The 2018 Adelaide Festival continues to be a force to be reckoned with, today announcing a killer line up for this year’s event. Grace Jones tops the list in our opinion, joining a number of phenomenal women set to hit the stage.
Grace Jones returns to Adelaide after 36 years, for one night only! One of the world’s most legendary live performers, her most recent concerts have had audiences and critics enraptured by her musicianship, mystique, and performance energy. Kate Miller-Heidke joins the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for the Adelaide premiere of some of her biggest hits and most loved compositions.
The rest of the festival program is rich with Australian and international voices, bold new visions and contemporary theatre classics, as Joint Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy return to the helm for their second Adelaide Festival in 2018.
The Adelaide Festival Board also announced today that it has extended the contract of the Joint Artistic Directors for a further two festivals, with their tenure culminating in 2021.
The stellar program features 48 theatre, music, opera, dance, film and visual arts events alongside Adelaide Writers’ Week and WOMADelaide. The line up includes four world premieres, 14 Australian premieres and 13 events exclusive to Adelaide over 17 days from 2 March to 18 March 2018.
Joint Artistic Directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield said: “We are so proud to be Artistic Directors of the greatest arts festival in the country, indeed one of the great festivals of the world. In 2018 we have programmed works of mighty scale and whispering intimacy – all of them fired by an ambition to enthral, challenge, awe and inspire. Works by the finest artists in the world today; works you will remember for the rest of your life. There’s no doubt – Adelaide in March is the place to be.”
Premier Jay Weatherill said: “The 2018 Adelaide Festival program yet again reinforces the Adelaide Festival as the nation’s leading arts festival. Tens of thousands of people will converge on Adelaide to soak up the art, culture, conversations and ideas that the Adelaide Festival presents, alongside WOMADelaide and Adelaide’s Writers’ Week. I congratulate Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield on an inspiring Festival program and look forward to sharing the Festival with as many South Australian’s and Festival visitors as possible.”
We can’t wait! Some of our program highlights…
The Palais returns! With an exciting line-up of events sure to draw crowds to the spectacular Adelaide Riverbank Precinct in 2018. Featuring the soulful funk of Lee Fields, UK electronic music duo Mount Kimbie, Brooklyn four-piece and acclaimed indie act Grizzly Bear, queer icon and riveting live performer Perfume Genius, firebrand trumpet-playing vocalist from The Cat Empire Harry James Angus, treasured and influential singer-songwriter Archie Roach, the country blues of Vikki Thorn of The Waifs and the angelic harmonies of Lior, The Palais will be the festival hub, with its own eclectic brand of good times and great tunes, right on the banks of the Torrens River.
Adelaide Festival’s Fast Fine Dines program returns in 2018, partnering with Adelaide’s premium food and wine establishments to help create the perfect evening out, with a range of pre and post show dining options. Look out for the FFD booklet, or check online for festival deals at the best culinary hotspots near performance spaces, including Kaffana, Level One at Electra House, Madame Hanoi, Magill Estate, Mayflower Restaurant, press* food & wine, Rigoni’s Bistro, Sean’s Kitchen and Shobosho. Premium bars with a food offering include Apothecary 1878, Bank Street Social, Hennessey Bar, Pink Moon Saloon, and the new West Oak Hotel.
In an Australian premiere exclusive to the Adelaide Festival, Neil Armfield’s production of Brett Dean’s Hamlet for Glyndebourne Festival Opera sees Shakespeare’s greatest play given new life as a darkly complex opera. With a stellar international cast, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Nicholas Carter as conductor and the State Opera of South Australia chorus, as well as a semi-chorus featuring The Song Company, Hamlet will be a major musical and theatrical experience in the Adelaide Festival Theatre.
WOMADelaide returns in 2018, again celebrating the most joyous and dynamic traditional and contemporary music, dance, visual arts and street performances alongside The Planet Talks program, family friendly entertainment and a foodie’s delight at Taste the World. 2018 artists include: Rodrigo y Gabriela (Mexico), Anoushka Shankar (India/UK), Havana Meets Kingston (Cuba/Jamaica), Kamasi Washington (USA), The Avalanches (Australia), Tinariwen (Mali), Dan Sultan (Australia), Architects of Air (UK), and many more.
A solo exhibition by celebrated New York artist, Egyptian-born Youssef Nabil is exclusive to Adelaide and presented by Adelaide gallery Gagprojects, Nabil’s photography is highly sought throughout the world, including his portraits of many significant visual artists, musicians and actors including Marina Abramovic, Louise Bourgeois, Alicia Keys and Catherine Deneuve. Inspired by both the golden age of Egyptian cinema and vintage portrait studios’ hand-tinted photographs from the same era, Nabil applies the same colouring techniques to his own artworks. The exhibition will also feature the Australian première of his recent video work I Saved My Belly Dancer, starring Salma Hayek.
See the full program here
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