New Stories For Old

A biennial festival for emerging artists, the 2014 Next Wave runs over four weeks of April and May across Melbourne showcasing the work of 239 artists who have collaborated to create over 40 projects in forms as diverse as performance, dance, sound and visual art. All made especially for the festival over the last two years, the collection represents the results of a far-reaching search by Artistic Director Emily Sexton, who joined the 2012 festival having previously headed the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

“Even prior to the 2012 festival, we knew we were proud of what we were about to present, but we did also look at each other honestly and go: 'Who's not here? And who could be more involved in what we're doing?'”

Sexton and co. aren't just searching for big profile, but big promise. “I think probably the most significant thing that we are doing in 2014 is our Blak Wave keynote initiative,” says Sexton, “and really what we've done is place our Indigenous program right at the centre of the festival.” The initiative takes form in three different mediums: there's a publication, there are seven new arts projects, and there's also a series of talks to facilitate discussion around the initiative. The other question asked was presented to the assembled artists: “When we asked 'What does the future look like?', a lot of the time they were turning to people older than them, and there's a bunch of examples of that in the programming. Equally, in our Blak Wave publication, so much of that is about intergenerational dialogue.”

Ghenoa Gela, a Koedal (Crocodile) and Waumer (Frigate Bird) woman Torres Strait Islander originally from Rockhampton, now based in New South Wales, has been programmed as part of Blak Wave and perfectly represents this theme. A performance artist and dancer, Gela will present Winds Of Woerr, bringing to life the ancestral tale of the four winds of the Torres Strait – Kuki, Sager, Naigai and Ziai – which marked for her people the passage of time and the coming and going of the seasons. “We're very much in development when it comes to Indigenous representation. We still have a long ways to go, but as a first step it looks pretty cool.” Sexton and her team also re-shaped the presentation of the festival. “Stories are one of the most natural ways that humans relate to each other, and one of the most deeply held ways that we do that, so I like to the think of the festival as its own artistic practice, and it made sense to apply the same storytelling ideas to the festival itself.”