Creating new work under festival pressure

A composer, a choreographer and a theatre-maker reflect on the challenges of creating original work in the context of an international arts festival.
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Publicity image for Fraught Outfit’s The Bacchae. Photo by Pia Johnson.

One of the strengths of any major international arts festival, as Adelaide Festival of Arts’ David Sefton recently observed, is exclusivity.

‘Your point of difference as a festival is to put things on that no-one else has got … There are another good half dozen arts festivals across the continent now, and what we do exclusively is what makes us different,’ Sefton told Arts Hub.

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Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts