ACCESS
AND INCLU DISABILITY ACCESS Sydney Festival strives to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to work on, volunteer for, perform in or simply enjoy incredible live performance every summer. In 2022 the Festival program featured featured captioned and Auslan interpreted performances, tactile tours, relaxed showings and performances with audio descriptions, including an introduction to The Nightline recorded for audience members with visual impairment. Artists with disability performed in the dynamic acrobatic display of The Construct and would have featured in the awardwinning outdoor theatre
GROWING DIGITAL FOOTPRINT
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2022 saw marked growth in Sydney Festival’s contribution to the creative digital space, with a variety of online content available anywhere, anytime, at no cost. Made exclusively for the Festival’s AT HOME program, gripping cinematic opera The Human Voice traced the psychological disintegration of a woman alone. Live streams brought the Future Classic x Sydney Festival warm-up party at Speakers Corner and THAW, a marathon 8-hour physical theatre and art installation piece, to audiences in real
time. Meanwhile, the digital/ live theatre hybrid works Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World and Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran showed the possibilities of digital theatre formats. In partnership with Australian Theatre Live, Sydney Festival recorded performances of Erth’s Prehistoric Picnic, 宿 (stay), The Pulse and Italian Baroque with Circa, with the collection due to tour over 33 regional cinemas and venues across Australia.
work, small metal objects, had it not been cancelled due to COVID-19. The Festival Preview Guide was produced in a wide variety of formats including braille, audio CD and MP3. The Festival is in the process of developing an updated Disability Inclusion Action Plan. Advice from people with lived experience of disability, via the Access and Inclusion Advisory Panel, enables the Festival to reduce barriers to access and bring a wider variety of art to a wider variety of audiences. This year the Festival farewelled outgoing Chair on this panel Riana Head-Toussaint, welcoming Morwenna Collett in her stead.
