2025 summer festival highlights for your arts diary: part 1

A hand-picked guide to some of the most intriguing cultural events on offer around the country in January.
Stephanie Lake Company’s ‘The Chronicles’ is sure to be a highlight of Sydney Festival 2025 and indeed, the 2025 summer festival season generally. The photo shows five dancers of diverse cultural backgrounds holding hands and collectively leaning to the right, while in the fourground, and much more nrightly lit, a male-presenting dancer lies on their back on the stage, holding up a female-presenting dancer with one hand and one foot. Balance upon his raised extremities, the female-presenting dancer has her right leg and right arm raised in a snapshot of dynamic movement.

One of the best things about arts festivals, be they local or international, is the opportunity such events provide for taking the collective cultural pulse of a city, a community or an artform.

In part one, covering the last few weeks of January, we’ve suggested some of the most intriguing events, performances and productions to have caught our eye. Look out for part two, covering some of February’s many interesting options, and part three, an overview of March, in the coming weeks. Now, read on!

Unlock Padlock Icon

Unlock this content?

Access this content and more

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's former National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in early 2020. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association in 2021, and a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Photo: Fiona Hamilton. Follow Richard on Bluesky @richardthewatts.bsky.social and Instagram @richard.l.watts