Sydney Festival’s stellar international program 2010-2012 included theatre works of scale and lustre such as the Berlin Schaubühne Hamlet, Cheek By Jowl’s Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Kneehigh Theatre’s Red Shoes, Peter Sellars’ production of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex & Symphony of Psalms, composers AR Rahman and Phillip Glass, choreographers Crystal Pite, Wayne McGregor and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and many Australian Premieres including The Manganiyar Seduction and Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane. Sydney Festival commissioned multiple new works and in 2010 won 5 Helpmann Awards from 9 nominations including Best New Australian Work for Smoke & Mirrors in partnership with Spiegeltent International).
The 2010-2012 festivals reflected a deep, authentic relationship with the city I grew up in; to create space in Sydney’s glamourous, party-city celebration for alternative narratives. Initiatives included a new festival hub in Sydney’s Inner-West; an expansion of the Festival’s Western Sydney program and, in partnership with Carriageworks, the Festival’s first-ever curated celebration of Sydney’s contemporary Indigenous cultures overseen by an Advisory Group led by Larissa Behrendt, Lily Shearer and other distinguished leaders. Black Capital was a collection of performances, symposia and exhibitions located in the heart of Redfern, featuring the decorated caravans of Brook Andrews Travelling Colony and the World Premiere of I Am Eora, directed by Wesley Enoch - the stories of Pemulwuy, Bennelong and Barangaroo exploring Sydney's racial history; a symposium on Black Theatre, and a free Family and Culture Day.
"Lindy Hume’s first Sydney Festival has been a Festival in which interesting new versions of great works have been allowed to talk to each other...This kind of playfulness is a feature of Hume’s Festival, which brings together a good number of absorbing shows and lets them interact."
The Australian, February 2010
"Hume has proven herself adroit at taking the Festival somewhere new without losing the best of where it’s already been."
AFR, January 2010
"With the opening weekend of the 2010 Festival, Hume has succeeded spectacularly...this was a party with art at its centre."
The Australian, January 2010
"Lindy reminded us that while celebrity and sensation titillate this city, it’s ideas that enrich it. She announced herself boldly in 2010 with The Manganiyar Seduction, the Schaubühne Hamlet and Peter Sellars’ production of Oedipus Rex & Symphony of Psalms, setting the stage for three years of festivals born of deep thinking and intellectual argument (as well as the pure joy of many of the events). Her festivals have a hinterland – an infrastructure that holds the events together, making them so much more than the sum of their parts. With this year’s Black Capital stream of events, she recognises without a skerrick of cringing second-guessing that our national story is inextricably bound with this land’s Indigenous heritage."
Sydney Writers Festival Newsletter, January 2012 Chip Rolley, Artistic Director
"Lindy Hume’s first Sydney Festival has been a Festival in which interesting new versions of great works have been allowed to talk to each other...This kind of playfulness is a feature of Hume’s Festival, which brings together a good number of absorbing shows and lets them interact."
The Australian, February 2010
"Hume has proven herself adroit at taking the Festival somewhere new without losing the best of where it’s already been."
AFR, January 2010
"With the opening weekend of the 2010 Festival, Hume has succeeded spectacularly...this was a party with art at its centre."
The Australian, January 2010
"Lindy reminded us that while celebrity and sensation titillate this city, it’s ideas that enrich it. She announced herself boldly in 2010 with The Manganiyar Seduction, the Schaubühne Hamlet and Peter Sellars’ production of Oedipus Rex & Symphony of Psalms, setting the stage for three years of festivals born of deep thinking and intellectual argument (as well as the pure joy of many of the events). Her festivals have a hinterland – an infrastructure that holds the events together, making them so much more than the sum of their parts. With this year’s Black Capital stream of events, she recognises without a skerrick of cringing second-guessing that our national story is inextricably bound with this land’s Indigenous heritage."
Sydney Writers Festival Newsletter, January 2012 Chip Rolley, Artistic Director
"Lindy Hume’s first Sydney Festival has been a Festival in which interesting new versions of great works have been allowed to talk to each other...This kind of playfulness is a feature of Hume’s Festival, which brings together a good number of absorbing shows and lets them interact."
The Australian, February 2010
"Hume has proven herself adroit at taking the Festival somewhere new without losing the best of where it’s already been."
AFR, January 2010
"With the opening weekend of the 2010 Festival, Hume has succeeded spectacularly...this was a party with art at its centre."
The Australian, January 2010
"Lindy reminded us that while celebrity and sensation titillate this city, it’s ideas that enrich it. She announced herself boldly in 2010 with The Manganiyar Seduction, the Schaubühne Hamlet and Peter Sellars’ production of Oedipus Rex & Symphony of Psalms, setting the stage for three years of festivals born of deep thinking and intellectual argument (as well as the pure joy of many of the events). Her festivals have a hinterland – an infrastructure that holds the events together, making them so much more than the sum of their parts. With this year’s Black Capital stream of events, she recognises without a skerrick of cringing second-guessing that our national story is inextricably bound with this land’s Indigenous heritage."
Sydney Writers Festival Newsletter, January 2012 Chip Rolley, Artistic Director
Culture, music, storytelling, dance and image-making have been practiced on Country for millennia by Australia's First People. I acknowledge and pay respect to the original custodians of Culture and Country where I live in Tathra, the Djiringanj people of the Yuin Nation on the Far South Coast of New South Wales, and the palawa/pakana, First People of lutruwita Tasmania.
© 2023 Lindy Hume
© 2022 Lindy Hume
© 2022 Lindy Hume