Wendy Martin Returns Home For 2017 Perth International Arts Festival

By her own admission, this time last year, Wendy Martin - the current director of the Perth International Arts Festival - was "terrified". Taking the reins of Australia's longest running State festival from its previous helmsman, British director Jonathan Holloway, the city was still buzzing about the wildly successful crowning spectacle of his 2015 swansong program. In February of that year, Royal de Luxe's The Giants saw a pair of colossal marionettes take to the streets of Perth, playing out a touching, whimsical story, specially tailored for the city to celebrate its rich cultural heritage. The grand display - the biggest ever arts event in WA — was seen by an estimated 1.4 million people.

Having to follow this record-breaking blockbuster was only partly responsible for Martin's anxiety levels. While she could claim impressive credentials — she was the Head of Theatre and Dance at the Sydney Opera House before relocating to London to curate the dance offering at the prestigious Southbank Centre - Martin was a newcomer to Perth. An unknown quantity in unfamiliar territory, she was now charged with rolling out a Festival that not only imported the world's finest artists, but also reflected the heart and soul of a state she was still familiarising herself with. "I was nervous, I'll admit that. I didn't know the audience. I didn't quite have a handle on Perth," Martin confesses. "I knew what I wanted to achieve, I knew the level of quality that would be represented, but I didn't know how people would respond to the ideas that were driving my first PIAF."

Far from shying away from this challenge, Martin opted for a bold gamble: a whopping opening spectacular that would act as both a declaration of her artistic savvy and set the tone for remaining three years of her stewardship. Major outdoor events are not uncommon occurrences at PIAF or indeed any of the major state arts festivals, but what stood Martin's event apart from previous large-scale undertakings was the narrative at its heart. Instead of an international production, this would be an ode to Western Australia, chronicling its history, including the impact of white settlement on the Indigenous Noongar people. The state's most talented artists, including musical comedian Tim Minchin, author Kim Scott and some of WA's best bands including The Drones, The Triffids and the John Butler Trio would come together on a vast stage in Langley Park.

Staging a production that celebrated and championed all things WA was a no-brainer for Martin. "People from Western Australia passionately love the place and there's such a wealth of talent here, both currently and historically. Laying it out in the way this event did and placing the Noongar story and the Indigenous experience alongside artists like Tim Minchin felt like it would offer a really astonishing big picture. Sometimes it takes an outsider to come in and see what's always been there, but seen with fresh eyes."

For Martin, this event - titled Home - was a moment of extraordinary vindication. "When you invite artists to create a work and they reflect something that is so much bigger and deeper than you could have imagined, that's an extraordinary feeling," Martin shares. "[Sitting] there among 50,000 people, you could hear a pin drop. When you go to outdoor events there's usually people talking and moving around: they're generally quite unfocused occasions. It never crossed my mind that there would be this rapt silence for the full two hours of the show."

The reception for Home was extraordinary, Martin says. "I was completely overwhelmed by the response. I happened to catch a show on a local talkback radio station the following day and people were ringing in just to say how moved and thrilled they were by it, and how proud it had made them feel to be from WA. One of the things I will never forget was Kim Scott, reading from the end of his book Benang. There were people weeping, tears rolling down their faces, because this story belonged to them and they felt that very profoundly."

The unequivocal success of Home has had a major influence on Martin's preparations for 2017's festival. She has recruited the same creative team, led by director Nigel Jamieson, to deliver a similar outdoor event building on the "brave politics" revealed in 2016's production. "I had initially thought, given that Home explored some quite heavy ideas, that in 2017 we should do something fun and frivolous. But when I was watching Home I knew that, actually, we needed to go deeper into the West[ern] Australian story," Martin explains. Boorna Waanginy: The Trees Speak will play across three nights of 2017's PIAF, transforming Kings Park into a "cathedral of light, sound and imagery." It will celebrate the biodiversity and natural beauty of Western Australia from an Indigenous perspective while raising important questions about man's impact on the environment.

The 2017 Perth International Arts Festival runs 10 Feb — 5 Mar.