We Are The Earth Intruders

The 2008 Sydney Festival is on again in January next year, and the season looks set to be a blistering one. The 2008 line-up features as it’s centrepiece the High Priestess of Art Rock, Björk, who will be vocalising as only she is able in the Opera House Forecourt, under the stars on January 23. She of the Swan will be performing songs from her new offering Volta, which is a return to a more pop-oriented sound, albeit one carried by thundering electronica and saturated in relentless, violent colour. This show is a sell-out and should set a new festival benchmark.

Next year’s festival also offers a return season by La Clique at the famous Spiegeltent (who, I am assured, will be serving la fee verte, however brand info is currently unavailable. Stay tuned). La Clique, as their guff tells us, is an “inspired melange of cabaret, new burlesque, circus and contemporary vaudeville, it is sexy, funny and dangerous and has sold every ticket offered for sale in its short two year history.” The show features -

Cabaret Décadanse - direct from Montreal and making their first appearance in Australia, this is the ultimate puppet show for adults.
Mario, Queen of the Circus - is New Yorker Clarke McFarlane as his alter-ego Mario, a natural-born showman brimming with leather-clad passion. He’s the world’s only juggling tribute to Freddie Mercury.
Amy G - this physical comedienne has been described as “sex on roller-skates”.

David O’Mer - the bathtub acrobat who leaves audience damp and heaving all over the globe. Wet jeans, a rope and superb muscle control - does it get any better? (Rob - No… no, it doesn’t. This guy was also in the NY production of Absinthe with Paul Capsis several months ago.)

Captain Frodo - as delightfully existential as he is unnatural, a Norwegian contortionist with the bendiest body in the world.

The English Gents - Melbourne boys Denis Lock and Hamish McCann retain remarkably stiff upper lips as they perform inconceivable feats of physical prowess.

Yulia Pykhtina - Stunning, captivating and truly spectactular. From Kiev with love.

We also like the look of Secret, a show billed as “circus at its most elemental and inventive, Secret is a marriage between the delightful and the bizarre. At the centre of this beautiful and at times unsettling show is the extraordinary Johann Le Guillerm - tightrope walker, feline, clown and magician all rolled into one… A heady mix of alchemy and ground-breaking circus, Secret will take you on a mesmerising, fantastical journey into the secrets of nature.”

Another festival highlight is the new Chunky Move production, Mortal Engine, a new dance-video-laser performance using movement-responsive video projections, a show which oscillates “between moments of exquisite cosmological perfection and grotesque evolutionary accidents of existence.”Also, we highly recommend checking out Ghostgarden, which incorporates audio narrative and GPS technology as you walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens as it was in the late 19th century, incorporating a zoo and parklands, as explored through your GPS, headphones and personal PC. It’s like Blade Runner meets Picnic at Hanging Rock. Very modern.

For more info and to check out the rest of the program, go to www.sydneyfestival.org.au.