared in a new play at this year's Perth Festival called The Smallest Stage — a play that also reveals the reason for their separation: Kim was in prison.

Antony Hamilton is the artistic director of Melbourne's fierce and feisty contemporary dance company, Chunky Move. His new work Yung Lung plunges audiences into a restless and menacing dance party held in the midst of a world in crisis.

Also, WA musician and playwright David Milroy shares what's on his Top Shelf and we meet Jules Allen, a youth support and mental health care worker (and former MasterChef contestant) who can now add 'funny and searingly honest playwright' to her CV.

What can a 60-year-old play about drunk and sometimes spiteful American academics tell us about culture and race relations in Australia? Director Margaret Harvey shares her bold vision for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Also, we hear a performance from Black Brass, inspired by stories of resilience from Perth's African communities and we meet some of the real-life people whose generosity inspired the hit musical Come from Away.

As Wesley Enoch wraps up his five years as artistic director of the Sydney Festival, he reflects on his decades-long commitment to Indigenous storytelling, the legacy of his directorship and what comes next.

Also, we hear a performance from Black Brass at the Perth Festival, inspired by stories of resilience from Perth's African communities, and discuss the enduring popularity of Our Town by Thornton Wilder.

She's written 25 plays, won three Helpmann awards and is now performing alongside Al Pacino, but writer and performer Kate Mulvany has never been afraid of her darker side.

Also, we meet the cast of Inua Ellams' now streaming Barber Shop Chronicles and discuss the new phenomenon of staging theatre in our living rooms.

Irish choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan achieved worldwide success with Fabulous Beast, but a yearning for his cultural roots led him to found a new company: Teac Damsa.

Also, the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs recount a young man's life and horrific murder in Considering Matthew Shepard, and we discuss the resurgence of audio drama with America's most produced playwright Lauren Gunderson and Australian Lachlan Philpott.

Renowned theatre and opera director Phelim McDermott discusses his journey from Phillip Glass obsessive to collaborating with the man himself, voice and dialect coach Leith McPherson shares more insights into the power of voice, and following the fires in eastern Australia, we ask playwright Campion Decent about the power of verbatim theatre and the impact of his play Embers.

Tim Winton's Cloudstreet returns to the stage, we look back at when Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince staged some of the most inventive and challenging musical theatre Broadway had ever seen, we tour The Australian Ballet Centre's pointe shoe room and learn that it takes a firm hand to mould a soft shoe, and playwright Michelle Law drops by to share the Best Advice she ever got.

The writers of Who's Afraid of the Working Class? reunite for Anthem, choreographer Hofesh Shechter brings his Grand Finale back to Australia, we travel to the Komische Oper Berlin to find out how to make opera for everyone, and British comedian Sarah Millican takes control.

Romantic comedy Black Ties, directed by Rachael Maza and Tainui Tukiwaho, brings together Australia's Ilbijerri and New Zealand's Te Rēhia, our theatre critics highlight the best shows of the decade and their top picks for 2020, the Flying Fruit Fly Circus turns 40, we farewell British theatre director, actor and writer Jonathan Miller, and Kim Carpenter shares his Top Shelf.