Celebrating the legacy of dance of all cultures in professional and community practice with a focus on diversity and equality, BOLD festival is back following its successful debut in 2017.
BOLD II will see five days of workshops, performances, talks, forums and film screenings that will bring a range of professional and community dance artists to Canberra.
Alongside enabling dance artists to come together, it will also allow followers of dance to experience both the joy and the power of dance to entertain, provoke thought and transform.
“We’ve got a lot of female speakers and performers, women of colour … strong cultural diversity and strong First Nation program,” BOLD festival Director and Curator Liz Lea told Canberra Daily.
While Lea said the event is primarily for mature audiences, it’s suitable for attendees of all ages with a passion for dance.
“There is a focus on older performers but what I love about that is their grandchildren come and watch them perform,” she said.
“BOLD is somewhere people say ‘oh look, this is somewhere we can present our work or try out some ideas as older performers’, and this to me is really important.”
BOLD II will see a range of beautiful experiences take place throughout Canberra’s national cultural institutions including the National Library of Australia, National Gallery of Australia and National Portrait Gallery as well as more intimate sites like Gorman Arts Centre.
Lea said there was an immense amount of behind-the-scenes work involved to create such a comprehensive program.
“It’s been about two or three years of hard work,” Lea said. “The last one ran in 2017, and we’re already planning for our next one in 2021 … there’s lots and lots of planning.
“This wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t in Canberra … If you’re in London it would be very difficult to get a lot of the big institutions together to allow little pop-up performances,” she said.
BOLD II will run 13-17 March at various venues across Canberra with both ticketed and free events throughout; theboldfestival.com
For more:
