Perth Festival, Australia's oldest international arts festival, has announced its first program since 1953 that does not include an international act.
Forced to plan a program for February 2021 behind WA's hard border, and amid the uncertainly of coronavirus restrictions, artistic director Iain Grandage made an early decision to focus entirely on local talent.
"Being a Perthite, these circumstances have made it not as difficult as it would have been if I had been a European who had come into this position," he told ABC Radio Perth Breakfast.
"This is a moment to celebrate artists of international quality who happen to live here."
With 10 theatre commissions, 30 visual art commissions, and four music commissions, the festival will instead launch productions that Mr Grandage is confident will go on to tour internationally.
"This is a series of international-quality works that are going to be appearing for the first time in front of our audiences, and then they are going to travel to Sydney, Melbourne, or Edinburgh," he said.
Socially distant public events
Large-scale free public events like Highway to Hell and the Giants have been replaced by an event in the Perth Cultural Centre called City of Lights, which will project a light and music show on to the walls of the art gallery, museum, and state library.
Running hourly over every night of the festival, it will allow the public to attend without overcrowding.
"For public health reasons we can't have 100,000 people cheek by jowl," he said.
The City of Lights will reflect the festival's overall theme, Bilya — meaning water in the Noongar language — in its collaboration with a number of Noongar artists.
"Everyone knows there is freshwater underneath Northbridge and there will be this sense of the river coming up and washing away all of those histories," he said.
The film festival, and literature and ideas festival, will run as they have in past years, but the annual festival club live music program will not be announced until January 21.
Capacity restrictions also mean there will be far fewer tickets to performances available when festival tickets go on sale to the public on November 25.
Tim Minchin comes home
Perth-born and raised musician Tim Minchin will also appear live at the festival, travelling from Sydney for a concert in Kings Park that will be the world premiere of his new album Apart Together.
"I'm hoping by then I won't have to do the two weeks [quarantine], but I am expecting to," Minchin said.
"I obviously have plenty of reasons to need to get back to Perth anyway so I will combine it with visits to family."
For Mr Grandage, the limitations imposed by the pandemic have been an exciting opportunity to offer work to local performers.
"It's a joy to have this love song to Perth," he said.
