Brisbane Festival and the Road Less Travelled
( This article was first published in The Courier-Mail on 24 August 2017 ) I HAVE just returned from the world’s largest arts festival. I travelled down many paths searching for work to include in next year’s Brisbane Festival. The Edinburgh Fringe offers 3600 different productions from every corner of the globe. Its open access philosophy – anyone can be part of it, if you’re prepared to lose money – means that much of the work is pretty rough. But taken as a whole the event provides a fascinating snapshot of the things that are occupying the world’s artists. Right now. There are many shows about Trump, democracy, Brexit and migration. There is an Arab Arts Focus and the transgender experience is the subject of a number of very good shows. The arts can explore complex things in ways that surprise us. We all live in echo chambers of some sort, and that’s not always good. The arts extend our contact with the world beyond the boundaries of our lot. This is part of a greater...