RISING Unveils Epic 2024 Program of New Music, Art and Performance to Ignite Melbourne in June
105 events and more than 480 artists set to take the city as a stage as winter begins from June 1-16
MELBOURNE, Australia, March 12, 2024 (Newswire.com) - RISING, Melbourne’s premiere festival of new music, art and performance, today unleashes its sweeping 2024 program, featuring 105 events, more than 480 artists, 23 new commissions, six world premieres, and eight Australian premieres, set to take the city as a stage as winter begins from June 1-16.
Across 16 nights, spanning three epic weekends, RISING will stretch down the spine of the city and beyond as large-scale installations, free public events and world-class contemporary music, theatre and dance ignite the city’s streets, venues and hidden spaces.
“RISING 2024 is a festival that belongs to Naarm, Melbourne. Some of the most exciting voices in art, music and performance offer moments of catharsis and reflection with mass music making in a church or summoning the cosmos in our town square," said RISING co-artistic directors Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek. “The most important part is coming together to be thrilled, bemused, shaken or delighted.”
Presented in partnership with MAPCO, and curated by Kimberley Moulton (Yorta Yorta) (Shadow Spirit, 2023) and Kate ten Buuren (Taungurung), Federation Square will transform into a vibrant forum of First Peoples' art, politics, and cosmic connections with The Blak Infinite — an expansive free exhibition and public program at the heart of the festival.
Along the Birrarung, First Nations soprano and composer Deborah Cheetham AO and audio artists Byron Scullin and Thomas Supple’s monumental sound work The Rivers Sing will echo through the city each night at dusk. Immersive nighttime projections share stories of Sky Country and the cosmos—lit up each evening in the square.
In a free, Australian-exclusive world-premiere, international dance-floor phenomena SHOUSE invites over a thousand participants to form beneath the hallowed vaulted ceilings of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Tentpoling the festival’s mammoth middle long weekend, Day Tripper is RISING’s day party takeover of Melbourne Town Hall and surrounding venues.
From Melbourne icons The Dirty Three in their first hometown shows in 14 years, to Western Sydney drill trailblazers OneFour, U.S. hip hop icon Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) performing two sets, and the singular Swedish electro-pop singer and producer Fever Ray in Australia for the first time, RISING’s contemporary music program will take over the CBD’s most iconic venues, weaving together a diverse lineup of the best musical talents from across Australia and the globe.
Highlights of the performance program include ILBIJERRI Theatre Company's rock 'n' roll narrative Big Name No Blankets, inspired by the Warumpi Band: FOOD by Geoff Sobelle, an absurdist take on human consumption at MTC Lawler, and direct from Europe the first chapter of the Cadela Força Trilogy by Carolina Bianchi.
Early access tickets are on sale from March 12. Explore the full program at www.rising.melbourne.
Source: RISING Festival
