The world awaits at OzAsia Festival

Audiences can expect remarkable contemporary dance, powerful theatre, delicious cuisine and brilliant musicians when

OzAsia Festival, Australia’s leading contemporary arts festival engaging with Asia, returns to Adelaide Festival Centre.

On the opening weekend more than a dozen giant lanterns, including the 40-metre long Hong Kong Dragon, will light up the riverbank precinct for Moon Lantern Trail. This free, family-friendly event also offers roving performances, live music, interactive workshops and delectable food.

For the duration of the festival, a range of cuisine from the best local vendors will be on offer from Lucky Dumpling Market at Elder Park. Enjoy a bite to eat while watching some free live entertainment on the Lucky Beats stage.

Showcasing the best of Asian and Asian Australian performance, OzAsia Festival is curated by Artistic Director Annette Shun Wah: “It’s such a joy that for this, my third OzAsia Festival program, I’ve been able to re-connect with artists in our region.

“As a result, we’ve invited some stunning productions that are exciting audiences in Asia, while continuing to support new Asian Australian works and fertile artistic collaborations across Asia and Australia.”

In an intimate performance on the Festival Theatre stage, Singapore’s Infinitely Closer combines contemporary dance with enthralling holograms. Created with a stellar team of international collaborators, this Australian premiere reflects upon freedom within the shifting realities of our modern times.

In I Swallowed A Moon Made of Iron, Canadian composer and performer Njo Kong Kie transforms the poetry of Xu Lizhi into song and delivers a lament for our digital age. Combined with a rich tapestry of video imagery, Njo’s score for solo voice and piano delivers a contemplative landscape.

Malaysia’s Five Arts Centre will return to OzAsia with their new work A Notional

Ozasia Festival Top Picks

Buried TeaBowl –OKUNI

Yumi Umiumare

SATURDAY 28

& SUNDAY 29

OCTOBER AT NEXUS ARTS

Buried TeaBowl – OKUNI is an intimate and epic solo performance, bringing together dance, text, song, film and tea ceremony.

The Bridal Lament

Rainbow Chan

WEDNESDAY 1 & THURSDAY 2

NOVEMBER AT SPACE THEATRE

Exploring an obsolete Weitou ritual, The Bridal Lament is a sumptuous audiovisual experience and song-cycle by award winning vocalist, musician and multidisciplinary artist Rainbow Chan.

Paradise

or the

Impermanence of Ice Cream

Indian Ink Theatre Company

THURSDAY 19 – SATURDAY 21

OCTOBER AT SPACE THEATRE

Take a wild ride to paradise with this powerful new play about impermanence – of life, love… and ice cream!

History, responding to a critical moment in Malaysia when new, official history textbooks were published in 2018 after citizens voted out the Barisan Nasional government who had been in power for 61 years.

Back by popular demand, The Special Comedy Comedy Special brings together a stellar bill of Asian Australian comedians at Dunstan Playhouse hosted by Sami Shah for one night only.

1988

Dung Nguyen and Peter Knight

TUESDAY 24

OCTOBER AT SPACE THEATRE

Led by Vietnameseborn virtuoso Dung Nguyen, 1988 takes the year he arrived in Australia as the starting point for an extraordinary musical and visual journey.

Tiaen Tiamen

Episode 1

Bulareyaung Dance Company

THURSDAY 19

– SATURDAY

21 OCTOBER AT DUNSTAN PLAYHOUSE ozasia.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au

Firmly rooted in tradition, this bold contemporary Indigenous Taiwanese work is not only about the survival of culture, but about launching into a future in which it continues to flourish.

On the final weekend witness thoughtprovoking conversations between poets, novelists, journalists, playwrights, performers, and creatives from around the world, when the writing and ideas program In Other Words returns to OzAsia Festival. Curated by writer and performer Jennifer Wong with guest curators Sami Shah and Durkhanai Ayubi (of Parwana Restaurant fame), the full program of exciting events for In Other Words will be announced in September.

Another treat for the final weekend is the return of OzAsia Festival’s Bubble Tea Garden at Festival Plaza; the perfect place to relax in the sunshine with friends and family, a great pit-stop between In Other Words sessions.