ANTIDOTE is a radical festival taking over the iconic Sydney Opera House for the first weekend in September providing a necessary bridge between ideas, art and action. Its schedule boasts both far-flung and local activist personalities whose stories will help inspire and inform Australians who are fed up with the advent of advertorials and ‘fake news’.
Image courtesy ANTIDOTE
The festival is equally committed to satisfying a craving for experimental and ambitious art. Performance artist Noëmi Lakmaier will attempt to lift her bound and immobilised body, dangling with the support of 20,000 balloons in ‘Cherophobia’. The artist uses her practice to push the boundaries of performance, whilst offering an equally empowering message of overcoming physical disability.
Noëmi Lakmaier performing Cherophobia. Courtesy ANTIDOTE
‘The Money’, a theatre experience by UK interactive theatre group Kaleider, ponders on the responsibility of the wealthy and power associated with that status. Here, the audience are invited, either as spectators or players, to participate in finding a use for a pool of funds under extreme time conditions – and one that can unanimously agreed upon! Other performances such as Anne Collod’s Blank Placard Dance, who will be revisiting a seminal performance by Anna Halprin, promise to make the event an enchanting multi-arts experience. As program curator Danielle Harvey confirms “In a world rife with anger and anxiety, ANTIDOTE is all about hope – a platform for extraordinary people to share their stories, for activists to tell us what they have learned and for artists to make us think”.
Anne Collod’s Blank Placard Dance. Courtesy Verve Veronese
Through this fierce and courageous attitude, ANTIDOTE are aiming for a politically ‘woke’ festival that dares to speak its mind. In addition to artists and performers the impressive list of speakers will cover topics ranging from gender adversity, sexuality, immigrant politics and religion – offering a conversation and voice to the people of society who are made quiet in mainstream media.
