If you’re heading to the Harvest Festival, but sure to check out Harvest Arts: an all-encompassing, full-body, super-sensory arts explosion across the entire festival, on multiple stages and in every available nook and cranny! Featuring over 400 artists working on 80 acts and installations – from the playful to the ethereal, the thought provoking to the downright jaw-dropping – the arts play a fundamental role in the skin-tingling, head-spinning sensation that is Harvest..
Here’s what to expect!
With a sideways glance, you enter BOOTLEG ALLEY, the upside-down landscape
of guilty pleasures and happily lost innocence, home to alt-performance
palace LE BOUDOIR, where international guests make their Australian
premieres and local stars ravage and delight their fellow citizens. Bootleg
Alley is a warren of deliciously unexpected sideshows and a haven for
immersive underworld playgrounds – THE SNUFF BOX (Sydney) and HAPPYLAND(tm)
(Melbourne) – where debauched citizens lure you in and spit you out…and
you like it…possibly more than you should…
Setting LE BOUDOIR alight this year, Australia’s very own multi-award
winning, buccaneering beefcake heroes, Briefs, freshly laundered from
steaming hot performances of their savvy circus-vaudeville mash-up in
London, Edinburgh and Dublin. It’s burlesque with balls…finally!
Joining us from abroad for the very first time, to twist our minds and
cement a firm place in our hearts, come the part-twisted cabaret,
part-biting theatre, part-catwalk freakshow – electropop London sensations
Bourgeois & Maurice, described by Beth Ditto from the Gossip as ‘…absolute filth, I love them!’
Bourgeois & Maurice
Also taking to the Australian stage for the very first time, for those who
like their burlesque both brilliant and stupid, are the multi-award winning
Coney Island idols, Trixie Little and Evil Hate Monkey. Expect trapeze,
striptease and shenanigans galore… and, of course, a monkey in a tutu.
Vaudevillage returns to open LE BOUDOIR in all cities, in a funky
Frankenstein variety mash-up, curated by The Campfire Collective, with
performances from (among many others!): Nick Coyle, Smart Casual, Shane
Matheson (Sydney); Randy the Puppet, One Trick Pony, Ryan Coffey, Anne
Edmonds (Melbourne); Mel Buttle, Nerida Waters and Skills in Time
(Brisbane); with John Conway as Vaudevillage host in each city.
Watch out! Guaranteeing some heart-stopping moments, The League of Sideshow
Superstars (All Cities) will break new ground with world-first stunts and
eye-popping sideshow routines in this superhuman extravaganza.
To round out LE BOUDOIR, each state will have its own floor-stompin’ finale.
In Melbourne, part crooner, part ringmaster, part beast possessed,
Mikelangelo presents two evenings of devilish sultry entertainment, with
special guests The Tin Star on Saturday night and The Woohoo Revue on
Sunday. Sydney will see the tent-shakin’ return of Juke Baritone and The
Swamp Dogs with their dark cocktail blend of trapeze punk, gypsy jazz and
pirate blues mayhem. Last but not least, ye olde Brisbane town will be privy
to a marauding musical concoction reminiscent of a lusty Halloween knees-up
in a south sea pirate shanty when Rapskallion hijack the ship.
Deep in the underbelly of Bootleg Alley lie the anarchic, demented immersive
playgrounds – THE SNUFF BOX (Sydney) and HAPPYLAND(tm) (Melbourne). Part
mind-melting art installation, part shonky performance space, part frenzied
futuristic fairground, these very special secret spaces are hosted by The
Glitter Militia (Sydney) and Sideshow and United Carnival Attractions
(Melbourne). Seek them out…if you dare!
THE SECRET GARDEN
Meanwhile, nestled in a lush natural amphitheatre, THE SECRET GARDEN is a
blissful holistic world, brimming with a thousand delights. Enter the
archway to find two more tantalising stages…
Lose yourself in shots of spoken word, theatre, comedy, dance, discussion
and more at THE CAMPFIRE STAGE (Melbourne / Sydney only) where you can be
tickled by the sell-out hit of the Sydney Writers Festival, Erotic Fan
Fiction; be fiddled with by master fiddler and story teller Aindrias de
Staic; be enlightened by lycra during The Mighty Nineties Power Hour
(Melbourne only) and uplifted by brilliant stories and unforgettable
characters in the ATYP Voices Project (Sydney only).
The Campfire Stage will also play host to the chuckle-tastic Comedy Picnic,
featuring such masters of mirth as Lessons with Luis, Felicity Ward, David
Quirk, Anne Edmonds (Melbourne), Gen Fricker, Rhys Nicholson, Shane Matheson
and Cameron James (Sydney).
Fancy a boogie? Head over to THE GARDEN STAGE (all states), where
hand-picked DJs will sooth your soul and electrify your limbs with vinyl
dreams and uplifting scenes of funk, reggae, electro, disco and soul.
Featuring the best DJs from the underground club scenes along with surprise
sets from very special guests.
And if that’s not enough positive energy for you, how about we throw in some
from the sun direct? The Secret Garden (Melbourne/Sydney) will be the
largest-ever major festival area in Australia to be powered by solar energy,
thanks to the Germinate Solar Powered Sound System!
Around The FestivaL
Harvest hearts the arts! With over 400 artists working on more than 80 acts
and installations over the three cities, there will be an abundance of
pleasures and treasures as you make your way through the Harvest universe.
This year, we are pleased to announce a new aerial stage in Brisbane.
Showcasing some of the best aerial and circus talent in Queensland, THE
CHERRYPICKER STAGE will feature comedic powerhouses, sultry sirens, rock ‘n’
roll stuntkids and ethereal angels.
In Melbourne and Sydney, the inimitable 19th Century Parisian tram style
café cum performance space LA TOOSH returns. Bask in the rooftop rhythms
from Leigh Barker & The New Sheiks, Vardos, The Bearded Gypsy Band
(Melbourne), Belly Ache Ben & The Steamgrass Boys, Mr Bamboo, and The Rusty
Spring Syncopators (Sydney), plus more!
We also have two special projects that begin before you arrive: Harmonic
Bloom is an interactive augmented art installation that is accessed via
smartphones, and …just for one day – an audio theatre adventure preloaded
to an mp3 player. So jump online here
<http://www.harvestfestival.com.au/arts/around-festival/special-projects>
before you hit the site and equip yourself for the full experience.
Each year Harvest fully commissions a significant new piece of work from an
artist or collective that thrills. Following the success of last year’s I
Really Need You Tonight installation in Melbourne from artist Kirsty Hulm,
we have invited Kirsty to create a new piece, Lust for Life, for this year’s
Festival (Melbourne and Sydney).
Harvest is committed to developing and building relationships with artists
from all over Australia and beyond, and we work closely with our amazing
artists as they work toward presenting their talents to thousands of people
in the exhilarating and stunning environment that is Harvest.
HEAD HERE FOR THE FULL ARTS LINE UP
http://www.harvestfestival.com.au/arts/overview
<http://www.harvestfestival.com.au/arts/overview>
FULL MUSIC LINE UP:
Beck, Sigur Ros, Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane, Grizzly Bear, Ben Folds Five,
Silversun Pickups, Beirut, Santigold,
Cake, The Dandy Warhols, Dexys, The Black Angels, Chromatics, Crazy P,
Ozomatli, Liars, Fuck Buttons, Los Campesinos!,
The War on Drugs, Dark, Dark Dark, River City Extension, Dark Horses and
Winter People.
HARVEST DATES AND TICKETS;
Sat 10th Nov – Melbourne, Werribee Park
Sun 11th Nov – Melbourne, Werribee Park SOLD OUT
Sat 17th Nov – Sydney, Parramatta Park
Sun 18th Nov – Brisbane, City Botanic Gardens
Tickets on sale now via harvestfestival.com.au
<http://harvestfestival.com.au/> , oztix.com.au <http://oztix.com.au/> 1300
762 545 & ticketek.com.au <http://ticketek.com.au/>
132 849. Harvest is an 18+ event only
