Artistic Director’s Note

Fluid Festival 2019

Holding space at the eye of the storm

Our current turbulent times need the creative community to band together to create space - a kind of calm possibility, beauty and articulation at the eye of a turbulent storm. A storm of ideas, economies, hopes, identities, aesthetics, histories and opinions, and, in this year's mix, art and creative ideas can bring insight, surprise, and perspective.

This is performance.

It troubles.

It stirs.

It confirms.

It makes the real more real and dreams in possibilities.

It connects us all.

Performance revitalizes the spirit, embrace possibility, and awakens the mind.

The Fluid Festival strives for the simple act of creating, connecting and holding space in the midst of complicated times. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

What if we regularly engage in what we don’t know? What if we embrace diverse practices as well as diverse individuals? What if a festival can be like a shelter or a nest? What if we acknowledge all forms of exchange and collaboration? What if art can be embraced for playing a part in offering solutions to complicated problems?

The Fluid Festival is a series of beautiful performance entanglements, a constellation of one-on-one creative connections, a generator and instigator. It’s both a homecoming and a leap into the unknown. We encourage you to be saturated in what dance and live performance can be. It’s 2 weeks of physical performance from around the block and around the world that visions and challenges possible futures. For 2019 we focus on reframing the body in space and reframing the space in the body, centring diverse perspectives, embracing queer creative forms, and focusing on powerful female creative voices. We have gathered an amazing line-up of international, national, and local artists that are considering these ideas and finding form in eloquent ways. Fruitful and beautiful creative ideas take shape at the festival and evolve into projects with real and lasting impact on artists, audiences, local communities and their contexts. The culture of our place along with the unpredictable intersection of makers and thinkers is an exciting mix.

I hope that gathering at the eye of a storm can stir, embrace, inform and inspire audiences and artists, while presenting performance and creative ideas in beautiful ways.

Be alive in the sensory world.

The body is a powerful platform.

Are you dance curious now?

See you at the festival.