Reflect, reckon, rave and revel in Melbourne under the moonlight with Rising, returning this June. You can expect a fortnight of powerful theatre, exhilarating dance, local and international music, public performance and outdoor works of mass participation including a 10,000-strong kazoo orchestra.
From June 7-18, Rising will give Victorians and visitors a chance to discover a new side of the city. Melbourne's streets, carparks, churches, theatres, train stations and town squares will be taken over by a program that includes 185 events featuring more than 400 artists, including 35 commissions and 12 world premieres.
Across three of Melbourne's landmark music venues – the Forum, Melbourne Recital Centre and Max Watt's – Rising has dropped a genre-bending and international line-up of acts that include R'n'B bassist Thundercat, Madlib, Weyes Blood, Paul Kelly, Ethel Cain and punk pioneers the Damned.
Other highlights across the rest of the program include Shadow Spirit, where the long abandoned upper level of Flinders Street Station will be taken over by the largest commissioned exhibition of contemporary First Peoples art in Victoria's history. Opening on the first day of the festival, Shadow Spirit will invite visitors to traverse time and ancestral spirit worlds and reflect on the shadows of Australia's history.
Across the street at Federation Square, 10,000 Kazoos is set to be a city-sized pied piper of absurdity, led by artist and composer Ciaran Frame. Expect 10,000 biodegradable kazoos to be placed in the hands of 10,000 people for what is being framed as the biggest musical project Melbourne has ever seen.
You'll be able to find the nucleus of Rising at Night Trade, presented by Up, where pop-up performances and festival feasts will encircle the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral. Expect a free and fluid piazza of everything from drag karaoke and hawker-style food to surrealist puppetry.
Head inside St Paul's Cathedral to find Anthem, a towering sound and video collaboration by the artist Wu-Tssang and New Age pioneer Beverly Glenn-Copeland. Free to experience, this installation – imported straight from the Guggenheim museum – will feature Glenn-Copeland's voice reverberating within the cathedral's landmark gothic architecture.
Euphoria is a Rising exclusive by Berlin-based artist and filmmaker Julian Rosefeldt that will transform Melbourne Town Hall with a sprawling vortex of screens. The multi-channel film installation features Cate Blanchett as an anthropomorphic tiger and delves into 2,000 years of capitalism, greed and the effects of unlimited economic growth. At ground level, a life-sized choir of singers from the Brooklyn Youth Chorus will encircle viewers with 24 gigantic screens.
"Melbourne is the nation's arts and culture capital and is renowned for creative ventures that push boundaries and imaginations," said Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp. "We're thrilled to welcome Rising back for another year with a program that weaves throughout the very fabric of our city – from along the Yarra River – Birrarung, dancing across historic facades and into Town Hall itself for Euphoria. A number of free components means this experience is open and accessible to everyone."
So that Rising is a festival that remains accessible to as many people as possible, there will be a sweeping program of free or low-cost events, including a bioluminescent light show called Spark and The Rink at Rising, an ice-skating experience on the banks of Birrarung Marr.
General tickets are now on on sale, and you can purchase them and check out the full program at the website.
Rising is of course only one of the ways Melbourne shines brightly in winter. On the culture front don’t forget blockbuster exhibitions Pierre Bonnard at the NGV International, Goddess at ACMI and Melbourne Now at NGV Australia. For sports fans the city comes alive for the AFL season and the Matildas v France on July 14 at Marvel Stadium. And the world-class food and drink scene thrills with red-hot restaurants such as Serai, Aru and Daughter in Law as well as late-night bars like Bar Margaux, Her, the Lui Bar and Trinket.
