Welcome to Harvest Arts - an all-encompassing, full-body, super-sensory arts explosion across the entire festival, on multiple stages and in every available nook and cranny besides!
Enter BOOTLEG ALLEY, our upside-down landscape of guilty pleasures and lost innocence, home to alt-performance palace Le Boudoir.
Setting Le Boudoir alight this year are Australia's very own circus-vaudeville mash-up heroes Briefs, freshly laundered from steaming hot performances in London, Edinburgh and Dublin; the Australian premieres of both London neo-cabaret electropop sensations Bourgeois & Maurice and multi-award winning Coney Island burlesque superstars Trixie Little & Evil Hate Monkey; and return of festival-favourites The League of Sideshow Superstars, for more gobsmacking world-first stunts and eye-popping sideshow routines.
Vaudevillage returns to open Le Boudoir in all cities, in a funky Frankenstein variety mash-up curated by The Campfire Collective. With performances from Nick Coyle, Smart Casual, Shane Matheson (Sydney); Randy the Puppet, One Trick Pony, Ryan Coffey, Anne Edmonds (Melbourne); Mel Buttle, Nerida Waters and Skills in Time (Brisbane), plus more to be announced.
Le Boudoir also brings you two evenings of devlish entertainment from Mikelangelo (Melbourne) with special guests The Tin Star on Saturday night and The Woohoo Revue on Sunday. Sydney will see the tent-shakin' return of Juke Baritone and The Swamp Dogs while ye olde Brisbane town will be privy to a marauding musical concoction when Rapskallion hijack the ship.
Deep in the underbelly of Bootleg Alley lie the anarchic, demented immersive playgrounds - The Snuff Box (Sydney) and Happyland (Melbourne). Part eye-popping art installation, part shonky performance space, part frenzied futuristic fairground, these very special secret spaces are hosted by The Glitter Militia (Sydney) and Sideshow and United Carnival Attractions (Melbourne). Seek them out…if you dare!
Meanwhile, in blissful alternative area THE SECRET GARDEN, kick back to groovy tunes and soothing sounds on The Garden Stage; enjoy spoken word institutions such as Erotic Fan Fiction, Aindrias de Staic, The Mighty Nineties Power Hour and our spanking new Comedy Picnic (featuring Lessons with Luis, Felicity Ward, Gen Fricker, Rhys Nickolson and more) on The Campfire Stage (Melbourne/ Sydney only); and indulge in gourmet food, boutique bars and holistic markets, in this world of wonders and delights.
Dotted AROUND THE FESTIVAL, you will find the inimitable 19th Century Parisian tram cafe-cum-performance space La Toosh with a full rooftop programme (Melbourne / Sydney only), while in Brisbane we are pleased to announce the brand new Cherrypicker Stage, featuring some of the best aerial and circus talent in Queensland.
From the playful to the ethereal, the thought provoking to the downright jaw-dropping - there is an abundance of visual, live art, virtual and performance Installation pleasures and treasures from some of Australia's most exciting artists as you make your way through the Harvest universe, including projects from Joel Zika, Aviva Reed, aMoment (Melbourne), Tortuga Studios, Erth, Big One Little One (Sydney) and Indie Chamber Ensemble, Lovelorn Living Party and Rebekah Bibby (Brisbane).
A highlight of the visual arts programme is a large-scale commission for Melbourne and Sydney from artist Kirsty Hulm, following the success of last year's I Really Need You Tonight installation in Melbourne, while unadulterated sideshow fun is provided by The Oddhouse (Sydney), Wacko and Blotto (Brsbane), The Red Brigade (Melbourne) and many more.
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