There will be lots of unusual events at the Big West Festival.
By Charlene Gatt
THE Big West Festival has been let loose at its official launch last week.
Artistic director Kate Shearer unveiled the largest program in Big West history, announcing 67 events, featuring 815 artists, over 2000 community participants, in 26 locations across the West.
“This year, Big West Festival is Uncontained, presenting the West as a place without boundaries, without limits, let loose, set free,” Ms Shearer said.
“The great thing about a festival is the way it gives a city an opportunity to be released from the everyday; the way people whose day-to-day limits may be confined in family or cultural circles can find themselves communicating to the wider community; and the way a known environment can suddenly become a place of discovery.”
Ms Shearer has been working on the festival for nearly two years, telling Star last week she was rapt to finally see it come to fruition.
“I think they’re (the performances) all top picks,” she said.
“We’ve got six free outdoor community programs that are really diverse and accessible, so they would be in my top picks, and then we’ve got 10 world premieres in our performance program, and then we’ve got some really innovative music … and I think our literature program has a really interesting range of authors from the West talking about their books and writing. There’s a lot.
“The festival celebrates the diversity of people and place and I think this festival is really diverse in terms of programming.”
The Big West Festival is a 10-day community arts festival held every two years in November.
This year’s festival will be held 15-27 November.
