New Annual festival strives to raise the bar for culture and arts

It's not just about entertainment. It's about increasing our knowledge, pushing our own perceptions. And feeding the hunger in our artistic community to improve their practice.

"This year we've curated our most ambitious program yet, focusing on finding diverse voices and creating opportunities for community involvement," New Annual senior curator and producer Adrian Burnett says.

"Our aim is to deliver a festival that is a living, breathing ecosystem of creativity that reflects the dynamic spirit of Newcastle."

Newcastle lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes was even more direct in her opening statement at the festival launch on Thursday.

"Council had a very important role to play in ensuring local artists had the opportunity to be on stage with national and international artists, all within the same event," she said.

Nelmes says the city has invested $3 million in the festival since launching in 2021. Of course one of the goals is to increase visitation to the city, but it's also succeeded in providing pay cheques for local artists across a wide spectrum.

Of course, partners like the University of Newcastle, Create NSW, Transport for NSW and Multicultural NSW help pay the bills.

As Burnett says, without those other funding organisations "a festival of this scale and ambition would not be possible".

Burnett says the vision to build the city's own artistic capacity was stronger than ever this year.

"A lot of projects have community engagement aspects embedded into them," Burnett says.

"Even Wayfinder [Dancenorth's major event on the opening night] has engagement workshops.

"We shifted the model, doing student engagement, like capacity-building with students at the uni based on First Nations music making.

"The collaboration with gallery [Newcastle Art Gallery] has a similar approach.

"A whole series of wraparound projects will be announced in August.

"That thread, engaging with the community beyond the stage, beyond the big shiny presentation was a driver for me this year."

With more than 20 headline events, the scope of New Annual covers a wide spectrum of cultural interests.

The festival opens on Friday, September 27, with a First Night street party on King Street in front of City Hall. The street will be closed, the party is free, and entertainment will run from 5pm to 9pm, with food trucks and bar drinks available.

The street party entertainment is led by Mitch Tambo, an Indigenous entertainer who mixes his heritage with contemporary beats.

The spectacular vision of the Tower Divas, including Gambirra Illume, will also also be on stage. Tambo is also leading workshops with university students.

The 10-Minute Dance Parties in Wheeler Place on the opening weekend (September 27-29) are pure fun aimed at youngsters.

They are free, but participants need to register through the New Annual website. Get your friends together for an intense DJ-driven experience a shipping container.

Also on opening night, September 27, Dancenorth presents a new contemporary work, Wayfinder, at the Civic Theatre.

The event features 100 light and sound emitting 'pearls' that are distributed amongst the audience at the beginning of the show. These pearls act as a cipher for a human voice, collectively forming a rising aural body of sound creating a sense of intimacy and connection to the performance far beyond traditional passive engagement. (Dancenorth is also conducting local workshops.)

"Wayfinder is a cracking good show," Burnett says.

"It will hit the mark with the audience.

"This show is really joyous. A beautiful work, for all ages, very accessible. And it has a visual element beyond dancing."

Almost like the icing on top, it was announced this week that Middle Kids will be play a concert at the Civic Theatre on Saturday, September 28. This red-hot Australian pop trio is touring the US at the moment with their new album, Faith Crisis Pt 1.

Producer and actor Jeremy Goldstein is bringing his unique live performance and digital theatre event Truth to Power Café to Newcastle City Hall on October 4. The one-hour show will harness local stories to deliver a profound reflection on the dynamics of power.

The immersive installation Belongings at the Watt Space Gallery will share stories of displacement, resilience and hope from six refugees who took asylum in the greater Newcastle region.

The Global Gathering at Museum Park on Saturday, October 5, returns this year. Performers will be announced in August, with additional festival programming. The free, all-day event in Museum Park celebrates multiculturalism through food, dance and song.

Also on October 5, Concertante: Omega Ensemble features the Australian classical super-group performing, among other works, Frederic Chopin's first Piano Concerto, and a new work by Australian composer Harry Sdraulig.

Community engagement will also be at the heart of a temporary pavilion known as Ngumpi Kinyingarra Oyster House, which will be purpose-built in Honeysuckle's Harbour Square.

The project is led by Indigenous artist Megan Cope, who has spent a decade exploring the history and significance of oysters through her art.

She has been invited to Newcastle by the Newcastle Art Gallery.

"Oysters were once a food that transcended class. A superfood that everyone had access to...," she says.

"The intertidal zone was a place where poor and working class people had access to feed themselves regardless."

The oyster house will include music and workshops, and the public is invited to "scrub club", where they will clean oyster shells with brushes alongside Cope, with those shells eventually being used in an installation she will create in the Newcastle area.

The 10-day participatory project will be celebrating local oysters, collaboration and environmental stewardship.

More than half the programming this year features Newcastle artists and practitioners.

Local family favourite Curious Legends will draw audiences down to the sand at Newcastle beach for their immersive oceanic experience Whale Song, which fuses large-scale puppetry, community art and singing.

Harold Lobb Concert Hall at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music provides the acoustically-rich setting for a number of performances, including Rising from the Ashes: An Orchestral Suite and Matricide created by local Indigenous composer Jacob Cummins and performed by the Newcastle Youth Orchestra.

The Youth Orchestra was one of four local creative organisations included on the New Annual bill thanks to City of Newcastle's "Made New" expressions of interest process, with a total of $94,500 offered under the program as part of a five-year plan to support the region's arts industry.

Other Made New program highlights include Wonder City, a participatory wayfinding art adventure through the city brought to life by Tantrum Youth Arts and The Cord, a provocative new contemporary dance work by First Nations choreographer Jasmin Sheppard, commissioned by Newcastle-based dance company Catapult Choreographic Hub.

Two original plays, both boosted by funding from the city's UpStage project, will also debut at the festival.

Romeo & Juliet: A Reimaging by HER Productions will show at the Civic Playhouse September 25-28 and Karma Kafe, produced by Carl Caulfield's Stray Dogs Theatre Co, will show at the Civic Playhouse October 3-5.

Inter Human x Intra Digital offers an immersive visual art experience delivered by Art Thinking, a global creative think tank with staff in Newcastle.

It will be based at 164 Hunter Street (the former Lowes store in the Hunter Street Mall). Buckle up for a cutting-edge technological adventure.

Morphology will see Built In-Kind and Everett Creative collaborate with members of the public through a series of workshops to create a single sculptural piece, which will be displayed in Wheeler Place, adjacent to the Civic Theatre.

Perhaps the most public-facing event during New Annual will be the Big Picture Festival, with six walls to be painted with the large, colourful and culturally-significant murals associated with Big Picture.

The event has become a true collaboration with nationally-known artists working with emerging and established Newcastle artists across various sites.

New Annual curator Adrian Burnett gets the last word.

He describes the festival as: "an invitation to see the city anew. To forge unexpected connections and to participate in the ongoing creation of Newcastle's cultural identity."

"Every element of the festival program is designed to spark dialogue, inspire creativity and strengthen community bonds," Burnett says.