Coming this June, RISING presents over 180 events from over 400 artists in their 2023 program – centred around Melbourne’s CBD.
A festival that you do in the city that does it best—art, culture, food and music under moonlight: RISING festival has unveiled its expansive 2023 program of 185 events featuring more than 400 artists including 35 commissions and 12 world premieres, set to ignite the heart of Melbourne from 7—18 June.
Over 12 nights of powerful theatre, exhilarating dance, music that traverses the globe, large-scale installation, public performance, free and low-cost experiences, and outdoor works of mass participation, RISING will invite audiences to join a 10,000 strong kazoo orchestra, to slice up the ice, and to reflect, reckon, rave and revel in Melbourne’s night-time buzz.
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Spilling out across the city’s streets, carparks, churches, theaters, train stations, town squares, and on the banks of the Birrarung, RISING returns this winter to take the city as its stage, bringing the best premiere art and performance from around the world and across Australia.
“RISING is a mass celebration of Melbourne’s unique culture in the heart of the city.” said RISING co-artistic directors Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek. “The 2023 program is a rallying call to get involved, experience the new and be a part of a festival that couldn’t happen anywhere else.”
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The St Paul’s Cathedral carpark will be home to RISING’s festival hub, complete with a food market and an evolving roster of performances ranging from DJs to epic puppets and sculptures.
Free and family activities are a strong feature of the festival. At Fed Square, thousands of biodegradable light sparks mimicking fireflies will light up the night sky.
The top floor of Flinders Street Station will be transformed into a giant art gallery for Shadow Spirit – Victoria’s largest ever exhibition of newly commissioned First Peoples art. Curated by leading Yorta Yorta writer and curator Kimberley Moulton and presented with Metro Trains Melbourne, this landmark exhibition of national significance will see thirty of the most exciting First Peoples artists and collectives from across Australia invite visitors to traverse time and Ancestral spirit worlds, reflect on the shadows of Australia’s history and be immersed in deep systems of knowledge.
Across the street from Shadow Spirit at Federation Square 10,000 Kazoos is exactly what its title suggests—a city-sized pied piper of absurdity, open to anyone and led by artist and composer Ciaran Frame who wants to put 10,000 biodegradable kazoos in the hands of 10,000 people for the biggest musical project Melbourne has ever seen. An all-encompassing frenzy of kazoo-thiasm, it promises to be a big, unifying, howling moment of mass participation.
Melbourne Town Hall will also get the RISING treatment, becoming a giant immersive cinema for Euphoria. The monumental multi-channel film installation featuring Cate Blanchett as an anthropomorphic tiger explores 2000 years of capitalism, greed and the effects of unlimited economic growth. At ground level life-sized choir of singers from Brooklyn Youth Chorus encircle viewers across 24 gigantic screens while above, five duelling jazz drummers — including the legendary Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Erskine (Weather Report), and Grammy Award-winning drummer and composer Antonio Sánchez (Birdman 2014) — will be projected in the round. All this in time with the five theatrical vignette that loop featuring acclaimed actors like Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) and Virginia Newcomb delivering musings from some of history’s most influential economists, writers and thinkers from Snoop Dogg, Warren Buffett and Ayn Rand to Angela Davis and Mark Fisher.
A huge celebration of Victoria’s creative community, more than 180 of the participating artists are Victorian. They will share the stage with artists from the Netherlands, Japan, USA, South and West Africa and India.
Musician and storyteller Kutcha Edwards will host a line-up of First Peoples music talent in Waripa, while Warrnambool artist Matthew Clarke’s mob of three-metre-tall wallabies will be displayed on the banks of the Birrarung before being donated to schools across the state once the festival comes to a close.
Also on the music front, Thundercat will be bringing his six-stringed bass and wide-eyed vibe to The Forum for RISING, as will US orchestral pop master Weyes Blood.
For families, ice skating is back. After reviving Melbourne’s beloved winter tradition last year, RISING creates a new ice-skating experience of celestial proportions, The Rink at RISING, this year bringing a new, super-sized rink to the banks of Birrarung Marr. Flanked by fairy-lit elms—audiences can follow the river trail and the scent of buttery popcorn, hot chocolate and mulled wine—towards the glow of the big top, then lace up and glide like a galactic gazelles under a solar system of glowing spheres. Opening on the first day of winter, 1 June, The Rink at RISING will run for an extended five week season through the school holidays until 8 July.
In addition to the participating artists, RISING will provide job opportunities for more than 2,000 Victorian event workers including backstage crews and tech specialists, hospitality, security, ticketing staff and more.
RISING was established by the Andrews Labor Government to create a drawcard major event for Melbourne in the winter season. Last year close to 315,000 people attended the festival. RISING 2023 will run from 7-18 June.
General sale tickets for RISING go on sale March 17. There’s plenty else on, too. Details on musical performances, curations, film screenings and more can be found at RISING’s official website.
